Fixing The X-box

Microsoft's engineering prowess (or lack there of) caught up with us last night and the X-box 360 shut down with blinking red lights of doom and a cryptic E-73 error. The machine is about three years old (no longer under warranty) and to get it fixed, we need to send it into Microsoft and they will send us another machine - cost: about $130. Really makes one wish one bought a PS3, a far better built piece of hardware (and they're only $299 now!).

Anyway, rather than rush to send it in, I did a little sleuthing to try and find what what this E-73 error is all about. I found that the most common source of the error is a solder joint that has come lose, usually involving the ethernet port. It's interesting to note that with ANY other machine, if something like the ethernet port goes, the rest of the machine will work fine. It doesn't just give up.

What's weird is that there exists a bizarre, temporary, fix for the problem.

>Take a couple of small sticks (like Q-tips or toothpicks) and use them to prevent the two fans at the back from turning.
>Turn on your X-box and wait for it to overheat (takes about 10 minutes, which is pretty sad)
>The machine will shut itself down now. Disconnect it for half an hour or so to wait for it to cool off.
>After half an hour, turn the machine back on and it should boot up normally.

It should be emphasised that forcing a machine to overheat is not generally a good idea and the only reason I did this is because the warranty had expired anyway. What's weird is that this works at all. How does overheating the machine fix a solder joint? Obviously, it doesn't, but I suspect that somehow the error state gets reset through this process allowing the machine to boot normally. The fact that it runs normally now begs the question, is there really anything physically wrong with it at all or does some stupid piece of software just thinks something's wrong?

Ah, Microsoft. Why do we all keep you in business?