The connections (solder joints) between the electronic components and also the circuit board begin to irreversibly fail when the XBox 360 just gets too hot for too lengthy and does not shut down in time. Even if the your XBox 360 does shut down in time, if the overheating "cycle" happens too normally the connections will eventually fail anyway.

Here''s a detailed explanation and solution:

If you''ve ever looked inside your PC case, or any other electronic device, you''ll see a (commonly green) colored board with square black components (chips) all over it. The board is called the circuit board plus the chips, of course, are the little "brains" that tell the electronic device (or your XBox 360) how to function. download video games online

Once you look closer at the chips, specially around the edges or underneath, you will see small shiny silver legs coming off of them. The actual legs of the chips themselves are dull gray or brown depending on what metal they''re created from. Nevertheless, the shiny metal you see on the legs is known as solder.

Solder begins as a hot liquid and is applied between the legs of the chip along with the circuit board throughout manufacturing. When the solder cools down, it hardens up and permanently holds the chips to the circuit board. Now everything is connected to one-another and game play can begin on your XBox 360.

Now, bring heat into the picture:

Heat causes expansion (and cooling causes contraction). Whenever you turn on your XBox 360 and start play points start to heat up and expand. The circuit board will warp ever so slightly and this starts to location anxiety on the solder connections as they attempt to pull apart from the board. When the XBox 360 is turned off the board will return to it is original shape and the anxiety between the connections is relieved. All is well.

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Having said that, over time as the XBox 360 is continuously becoming turned on & off the cycle of expansion and contraction begins to weaken the solder joints - similar to moving the lid of a tin can back and forth - and separation will occur. To further speed this process up, when massive overheating takes location the circuit board can warp so much that he joints can break apart right away!

Up until the late 1990''s solder was produced out of a mixture of tin and lead metals. This gave solder a significant amount of flexibility which produced it highly resistant to the constant warping of the circuit board.

Unfortunately, the lead portion of the solder poses safety and environmental hazards. This became a matter of increased concern along with the trend was to rid solder of as much lead as possible.

New mixtures of solder were experimented with and a new formulation is now used with almost zero lead. As with any compromise though, the elimination of existing problems introduces new ones - in this case, flexibility. Low lead solder is much more brittle than the old tin/lead mixture.

Since the XBox 360 was born in the early 2000''s the solder used on the components inside the console is most likely the new low lead mixture. When heat is introduced as explained above and hot new video games are working (and heating) the components harder than ever it becomes clear that connection failure is inevitable. This will cause the XBox 360 Three Red Light Error to come on and stay on!

Fortunately, there exists the perfect XBox 3 Red Light Fix written specifically for this problem. To find out more, Go Here.