The dreaded “Ring of Death”

So, I go home for my lunch break. Sit down and eat. I have a few minutes to spare before I go to work, so I decide to play Guitar Hero III. I turn the Xbox 360 and I get the three flash red lights all Xbox fanatics fear.

I'm going to be honest, I've been getting the lights for a couple of months now. I would turn the console off, wait 30 seconds, then turn it back on and it was fine.

Not today however. Today, I turned it on, got the red flashing lights, then turned it back off. Turned it back on, got the red flashing lights, then again turned it back off. I did this a few times. I kept thinking, "It's not really messed up. I'm going to turn it on this time and it's going to work just fine." Didn't happen. Just stupid red flashing lights over and over again.

So, I then went through the whole process of submitting a request for repair at Xbox.com. There are a few things you should do before you send the repair request though. I first had to make sure what I was experiencing was being caused by the Xbox 360. I had to check to make sure the power supply was working properly. Mine was glowing green, so that was good. Any other color is bad, obviously. Then the site told me to turn the Xbox off and wait 10 seconds, if when I turn it back on I still get the lights, to then submit the request. Since I had already tried this about 10 times, I went ahead and started the request.

Now, if you have never registered your Xbox in the past, you will need to do that first. You register and sent a repair request, you will need to go to this link, https://service.xbox.com/default.aspx. Once you have registered your Xbox, you will then be able to fill out a request to repair form.

If you have the "Ring of Death" then you will be able to have this repair done for free even if your warranty has expired, as long as it has not be more than three years since you bought the console. If the "Ring of Death" is the issue with your Xbox, you will not only get the repair done for free, they send you a box with paid shipping to you so you can send the console to them.

The site said it would take about four weeks for them to repair my Xbox. So, I guess I will have to find something to occupy my time for a month or so. Maybe I'll just play all the Resident Evil games on my husband's PS2 until then.

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