Two days ago my XBOX 360 quit working after a few minutes of play and started blinking red.  I checked out the error message online and it seems to be a simple overheating issue.  I contacted Microsoft, and they agreed to fix the console (only 6 months old), but that it would take 3 to 5 days to send me a box to ship it to them in, and then another 4 to 8 weeks for them to fix it and send it back.

I thought about it for a minute, and decided I rather buy a new one rather than sit around and wait on them for two months.  First though, I looked around online for a fix and saw that quite a few people were having the same problem.  Everyone had an opinion on what the problem was and what to do about it, so I decided to do a couple of things: replace the thermal compound on the CPU and GPU and extend the fan shroud over the GPU using cardboard from a cereal box wrapped in aluminum foil and attached to the existing fan shroud.

That fix worked like a champ until today, when the rear fan on the GPU completely died.  I don’t know if it started to fail 2 days ago and finally quit, or if the fan controller is cutting the fan off intermittently.  I have a plan to fix it either way though.  I ordered a replacement Talismoon fan from llama.com and found a spot on the board to solder it to, which will circumvent the variable speed fan controller. 

The replacement fans are supposedly quitter, but they will be moving from a 5V variable speed controller to a 12V power source.  I hope it ends up with about the same noise profile, but at least I’ll have a functioning XBOX when Halo 3 is released in a few weeks.