Microsoft has revealed the truth behind the cause of the dreaded Xbox 360 red ring of death.
It’s one of the worst fears of any gamer – when instead of the usual one to four green lights glowing from the console, you get three red lights flashing from the power button.
This error code signals a fatal issue and has become the Xbox version of Microsoft’s dreaded blue screen of death.
For many gamers, this red light signals that their console has reached the end of its life, but some have been able to repair theirs by sending it in to be fixed.
However, the root of the issue has been a mystery that many across the Xbox community have tried – and failed – to solve.
The red ring of death is one of the worst fears of any gamer (Ardaqe/Getty Images)
While rumors about possible causes circulated, people could not seem to get to the bottom of it.
But that was until 2021, when the origin of the problem was finally explained.
The answers came in the form of a documentary series titled Power On: The Story of Xbox.
The series looked at the history of Xbox and featured the teams involved in the console’s design and marketing.
Most people thought that it was basically an overheating issue, but the red ring turned out to be much more complicated.
Former head of Xbox, Peter Moore, clarified that it wasn’t so much purely overheating. Instead, it happened when the Xbox 360 heated up and then cooled down too quickly.
So, the console doesn’t really get rid of the heat effectively whilst operating.
This constant change would put a lot of stress on the system and it could just die as a result, displaying the red ring of death.
Microsoft has revealed the truth behind the cause of the dreaded Xbox 360 red ring of death (Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)
Hardware engineer Leo Del Castillo added more details: “The breakthrough came when we understood that the connections that were being broken were not located on the motherboard, but they were actually located inside the components.
“The reason it was breaking was thermal, but it wasn’t because of peak temperature.
“It was because when the unit would get hot and then cold, hot and then cold, every time it did that it would stress the connection.”
Whether or not the explanation made sense to you, it’s great to finally know what caused this infamous issue.
The tech giant eventually tackled the problem by releasing smaller, improved versions of the Xbox 360.
And so it came that the red ring of death became much less common and more of a distant, bad memory, for some.