Back in the 1990's, Microsoft was plagued with a problem known affectionately as the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Whenever Windows encountered a problem it couldn't gracefully recover from, it threw up a blue screen instead and that was it. You had to reboot, losing whatever you were working on. This happened sometimes frequently.

Now in the 2000's that problem seems to have gone away. But the Xbox 360 picked up the baton and is running with it. Original 360's are plagued with Red Rings of Death (RROD).  This has happened to a significant number of people - upwards of 50% by some estimates.

My 360, which I have owned for about 2 years has just been RRODed. The latest symptom is that the xbox freezes after only a few minutes of playing with it. But I've received the Red Rings a couple of times.

I'm in the process of sending it back to Microsoft for repairs. The basics of the problem is overheating. The original "compound" used to disperse heat on the CPU and GPU apparently was faulty.

I hope they repair it. Or replace it with a new one. Or whatever. I'll post an update if and when they do.