I luckily haven't experienced it yet, but if you're out of warranty (or have flashed your DVD drive ) you can get some cheap kits to fix the problem.
The problem is that the heatsink is screwed on too tight or that there's no spread of the pressure point to which the heatsink is screwed. This causes the motherboard to bend and disconnects some electrical points. The kits contain a couple of "forcespreaders" (at the lack of a better word) that don't bend the motherboard as much as the original X-clamps do.

 

I'm on my 7th xbox 360 guys, I bought it when it came out. Good luck with your replacement. My currentl 360 hasn't had a problem in over a year.

 

I just had this happen as well...It took exactly 2 weeks to ship, fix and ship back...They always give a month free of xbox live...

 

Ironically, Microsoft announced today that they finally found the REAL root of the problem and all of the new productions 360's while be Red Ring Free. I might actually get an Elite now because it is really ticking me off that some of the best games are for 360 only. I wanted Left for Dead and Ace Combat 6 but both are only for 360.

I was actually planning to do nothing tonight and just chill and play a little Call of Duty 4 but I ended up waxing/detailing my car instead. Just got done. lol

 

If it makes you guys feel better, my PS3 has made it through a 7 month trip to Fallujah sucking in dust during hundreds of furious COD 4 split screen battles. We got back last April, and not a problem to date. Just a tiny bit of spray duster and it keeps on tickin'. The tv was a different story...

 

off topic, but my 1500 dollar taylor guitar sat in a storage ISU on the tarmac in Balad for a month awaiting transit back to Savannah, GA and the wood cracked...

 

Damn... did you bring it with you and then ship it back? I thought the PS3 was going to be straight boner'd on the way back to the states, and I would have to buy a new one. I planned on it actually. I heart that little black shiny adopted son of mine. I guess I'll let you all get on with your misguided love of the XBOX. It's just sad. It's like a wife who can't leaver her abusive husband. It's a damn shame and it's just so hard to sit back and watch it happen.

 

I mailed it to myself about a week before i left. On the way out i put the guitar in an ISU in its case and I was told it would ship in the next few days and the ISU was going to stay in a hangar due to the equipment on in the ISU. it ended up on the tarmac, then the air force kept pushing back that particular shipment.

 

i panicked when i first saw it but i turned it back on and it was all good

 

Our PS3 took a nose dive after a couple months...It won't let us get into anything. This is our second one...it just decided to stop working. We took it to a repair shop to see if it was an easy fix, but they couldn't come up with anything either.

Our Xbox is working fine though (knock on wood) but with my luck that thing will drive bomb too