Cool Your Xbox 360 With These Easy Tips

by Marc Sandford

One of the superior gaming systems that has entered the market in recent years is certainly the Xbox 360. However it seems that there’s always going to be a rain cloud around somewhere with each ray of sunshine. With the Xbox that rain cloud is the “red ring of death”.

This three quarter ring of light around the start button indicates a malfunction of one of motherboard components. A number of design and manufacturing mistakes are the culprit behind this problem. The biggest design flaw lies in a cooling system that frequently allows the internal components to get excessively hot.

With frequent overheating, the various design bugs are induced to cause the failure known as the red ring of death. Keeping the console cool is therefore the key to avoiding the red ring of death. How to do this will be discussed in this article.

Keeping the cooling vents free and unobstructed is very important. This will come across as obvious to many people but there are several ways in which these vents can be unintentionally blocked. This commonly occurs when the Xbox is put on very compliant soft surfaces such as beds, pillows, shaggy rugs, and couches.

Another way to cause overheating problems is to place the Xbox in closed off locations with no natural ventilation. Some of these areas might include cabinets, bookcases, racks, or being buried among a lot of clutter. This oversight is very common since we tend to do this in an effort to conserve space.

The simple precaution of setting the Xbox over on its side will grant more of its surface to be cooled. Also, a small fan can be used to blow cooling air on its surface.

The Xbox should be kept away from any sources of heat. Typical sources around the home include heaters, radiators, furnaces and stoves. Keep the air conditioner on in very warm and humid weather. Also try not to put your Xbox in direct sunlight.

Don’t forget to keep the power brick as cool as possible. Excess heat is flushed out of the power brick by an internal fan. All too often, people will place the power brick in shut off chambers with no air circulation. This is definitely something to guard against. Place it off the floor away from soft carpeting which blocks natural air circulation.

This advice is preventative and is ideal used when your Xbox is brand new. If your Xbox is not new and you have had your screen freeze up, then your Xbox has already seen too much heat which automatically shuts down internal chips. This is a clear symptom of overheating and that more attention to the cooling issue is required. This screen freeze up is the precursor to the red ring of death.

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