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XBox 360 Nyko Intercooler Overheat Problems

This is perhaps a strange thing for our basic computer help website, but it is a pretty serious matter to some people in the computer and electronics business. I couldn’t find a head quarters for information on this problem, so I figured I would try to make one here. Of course we also hope it brings a few new folks to the website.

I bought an XBox 360 about a year after they had been released. Along with my purchase I bought an Intercooler by Nyko. This is a device that plugs into the power of the XBox and blows air past the back fans. The idea and advertised claim is that it would improve the life of my system and cool the inner components.

A couple of weeks ago, my XBox began giving me “the red ring of death,” a series of indicator lights on the front that warn of hardware failure and/or overheating.

I was able to get past the problem by turning off the Intercooler. I told the guys at the local gaming store about the problem and they told me right out that it was a well documented problem on the Internet and it has caused many systems to fail.

After doing some research, I not only found that the problem is common, but it also voids the warranty of the XBox.

Even more research revealed that Nyko has not issued a recall even though the problem is an obvious fire hazard.

My XBox 360 is running fine as long as I have the Nyky Intercooler turned off, but as soon as I turn it back on, the system overheats.

I tried to remove the Intercooler, but it has melted into my XBox and it will not come out. I am hoping that it doesn’t burn down my house. We always make sure that the XBox is turned off when we aren’t in the room.

If you are an XBox user who has had similar problems, please post your comments. I would like to know how widespread this problem is.

I was going to post a bunch of links to sites where others are complaining about the problem, but you can find them all by typing in terms like, “Nyko xbox overheat” or “Nyko Fried xbox” or “Intercooler overheat problem” or Red Ring Nyko” into Google.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-prevent-your-XBox-360-Nyko-Intercooler-from/

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39 thoughts on “XBox 360 Nyko Intercooler Overheat Problems”

  1. Hi…people…!!
    My Xbox 360 has the 3 rings of death…without the intercooler…so…i see some tutorials in the net and i repare it…and voilá…!! My Xbox 360 start run good…!! But as a prevent method i bot the Nyko intercooler…and because of same complains about the intercooler melt the power cable of Xbox 360…i make a mod…of the intercooler…so that it can be powered on without the Xbox 360 power cable…!! But even so…i get the 3 rings of death…!! AGAIN…S..T…NOT AGAIN…!! and the reason was the intercooler of Nyko…this peace of junk don’t cooler off the xbox 360…on the contrary…it increase the temperature…and soon or later it will give you guys the 3 rings of death…!! To me the Xbox 360 works fine without this peace of junk…!! Don’t buy…this…!! It will reduce your Xbox 360 live time…!! AH…!! My Xbox 360 with the intercooler star to give me lots of freezes in games and then you already knows…3 rings of death…!! I fix it again…and it works fine without the 3 rings of death and games freezes…!!

    Best regards…Bye…!!

    P.S. – I’m sorry about my English…it has same errors…i’m a little rusty…!!

    1. My friend had an issue with the Nyko Xbox 360 rechargeable battery pack. While the controller was OFF and sitting on the arm of the couch, it began to sizzle and smoke. He then took off the battery pack and rinsed it in the sink. They thing had melted itself and nearly caused a fire that could have burned down the house. Scary situation and I haven’t heard anything like this reported online. The pack he used was the one that fits into the dual recharge station that plugs into the wall. It was not the recharge station that fits two controllers in a row or the plug-and-play ones. Just spreading the word – has this happened to anyone? E-mail me.

  2. i had a 360 now for 2 years, the elite with a intercooler when i first bought it, i got the ring of dead, and i shipped in to microsoft to repair it, and got it back a month later, now it works fine and with the intercooler the 360 hardly gets hot, i can leave it on for a day straight and it wont get hot, my friend in the other hand have a warrenty on his 360 with the store, and had to reture it 5 times and now he got his ring of dead again, and quit playing games systems, but he never had a intercooler, and never shipped in for a fix, i think its smart to shipped it in to get it fix, rater then getting a new one, but intercooler does not fuck up your 360.

  3. Thanks for keeping my xbox warm. i lost my job in august and spent the money i had on booze. I was going to take it easy for a change and play a little xbox. red light, cant pry that intercooler off with plyers. I’m stuck, this sucks, nyko is ruining my life. any suggestions on how to get that thing off? Any harder and im affraid im going to break the xbox itself. It’s going to be a bad day.

    1. when your Nyko cooler melts on to your xbox it only melts onto the xbox case not the xbox itself so the only thing you mess up is the case

  4. Just came back from outta town. Ready to play my new games from good ol game fly but to no avail. My 360 has 4 rings o light thanks to my nyko burt up my power cord and took one of the plastic pins with it man I don’t know w.t.f to do I just got the thing back from having 3 rings and for saying please put a 360 disc in the console I called xbox @ 9.00am they said someone would call me tommorow, this sucks.

