How to Fix Xbox 360 Red Lights Without Towels - What to Do When Your Xbox 360 Stops Working

By Dusty Thornton

Recently I've seen a story going around the internet that shows how to fix Xbox 360 red lights simply by wrapping your console in a towel. I decided to do a little research into this "towel trick" and give it a try and see what happened. You'll be interested to know what I learned. Not only how bad the towel trick is, but how to fix Xbox 360 red lights without it.

Why You Get The Red Ring of Death
The first thing I did was do a little bit a preliminary research on what causes the red ring of death. It's pretty complicated and it all has to do with a bad console design. Moral of the story...the Xbox 360 system gets too hot.

Because it gets so hot, and because some of the parts inside the system are poor quality, there is a certain heat sink clamp inside that starts to bend and warp due to the excess heat. When the clamp starts to bend it begins to put enormous tension on the motherboard. Eventually it bends it enough that something breaks--usually the solder connections on the board.

That's why you get the red ring of death.

What The Towel Trick Does
The towel trick involves wrapping your console in a towel and turning it on for about 30 minutes. Now before you try this listen up!

When you wrap your console in a towel for 30 minutes and turn it on, it traps all the hot air inside the Xbox 360. The intention of this little "trick" is to re-melt the cracked and broken solder connections. However, you are literally baking your Xbox 360, forcing the circuit boards to endure heat they weren't made to handle all for a fix that might last an hour before you start getting the red ring of death again.

Now you can imagine how bad this is for the other undamaged parts inside of the Xbox 360. Anyone who uses this runs the risk of permanently frying the internal parts of their console.
How To Fix Xbox 360 3 Red Lights Without Towels
Most people end up sending their console to Microsoft anyway. While that's a good way to fix your broken Xbox 360, it's also only available for those people who still have a warranty on their Xbox 360.

For the rest of us, having Microsoft repair our 360s would cost $140 (without a warranty).

However, I've learned about a very easy do-it-yourself fix (that doesn't involve towels) that you can use to repair your red ring of death--it's permanent too.

It's called the X-clamp fix. It involves the following basic steps:

1. Take the console apart. This can be done easily with a screwdriver and a knife to pop the case off.
2. Take the motherboard assembly out of the dissected console and take it apart. You will notice the heat sink clamps (2 X-shaped clamps)--take those apart as well.
3. Now you'll reassemble it using plastic washers between the clamps and the motherboard. This allows the clamp to flex without bending the motherboard.
4. Finally, put the console back together.

This 4 step fix is really easy and actually permanently fixes your Xbox 360. Not only that, but it also will significantly extend the life-span of your console (which makes it worthwhile to do even if your Xbox 360 isn't getting the red ring of death).

The X-clamp repair method is the only Xbox 360 repair that is permanent enough to guarantee you'll never see the RROD again.

I've just told you exactly How to Fix Xbox 360 Red Lights.

The Xbox 360 Towel Trick - Why You Mustn't Try It

By Dave Simpson

It can be devastating, as a gamer, when your beloved Xbox 360 starts to display the 3 red lights on the front, so you may be tempted to search on the internet for a free way to fix the problem.

Most of the time you will be told by these 'experts' to try the Xbox 360 towel trick. Before I go on to describe what the trick involves, and why its very dangerous, let's examine what causes the Xbox 360 red ring of death in the first place.

In a word, overheating, that's what causes the Xbox 360 3 red light error. In the early days, Microsoft sacrificed good looks for safety with the Xbox 360, and the cooling systems they put inside were not up to the job.There are 2 cooling fans at the rear but they aren't up to the job and the case is very narrow, and doesn't allow enough heat to escape. Add to this, the fact that the 2 main chips - the graphics chip and the main processor are both connected via a common heat sink and you have a recipe for disaster.The bad news is that by the time you find out about the problem its already too late.

The towel trick was devised by someone to fix this problem. If you want to try the Xbox 360 towel trick all you need is.. well, a towel. Just take a bath towel and wrap it around the console, switch the machine on and let it overheat for a few minutes. Although it seems hard to believe there is some good theory behind the madness of wrapping your Xbox 360 up in a towel. Basically, you are trying to heat it up to a point where the motherboard 'fixes itself' by allowing the solder on the bus to re-flow fixing the previous damage.

It should be obvious the problems and dangers with trying this. The very real danger of fire is present here. The only sure way to fix the 3 red light error is to get a good guide from the internet and perform the fix yourself. There are many guides available, all of them cheap, and the fix needs only a few simple tools and takes about an hour to do. Best of all its safe and permanent.


Hopefully I have convinced you not to try the Xbox 360 towel trick on your broken console. Instead, get a guide, and if you want to know what the best ones are check out my reviews HERE