If you are reading this article you may have the infamous three red lights error on your Xbox 360. This normally happens with no warning, although having weird things appear on the screen and then freezing up are signs that it may be about to happen soon. Why do the Three Red Lights occur? The XBox 360 may have been rushed out to try to beat the PlayStation 3, or it could just be a design flaw due to them wanting to make a slim and modern console, but basically it happens because the two main processing chips on the motherboard - the CPU and the GPU, overheat. This article will help explain what the flashing red lights surrounding your power button mean, and what you could do to fix this problem. Firstly depending on how many lights are flashing on the power button it can mean a few different things. The most common error is the Xbox 360 3 Red lights error which is the most severe. If you have the 3 red lights error then it means you have a General Hardware Error and that one or more of the components inside the Xbox has broken. 2 red lights occur due to overheating, and sometimes culminate in the 3 Red Lights error. 4 red lights mean that the av cable is not being detected. So is there anything you can do if you get 3 red lights on your Xbox 360? Well the first thing you can do is phone Microsoft Customer Support and they will give you a series of tasks to try to fix it. They will suggest things like removing the hard drive, turning the console off and back on, and then they will probably say that they will send you a repair cardboard box out, then you will need to put the broken console in the box and send it off to them. This sounds OK in theory, but the repair work on your Xbox can take up to four weeks, and if you're an avid gamer that is a long time to be without your XBox! Also what if it happens again? In general, the XBox consoles they send out are reconditioned units that have already had the Red Ring of Death! The other possibility is to repair the problem yourself. Believe it or not, but it isn't that hard to do! Please note that there are some dodgy fixes out there which entail the use of towels to overheat the console (causing other damage!) and re-solder the broken joins. Also some guides recommend soldering your XBox - something which I wouldn't advise as this could void your warranty.