You can tell when it happens to you — you’ll get three red lights (coined the “three red lights of death”) in the place of green ones, blinking furiously like your Xbox is crying for help.
You’re pretty much out of luck at this point, and there really isn’t much you can do to save your precious.
You might be saying to yourself “sucks to be him, cause that won’t happen to me.” Microsoft tends to agree. Although 3-5% of the initial units will admittedly fail, 3% of 30 million isn’t a really big deal. But if you took a percentage of my friends that have had Xbox failure, it’s more like 55%. Some people were even discouraged from buying the console as a result. Retailers like EBgames and Best Buy had to double their in-house warranty to cover the endemic meltdown.
When Microsoft designed these machines it didn’t supply the GPU enough air intake to keep it cool, resulting in the processors overheating and dislodging from the motherboard. Pretty scary isn’t it?
So what can Microsoft do to try to win their customers’ loyalty back? Apologize and extend the warranty from one year to three. “Three years for three red lights” they call it. Great marketing, huh?
I’m glad they extended the warranty because I had mine for only nine months and it already needs to be replaced.
There are a few things you can try to do before taking that long road down to Xbox support.
• Check your wires. Make sure they are all plugged in. Check the back of the TV and the back of the console. You never know what could have been knocked loose or broken off.
• Unplug the console from the wall. Unplug the power supply for a few minutes to give it a chance to cool down. Extended play overheats the machine.
And, my personal favorite ...
• The towel trick. Three easy steps to fix your Xbox.
1. Wrap two towels around your console tightly covering the vents.
2. Turn the console on and leave it for 20 minutes. It’ll be hot, but that’s OK.
3. Turn off your Xbox for 15 minutes and then it’s fixed! (Unfortunately, its only a temporary fix.)
So when your Xbox breaks down (and it might), don’t call me, call someone who cares — Microsoft.
Jonathan Masker is a wireless solution expert and a self-proclaimed gadget guru. Reach him at jonathan.masker@gmail.com.