  5. hi peeps i read most of the older posts and i got the same prob. i have a cracked x box yeah a cracked x box u heard me right i dont use xbox live but i get all the games for crazy low prices , so as it turns out even cracked xbox’s have the damn 3r’s of d prob so if any of u kind folks is willing to tell me wtf i gotta do now nowing i live in libya and there aint noting that even resembles a MS office or retailer or anytin here pleeeez help help help
    mohamedayad1985@yahoo.com

  6. The “Intercooler EX” works fine. You use the obsolete plastic jacketed intercooler(360) that was known for electric arching causing the plastic to melt. The EX model stops the arching from doing damage if it occurs. What you need to do is get your money up and upgrade off that poor core system!

  7. You read that post from [mohamedayad1985@yahoo.com]? He says(copy and pasted)” i have a cracked x box yeah a cracked x box u heard me right i dont use xbox live but i get all the games for crazy low prices”. How gay is this guy? He repeats himself thinking he’s bad due to the fact of having a modded xbox 360. He pays for games on a modded xbox? What a joke, you should be able to download them off the web for free or off of p2p applications, burn them and put them into your console. But he pays for them at CRAZY LOW PRICES!! Take your terrorist self back to Libya thinking your unique by either following directions online or paying someone to mod your console for you. By paying for games on a modded xbox, you must of paid someone to do it. And when you try to play online you get kicked off due to security circumvention. CLOWN! Modding isnt that great.

  8. my sons xbox just shut down last night while he was playing it i tried to disconnect the cooler fan and relised it was stuck so i yanked it off and hey presto it was like a melted wellie finally got it to work again minus the cooler fan .. why r these still for sale???? i think ill write to watchdog and see wot they think, and because i bought it from ebay ive no comeback i dont even know if the warrantys still going i wont be purchaseing anything else from microsoft will stick to sony at least whem my sons ps2 broke down they were straight out took my broken 1 and had a brand new 1 for me to exchange at least they know how to treat there consumers

  9. My friend had an issue with the Nyko Xbox 360 rechargeable battery pack. While the controller was OFF and sitting on the arm of the couch, it began to sizzle and smoke. He then took off the battery pack and rinsed it in the sink. They thing had melted itself and nearly caused a fire that could have burned down the house. Scary situation and I haven’t heard anything like this reported online. The pack he used was the one that fits into the dual recharge station that plugs into the wall. It was not the recharge station that fits two controllers in a row or the plug-and-play ones. Just spreading the word – has this happened to anyone? E-mail me.

  10. dude this thing screws up your xbox. i woke up today to play xbox and whoopty doo it doesnt work. it gave me the red lights meaning that it was a hardware failure and its probabaly because of this stupid intercooler.and its melted into my ac adapter cord.i wanna sue nyko for this bs

  11. I dont use Nyko intercooler cus of all my friends warning me about it but my xbox for some reason it gives me 2 red lights and i know that it means that it is too hot. and whenever i check the console and the power brick to see how hot they are, there not even warm theyre still cool like when i turned it on does any one know y this happens

    1. Well,

      One thing that might be wrong is that,I had the same problem,is that the xbox itself doesn’t have enough space so the air is coming back to the xbox.The main fan you should worry about is the one on the back (unless you got the slim).Just to move it out some or have a fan circulate fresh air into the space.

  12. I suggest using the intercooler that plugsinto the wall rather than the xbox,avoiding this problem…but i found this post because my intercooler has been on all night… it is the new one that detects temperature and when needed turns on…it is on in my freezing room along with my airconditioner ALL NIGHT!!!

  13. dude, i was playing my xbox and all of a sudden i smelled something burning and i found out that the ac adapter/power block has melted to the intercooler and it won’t come apart, this is bullshit i’ve had so many problems with my 360 its fucking ridiculous

  14. this shit got me mad my NYKO intercooler has been making real loud noise and i already knew it melted to my xbox and i was in the middle of playing C.O.D and my xbox gave me the rings of death urghh im heated right now because i cant even send my xbox back fuck the NYKO intercooler them peices of shit

  15. My sons x-box 360 overheated last night due to Nyko’s inner cooler failure and it also burned up the power supply cord. My proffession is being a Safety Officer for a major corporation and I am aware of potential fire issue. If I had not smelt the burning and unplugged the power source as he was experiencing the “red ring” it would of easily been a fire in minutes. The power connector that goes into the inner cooler was to hot to even touch with out receiving a burn. My step-son supplied the new power supply from his x-box 360 and havent had a problem since. I have no knowledge is Nyko is letting this be known to the public

  16. I own an Xbox and a Playstation and both are really good game consoles. Let’s see what are Microsoft’s future updgrades on its Xbox game console.-,*

  17. I’m gonna make this short and sweet, my intercooler won’t even come off. I don’t know if it’s melted on to my xbox 360 as mentioned above or if it’s something else. Any ideas on how to get it off?

  18. hi i have a nyko inter cooler aswell because i blew the fuse of the already built in fans so it took them but i still get the red ring with the intercooler on i swear down that the inter cooler is fucking disabled in so shape or form

    im am not against disabled people so im sorry if that affended you !!!

  19. this was genuinely helful material thankyou, i will be examining again below to see any updates. again thankyou

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