I've had my console plugged into a surge protector every time it's plugged in since Christmas Eve when I bought it.

One thing I did experience....the first 360 I bought had a power cord with the two prongs, but no 3rd prong on the cord. I used it for a day, and it was very slow(slow to read games, very slow dashboard blade movement), so I took it back to Wal-Mart. My replacement 360 had the 3 prong power cord, and I've not had any problems with it.(Knock on wood)

Of the people here who have had RROD, what kind of power cord did you have going to your brick?
I doubt this is the cause, but I've always been curious as to if anyone else had problems with the two prong cords.

360 plugged in a surge protector for one year now.... no issues. Purchased said system, 4 months after release.

^^ Since I bought it it has never been in a closed box entertainment system, the back of every entertainment system it has been in has been open.

i over heard someone in a game store telling a patron this very same thing. i don't really understand how this could cause all the problems that the 360 is suffering from.

i personally have used mine on a surge protector since i got it and have had no problems... yet.

Then that means that a Power Surge is not causing the red ring. if 10% don't, cause how many people have the convince of a wall outlet RIGHT BY their 360? Mine is going into an Extension chord, that goes into a Power Strip, that goes into another extension chord, that goes into the wall. No problems since January, yet. Knock on wood.

It does say in the owners manual to plug it directly in the wall and never use a surge protector. Having said that, I've bricked four consoles and none were plugged in to a surge protector. Each time I called Xbox support, the eastern indian guy named "Jim" always asked if it had been plugged directly into a wall. I think it was said before, but the power brick is a built in surge protector. Either way MS is full of shit.

Well lets look at this objectively. I have worked with electricity a fair deal of time and this is my take.

A surge protector have resistors (or fuses or both depending on brand and cost) that prevent electricity from passing extra power. It locks electricity at a 115-110 volts (depending on where you live) constant flow and when a power spike occurs the fuse or resistor blows up and your precious electronics will live to tell the tale. You usually know if this is the case because most of the surge protectors have lights that change colors or blink or have sounds alerting that something happened and it needs your attention.

Similar mechanisms are used in other types of electrical appliances that have their own power protection/regulator such as hair dryers and smaller air conditioners that in the power plug there is a little box with a button and/or light to reset and test the appliance. This is needed for appliances that need, lets say, big chunks of power at any given time such as the air conditioner compressor and it may trigger a false alarm inside a closed circuit (your house).

So the Xbox 360 chihuahua sized power brick must have some sort of power surge built inside so when it detects a power spike or shortage it triggers a protection to prevent frying the delicate high tech components inside it. Plus it must have the same mechanism for when it changes from the dashboard passive to the graphic intensive fan-on-high active.

The surge may send a false signal to the brick activating the bricks surge but when power is lastly regulated by the external surge, the brick still may be regulating the false power spike/shortage and not keeping up the newly surge ending in the console being burned.

Different timing in electricity flow due to having two surges can be a plausible cause to RRoD you Xbox 360.

My friends xbox360 RRoD on him and he used a *cheap* surge protector. I use a more expensive, industrial type, surge that have been working and protecting my electronics for years and my Xbox 360 still works flawlessly (minus a couple read disc error).

Bottom line: Get a quality surge protector or dont use one at all. For the 360 that is.

"..as many as 90% of all slaughtered consoles have been plugged into one."
Well, to that I say:
http://www.venganza.org/piratesarecool4.gif

What a load of rubbish.

Anyone who plugs a 360 directly into the wall outlet without a surge protector is just asking for trouble. The RROD is caused by the method used by Microsoft to solder the components to the board.

The method they use means that the solder melts at extremely low temperatures so when the consoles aren't cooled well enough (which most of them aren't, especially when ventilation is impaired)the solder can re-flow (melt) and gaps appear in what should be closed circuits. I have worked in the PCB design industry for years testing boards and I have to say, this is shocking design practice.

If you could get hold of the full error reporting manual from a MS tech I would bet money it would say something along the lines of "Three Red LED's lit:-Internal hardware failure!"

Keep your surge protector in case you get hit by voltage spikes or you're going to kill your console anyway, keep it away from walls, don't place anything on it and if it still overheats then stand it on a riser of some sort to increase airflow underneath it.

Long life to 360's, they are a fantastic console after all, just a pity so many are failing.

Those intercoolers used tto void your warranty (not sure if they still do). They are made by a third party company and if something happened to your xbox because of them, xbox would tell you it was your own damn fault.

I call bullshit.

Twice.

"I was under the impression however that the failures had something to do with clamps not being tight enough on one of the interior components."

actually, its the opposite. the clamp is too tight, and the cooling on the system is insufficient. this results in the board bending a little bit causing some of the soldered connections to receive intermittent contact, and eventually a completely broken connection.

for my system that's a bs claim because i have a UPS that obviously maintains the power levels. so far my second system has been ok.

hmm... I have had my 360 plugged into the wall since I got it at launch. Never had a problem except a few freezes here and there, but no ring of death.

"Saying that 90% of the failed consoles were plugged into surge protectors is akin to a car manufacturer that issues a recall and then people saying that 90% of the defective cars had gas in their tanks at the time of the failure." - jschmidt1340

I quote you on this day.

I dont know why they are blaming it on the surge protectors. Maybe in a few cases it might of been but the real problem is the x clamps on the bottom that bend the motherboard while the solder is softend by the heat in the 360 while it is on. I had 2 360s with the ring of death symptom and fixed it by replaceing the 2 x clamps on the back of the motherboard and its been smooth gaming since

http://360hax.com/page.php?9#3 this is simalar to the tutorial I followed

No shit you idiots plug it into protectors WHEN THE BOOK TELLS YOU NOT TO!