Do you have something less than 4 green lights on the power button of your beloved Xbox?

Not sure what all of those lights mean? Here’s an easy-to-understand summary of all of the different error codes. In a follow-up post, we’ll talk about what you can do about them, if anything.

Xbox 360 Errror Light Codes

The green power light is ringed by 4 two-color LED lights – either green or red. As you can probably guess, GREEN=GOOD, RED = “OH CRAP”.  These four lights are identified by their quadrant. Here are the different quadrants:

Quadrant 1 (Q1) = Upper Left
Quadrant 2 (Q2) = Upper Right
Quadrant 3 (Q3) = Lower Left
Quadrant 4 (Q4) = Lower Right

You basically go left to right, top to bottom. If you lay it out in a grid, it looks like this:

Hardware Failure = When there is a hardware failure, the light in quadrant 4 (Q4) will flash with an ominous red color. There will also be an error code displayed on your screen, such as the infamous E74 error.

Overheating = If your Xbox gets too hot, the console will shut down to prevent damage (this is what should happen in theory, anyway) while the fans will continue to run and cool the unit. The lights in Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 3 (Q1+Q3)will flash until the console has cooled down. Make sure you have good airflow through your unit and that nothing is causing the system to overheat.

General Hardware Failure = When the system has a ‘general failure’, lights Q1, Q3 and Q4 will flash red… this is similar to the ‘Hardware Failure’ above, however there may not be an error code displayed on the screen.

AV Cable Error = When the AV Cable is not connected properly OR there is a serious error, all four lights will flash red. Good times.