XBOX OVERHEATING AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.

[Jumpingbean3]

I have tried EVERYTHING! I have opened it up and removed every single piece of dust I could find, I've left it to cool down, I've turned a fan on it while playing, I've taken one of the covers off. I've tried everything I can think of and it still. KEEPS. F***ING OVERHEATING!!!!!

Often I find it does this when I try to play Dishonored, during the loading screen for the Sewers at the beginning. If we time I go to that loading screen it crashes without fail, I've tried installing the game on my hard drive but I don't even have 15 minutes to do that in before, you guessed it, it overheats again!

So, what else can I do.

Captcha: keep calm.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

What generation of Xbox 360 are you using?

 

[Nieroshai]

First: threatening to report someone for what clearly isn't a violation of the TOS is just stupid. Grow a pair and ignore such posts. You don't have to answer them. I'm not going to make such a comment, but this comes across as very immature and overly defensive. I'm a console equalist, both consoles have their pluses and minuses. PS3's pluses, however, have to do with the hardware itself while 360 has some really nice features in its OS.
SECOND: early models of 360 did have terrible heat issues, due to bad soldering and a poorly designed cooling system. You might need to shell out for a newer model if that's the case, the slim is very reliable from what I hear. Otherwise, you can get third-party cooling fans for it. That's the best fix there is unless you send it in for repairs. I hope you can get the issue solved, both consoles have at least 2 years left on them.

 

[Jumpingbean3]

First: threatening to report someone for what clearly isn't a violation of the TOS is just stupid. Grow a pair and ignore such posts. You don't have to answer them. I'm not going to make such a comment, but this comes across as very immature and overly defensive. I'm a console equalist, both consoles have their pluses and minuses. PS3's pluses, however, have to do with the hardware itself while 360 has some really nice features in its OS.
SECOND: early models of 360 did have terrible heat issues, due to bad soldering and a poorly designed cooling system. You might need to shell out for a newer model if that's the case, the slim is very reliable from what I hear. Otherwise, you can get third-party cooling fans for it. That's the best fix there is unless you send it in for repairs. I hope you can get the issue solved, both consoles have at least 2 years left on them.

First: Your right I'm sorry about that.

Second: The model I have is an Elite (I think). How is that said to fair in terms of heat issues?

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Try moving it to a different room, and playing other games. Maybe without a disc in the drive, an XBLA title or something.

I've found that moving the Xbox usually stops that kind of stuff. Moving it to a cooler place where it has more ventilation and airflow. Oh, also: define "overheating"? Are the fans overspinning? Or is it physically too hot to touch? Or does the system crash due to the heat? Anyway, try more troubleshooting and if none of it works, I'd consider saying goodbye to machine.

Catcha: dust up
now this is just cruel

 

[ChristopherRobin]

There's two things that cause an xbox to shut down from heat.

1) You're triggering the thermal sensor that says the system's too hot. Move your xbox to a cool place, out of the sun, on an open hard surface, at least 12" from any wall. On top of a table or nightstand for example. When you turn the system on, are the internal fans spinning? Do you feel warm air coming out of the exhaust?

2) The solder between the motherboard and one of the chips (usually the gpu) has developed a minor crack and when the normal heat from the running system causes the solder to expand, that crack grows enough to cause a fault in the system. To fix this you'll need to look up what's called a "reflow" guide.

Take note: the "reflow" guides while useful, are dangerous. You can hurt yourself or your system, and it may not even work. Even when they do work, you often need to "reflow" the system again after a time. You might consider paying someone else to fix it or trading the system in for a newer one.

 

[Nieroshai]

First: threatening to report someone for what clearly isn't a violation of the TOS is just stupid. Grow a pair and ignore such posts. You don't have to answer them. I'm not going to make such a comment, but this comes across as very immature and overly defensive. I'm a console equalist, both consoles have their pluses and minuses. PS3's pluses, however, have to do with the hardware itself while 360 has some really nice features in its OS.
SECOND: early models of 360 did have terrible heat issues, due to bad soldering and a poorly designed cooling system. You might need to shell out for a newer model if that's the case, the slim is very reliable from what I hear. Otherwise, you can get third-party cooling fans for it. That's the best fix there is unless you send it in for repairs. I hope you can get the issue solved, both consoles have at least 2 years left on them.

First: Your right I'm sorry about that.

Second: The model I have is an Elite (I think). How is that said to fair in terms of heat issues?

To my best knowledge, one of its selling points was exactly that it wouldn't do this... I'm not sure. I would see if I could get hold of Microsoft's maintenance department. Another plus over Sony is that Microsoft's customer support gets back to you a lot quicker and won't charge if you're within warranty.

 

[Shocksplicer]

First: threatening to report someone for what clearly isn't a violation of the TOS is just stupid. Grow a pair and ignore such posts. You don't have to answer them. I'm not going to make such a comment, but this comes across as very immature and overly defensive. I'm a console equalist, both consoles have their pluses and minuses. PS3's pluses, however, have to do with the hardware itself while 360 has some really nice features in its OS.
SECOND: early models of 360 did have terrible heat issues, due to bad soldering and a poorly designed cooling system. You might need to shell out for a newer model if that's the case, the slim is very reliable from what I hear. Otherwise, you can get third-party cooling fans for it. That's the best fix there is unless you send it in for repairs. I hope you can get the issue solved, both consoles have at least 2 years left on them.

First: Your right I'm sorry about that.

Second: The model I have is an Elite (I think). How is that said to fair in terms of heat issues?

To my best knowledge, one of its selling points was exactly that it wouldn't do this... I'm not sure. I would see if I could get hold of Microsoft's maintenance department. Another plus over Sony is that Microsoft's customer support gets back to you a lot quicker and won't charge if you're within warranty.

I think you're thinking of the Slim. The Elite was one of the older models, I don't think it had much different in terms of hardware from the other models. The Slim is the most recent one, and it deals with heat much better than the older models.

As for OP's problem, Basically what everyone else is saying. Cool the room down, give the Xbox some space, try changing its vertical orientation maybe.

 

[Nieroshai]

First: threatening to report someone for what clearly isn't a violation of the TOS is just stupid. Grow a pair and ignore such posts. You don't have to answer them. I'm not going to make such a comment, but this comes across as very immature and overly defensive. I'm a console equalist, both consoles have their pluses and minuses. PS3's pluses, however, have to do with the hardware itself while 360 has some really nice features in its OS.
SECOND: early models of 360 did have terrible heat issues, due to bad soldering and a poorly designed cooling system. You might need to shell out for a newer model if that's the case, the slim is very reliable from what I hear. Otherwise, you can get third-party cooling fans for it. That's the best fix there is unless you send it in for repairs. I hope you can get the issue solved, both consoles have at least 2 years left on them.

First: Your right I'm sorry about that.

Second: The model I have is an Elite (I think). How is that said to fair in terms of heat issues?

To my best knowledge, one of its selling points was exactly that it wouldn't do this... I'm not sure. I would see if I could get hold of Microsoft's maintenance department. Another plus over Sony is that Microsoft's customer support gets back to you a lot quicker and won't charge if you're within warranty.

I think you're thinking of the Slim. The Elite was one of the older models, I don't think it had much different in terms of hardware from the other models. The Slim is the most recent one, and it deals with heat much better than the older models.

As for OP's problem, Basically what everyone else is saying. Cool the room down, give the Xbox some space, try changing its vertical orientation maybe.

No, when the Elite came out I remember, and this was before the Kinect was even a *coughfakedcough* tech demo, one of the biggest selling points aside from the better memory was "This one doesn't red ring as often, we swear!"