XBox360: Beating the Three Red Lights

There is nothing scarier for an XBox360 owner than the appearance of the dreaded three red lights. If you haven't seen them yet be glad. Today I spotted my first set while attempting to log into XBox Live Marketplace to get the Prey Demo.

For those encountering the problem remember to follow the basic steps for trouble shooting a non-booting PC first. Disconnect EVERYTHING, controllers, peripherals like the Wireless adapter and cooling fans, the TV outs and finally the power. Once this is done plug in only your Power Cord. Try to boot it. If that fails go straight to the wall socket.

I'm happy to say that in my case it was a cheap surge protector that caused the problem. Once I plugged straight to the wall I was set. I re-attached all peripherals and was good to go.

For others, especially folks in older houses, you might try plugging into a completely different wall outlet as well.

Now - this won't fix everyone's problems but in my case it worked great. Just give it a try and see what happens before getting worried.

For a little more info straight from Microsoft you can check out Microsoft's XBox 360: Three red lights flashing on the Ring of Light article.

There's also a good post on XBox-Scene titled Error Codes Explained.

Last but not least there's a thread over on the Gamespot forums about other tips on XBox360 crash related causes.