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Xbox 360 Life after 3RL: The Post-Apocalyptic/Cyberpunk/Matrix Reloaded Setup

If you've been reading our blog for a while now, you'd know that we already bought 2 Xbox 360s; one near launch time (around Dec 2005) which was a Japanese system, and another one this year, around May 2007. That's because our old Japanese system 3RL'ed on us (3 red lights of death) last January 2007. We had the system fixed by Waxx at Pinoyxbox, and while it worked for a few months, eventually it would just hang or stop working completely. We had Waxx look into it one last time, and for several months we left the system with him. Later on he informed us that he had some breakthrough in his 3RL research and had employed a new fix that was better than before. The problem was, after a few weeks the system would hang again (it would not get 3RL but it did just 'hang', like a PC that just gets stuck on one screen and you can't move the mouse or make commands).

So we asked Waxx to give us back the system regardless of the hanging problem. As we've probably posted earlier, he made modifications to the cooling system and there are now more fans in the system. Despite this, it would still hang.

As a final resort, we decided on opening the game console and playing it with the system completely open. We call this setup the 'post apocalyptic/cyberpunk/matrix style' setup! Hehehe. We got some instructions on how to open the Xbox 360 from Youtube. Then we just got two chairs and rested the machines various parts on the chairs and a few books. It's a very ugly setup, indeed---as indicated by the photos below:



But guess what---the system is still working to this very day. It's very stable and we haven't gotten any 3RL issues at all. Every once in a while it would hang but it's extremely rare; especially after we trained an electric fan right on top of it!

What probably fixed it is that we moved the DVD drive away from the CPU area. Thus, the motherboard is getting a bit more breathing room and more air circulation is allowed in the system. With the additional modifications by Waxx, the system is now quite cool (not in the aesthetic sense, though).

So, if you had your system fixed and it's still hanging or getting 3RL, consider this setup. Sure, it isn't pretty, but it works! The 360's just too damn hot....too much power in a small package. I hope that Microsoft considers a more cooling-friendly design next time.

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