The Xbox 360 three red lights of death has quickly become a symbol among Xbox 360 owners. I've seen everything from t-shirts (saying "I survived the Red Ring of Death) to amusing images. But the fact is, the problem itself is NOT funny.

This article is about the Xbox 360 three red lights of death error and how you can get rid of it.

What is the Red Ring of Death?

Well normally, as you know, you should have 1 green light lit in the corner of your power quadrant on the front of your Xbox 360.

The reason this turns into three red lights is to convey a systems error message to the user. It's sort of like a vehicle's check engine light. It's simply telling you what's up in computer language.

There are also 1, 2, and 4 red light errors that have different meanings, but all we're talking about in this article is the three lights of death. Essentially this code stands for a "General Hardware Malfunction" and can mean a multitude of things.

Well, What Does it Mean For My Xbox 360?

Like I said, the Xbox 360 three red lights of death can mean a multitude of different things, but when it comes down to it, 99% of the time it means that excess heat has damaged some internal component.

This is usually in the form of broken solder joints on your graphics processor.

So How Do You Get Rid of It?

To make that red ring of death go away, you'll have to have the console repaired. You can either send it back to Microsoft (and pay their repair services) or you can actually fix it yourself.

Sending your console off to Microsoft is like any repair procedure. You call them, they send you a shipping code (by sending you a box), you pay the repair fee, and you wait 6 weeks. All that's pretty standard.

On the other hand, following a widely accepted do-it-yourself repair procedure, you can have your Xbox 360 working again in about an hour.

Both methods work, and whichever you decide to use to fix your three red lights of death is ultimately up to you.