I know you've probably heard alot about this but its a bit different. I brought my 360 to my grandmas cuz she has a hd big screen. Well i hooked it up with the component video, turned on the xbox and changed the standard output to 1080i or something like that. I started the game of advanced warfighter. everything booted up as it should. Got to the game menu and started campaign. It loaded and whatnot, then after the intro video transitioned to playing the game it froze! But the picture was somewhat scrambled, but you could kind still see it. Immediatly I almost soiled myself . I restarted the 360 and I got no picture or sound. I checked all of the connections, everything was fine . I noticed that there were three rings of light. I contacted microsoft and they couldnt help me . What am I to do? Please help me. Im a gamer nothing else, I dont want to start going outside Its TOO HOT! Please help me.

And this is different how? Because a grandma was mentioned?

If you still have warranty, send it to MS. If you dont, you can part it out or sell it on ebay.

I dont have the warranty anymore and I would prefer to fix it if its possible. I think the problem lies with the flash memory for the dashboard or bios system. Can that possibly be reflashed. I dont want to sell it for parts, and I cant afford a new one. Can gamestop repair it if the warranty sticker isnt there anymore? Or anyone else?

3 red lights isn't a bios or dash problem. It's a general hardware failure. Go and look in the 'General Hardware' forum there's a rather large problem about how the problem occurs where it possibly lies and how you can fix your console.

If you've got the balls, look up the heat gun trick online. It fixed my xbox first try. If you go that route, I heated both sides of the designated areas of the board at @350-400F degrees and then followed the video instructions at heat levels of 1100F degrees for 1 minute and 45 seconds. For the last 15 seconds I cranked the heat up to 1300 and concentrated on the ram and GPU. You can go to Lowe's and find them in the paint department at approximately $30.00. I got a Wagner Digital one for like $35.00 that gives you 15 heat settings as opposed to 3 on many models.

Other than that... if you call 360 support and your warranty has expired, they will charge you $139.99 to fix it.

So... if you can follow instructions and use a little common sense, the heat trick is definitely the way to go since it's a lot cheaper and in many cases is a permanent fix (although not guaranteed). Mine has been working for 4 months and I put about 20 hours/week on it.

Not an option since he has no warrnty sticker.

Buy a new motherboard. There are things you can try, But there is no permanent fix...

Lock the board down and get rid of the X clamps. That's my advice.

So microsoft will refuse to fix it if it doesnt have a warranty sticker?? I thought they fixed any 360, and if it was out of warranty charge u a shit load to repair....

will microsoft fix the 360 even though I dont have a warrantey sticker anymore? Can I reflash the motherboard? Or get a new one? I know that I will have to "marry" the drive to the motherboard with a "key" but how do I do that? and how much is a motherboard for a 360?

No , you must go ahead on the basis that MS will only repair (under warranty or for a fee) X360 that have not been opened.

getting a new MB is from 125 to 150 U$.

All info and direction to flash your drive for the new MB is in the Faq, Links & Important Threads of the Hacking/Technical DVD-ROM forum.

rgds, soso

well,,
let me tell you from my experience in repairing xbox, daily we receive 150 xbox 360 to repair 80% of them with ring of death and MS refused to repair or charges a big money..

in Poland they have a bigest center for repairing Europ xboxes, and i was lukly to get inside to work there for few months.
and frankly i expected to see a complicated machines there.. but they use sort of materials and special heating machines to reflow the PCB of the xbox, thats all, the process goes for 2 mins. and most of thier components they buy it from goot (tools), Technetools , Jovy Systems.

Best Regards
Gioram

so you're saying that all those replacement xbox's that are being shipped out to people don't even have a new mobo in them?

I thought they'd at least put a new board in.

they're still trying to cheap out on the repairs. they're going for the revolving doors type of repairs.

maybe they replace it, but the old one they never throw it away,,
I told you we fixed 100~150 daily RFDeath with just reflowing the Main unit but special tools (laser heating machines or something).

the best bussiness these days is to open a service center to help MS to overcome this problem

I would call ms and ask them how much it'd cost for repair, just tell them you've opened it and cleaned out the dust because you thought it was overheating and it didn't help. If they say no or it costs too much, fix it yourself. And if they say they will fix it, reflash back to original and clean out the dust.