James Delahunty
19 Jun 2010 21:03
Three rapidly blinking red lights forming three-quarters of a circle on the Xbox 360's "ring of light" is unintentionally one of the most observed features of the Xbox 360 console, at least for units made before 2008. The "red ring of death", RROD/3ROL, represents a general hardware failure, but unlike the E74 error with a single blinking red light, there is no onscreen message to explain whats going on.
Instead users can only retrieve a secondary error code to give a clue to the problem. The problem is so widespread that Microsoft set aside $1 billion to address it, extending the console's warranty to three years for RROD (and E74). Even at that, stories of sending back consoles to Microsoft multiple times over these errors are commonplace.
While the new slim Xbox 360 console is, of course, capable of failure too, it will no longer present three blinking red lights. "Obviously if you look at the success rate of the original 360s, we're very proud of both the way the company stepped up to support the customers that we had as well as the success rate we have with the box today," said Microsoft Game Studios' corporate VP Phil Spencer.
"I think we've learned a lot. That learning has gone into the development of this new box. Now obviously, the box has a way to communicate to you if something has happened but yes, three red lights are not part of our sequence of telling somebody something is wrong."
If something does happen to the new Xbox 360 console, the green dot in the center of the power button turns red from its typical green. The error already has a name, "Red Dot of Death". Now let's hope we never get to observe it.