Has your Xbox suffered the Red Ring of Death? You are not alone! Thousands of people who purchased the Xbox 360 have been let down by its unreliable operation. First it starts off with locking up every now and then to not being able to be turned on at all. This is mostly caused by the heating and cooling of the Xbox over a period of time. When the Xbox overheats every component inside the Xbox gets overheated, this includes the fragile but crucial solder joints on the board. A solder joint is a small area of melted metal that connects the main chip to the Xbox board. All communication between different components of the Xbox at some time will pass through a solder joint. If one of these joints is weak from being overheated multiple times electrical current will not pass through the connection therefore causing different components inside the Xbox to stop talking to each other. When this happens you will get errors, or worst the Red Ring of Death.
If you are one of the thousands of people that have a broken Xbox then you need to decide how you are going to handle the situation. Most people send their Xbox back to Microsoft for repair because it is the easiest route to take. Well this may be the case but it is not the cheapest. If you Xbox is out of warranty then you are going to have to pay for them to fix it. This is going to cost you around 0.00 minimum. When you get all the information you need to send it out you will notice that they ask you to remove your hard drive. Why would they ask this? Because they are going to take your Xbox and throw it in a repair area and mail you out a refurbished XBox.
Soldering Equipment
You will not get the same Xbox back. Chances are you are going to get an older model Xbox sent back to you. You want to avoid this at all cost even more if you paid for the repair. They only fixed what was broken in that Xbox they sent back to you. All of the other parts in their are worn out just like the part that broke. Numerous people have had problems with Xbox console that was sent back to them from Microsoft. The average time you have to wait to get your Xbox back from Microsoft is between 4-6 weeks. During this time if you have a Xbox live account you will still have to pay for the month your Xbox is away. They will not credit your account because its out for repair.
Another option you have is to repair the Xbox your self. Do the same thing that Microsoft is going to do without the month and a half wait or cost of repair. Most problems can be fixed within the hour with minimal tools. Try to avoid guides without pictures or videos because these are very wordy and technical. The repair guides with videos are your best bet for fixing your Xbox yourself.