I'm thinking of buying an Xbox 360.I have 2 options:Buying a fully-working second hand one for around 120€,or buying one with rrod and fixing it with those repair kits (llama's is the one I've heard it works best).So,my question is,should I take the risk and buy an rrod one,or just save up for a bit more time and buy a fully working one?

There you go:http://rapidshare.com/files/222600759/Xbox_360_3_Red_Lights_-__Error_Repair__-_Guide.rar
Password:T6he0race

Thanks,that's the best guide I've seen till now.The images help.

Although,I'd like to ask,has anyone here tried repairing it?

mmh... before all, do you need a specific version of the console?? if no, mind that newer consoles (after august 2011 if I remeber well) are very hard to hack because of their dvd drive, and the old phat model sooner or later will cause some problem, specially for older versions without hdmi... so you have to evaluate if it's better to have an used one for 120 € (this mostly depends on wich version it is.. a slim would be great I think) o a new still unhackable one (but with 2 years warranty) for 150 € (souhld be the retail price).
For the used one, you must check if some repair attempts have been done.. if so, I wuoldn't go for it because you don't know what happened and maybe is too damaged (burned / overheated in repair attempts).
As for my experiece my xbox was bought new and after 5 years had e74 error (very similar to rrod) and I fixed it myself a few moths ago but was not easy at all... I followed one of this guides but the problem came un again repeatedly so my solution to repair the console was:
0)take the console apart, disconnect the 2 fans, let it overheat with a small towel over cpu and gpu heatsinks to have it work again (very similar to the classic towel trick).. I know this can be distructive and shortens the console's life ecc... but I had nothing to lose...
1)let it cool down, replacing the thermal paste on cpu/gpu
2)tightening both heatsinks
3)adding one small fan under the second heat sink of the gpu (the small one at the end of the heat pipe) in upside down position so that hot air is blown on top of the console
4)installing a small heatsink on the hana chip
5)drilling a 12 cm hole on top of the console case and putting a very very high flow (88m3/h if I remeber well) fan to cool the GPU
6)moving the dvd drive outside as it's space is occupied by the big fan (it's screwed on the case just above the GPU)
Now the console works very well after 3 hours of halo reach there is a minimun difference of temperatureon the gpu's heatsink and the problem was eliminated.. it's only a little uggly to see but I prefer to have it ugly instead of having a new one.

if you want can post pictures or give you more details

Why would the old,phat model cause a problem?I'm thinking of getting a black,Xbox Elite.

well the problem is mainly due to bad engineering of the console structure: cooling is inadequate fo the heat generated specially by the GPU. This is easy to find if you see the inside... the gpu has a tiny pentium 1 look-alike heatsink with the dvd drive just on top of it. MS updated the hardware a couple of times adding an heatpipe and another small heatsink for the gpu and varying the form of them. You can run a small search on google or read the italian (google translate ) wikipeda's page about the 360 (the english page has not this description) and you'll find about the heatsink. Personally I can tell you that all of my friends that had the first gen phat xbox had to replace it because of rrod, mine wich is the first one featuring hdmi and the addition gpu heatsink had the problem a few months ago.. this is why you should check the version you are getting. I also suggest you to to a little searching on more xbox specific forums has you may find very useful informations and advices; there you'll read about the phat problem...
By the way, Elite is only a different look, the board is the same as others so don't rely on this, to chek the version of the hardware, you may find detailed description on google.

If it's only about cooling,the guy who sells it also provides an external intercooler for like,5 extra euros,so I guess it makes it better.

EDIT:Checked Wikipedia,the Elite version I'm considerin (and every other option that I'm considering,for that fact) have HDMI and 120GB HD.

The thing is that the Elite has RRODed,and the guy sells it for just 45€,while my other options are normal,white ones with 100 to 90€.I was just thinking if I could get that Elite one,and repair it.

Yes 45€ is not much and appears to be great if hdd and joystick are included (at least you can use them for another console), but for the console itself be sure nothing has been done yet otherwise may be very hard to repair if someone messed with it...
oh, I forgot, check that the console isn't banned

I will ask all these,thanks for the help.It also turns out it's 35€ with wireless controller,120GB HDD and Intercooler.I sent the guy an e-mail.Hopefully he hasn't sold it yet.

yes, 35 € is a great deal... If it doesn't work, simply sell the wifi adapter and the hdd and hopefully you'll make more money thay you payed it!

Just um... dont do the towel trick. People who say you should need to be taken to a nut house. It ruins your console more.

Look, I came across this: my console was dead and I was not about spending 75 € (minimum) for a good GPU/CPU reballing service, so before throwing it away I tried a similar metod (described some posts before) and now works wonderfully... so I saved it, I don't care if it's gonna die earlier than one correctly reballed (that no one assures you isn't going rrod again), because I saved my money and I keep it in case I want to buy a brand new one... I think that those who where behind this problem should be taken to a nut house, not us that we paied 300 € (+ games +accesories +live = great amount of money!) for a defective product!

I'm not going to do the towel trick.I'm going to replace the thermal paste and the 2 X things.

This hardly fixes the console because simply pushes the CPU/GPU togheter with the mobo (similar to the penny / 5cent trick), it's a good way to prevent rrod again but to have to console restored you have to repair solderings between the mainboard and the GPU/CPU and this can be done with the towel trick (and similar), with an heat gun (easy to kill the console forever trust me!) or desoldering both chips, unballing, reballing and reinstalling (need professional tools and knowledge). My choice was the one similar to the towel trick because for me it looked the easiest, less destructive one (once, with a friend we tried the heatgun on his console, but too much heat bended the board destroying other components). After the towel trick, I replaced thermal paste and tightened the X-clamps, but only after! else, you overheat the console with new thermal paste inside and to have it efficient you should replace it again... Anyway there may be other solutions out there! let us know

My suggestion is to buy the Slim 360. Its gotten better at preventing itself from overheating because Microsoft did some changes. Plus, its not as loud or as ugly as the old model.

Old look is really cool for me...

For me too.And after I apply the fixes to the old one,it can prevent itself from overheating better than an untouched one.

i also prefer the older model

I have the old and like it (by the way, the curved surfaces were made to match the top of the first xbox and that's cool!), as for the slim model, trust me guys, the new one is far more silent and the integrated wi-fi adapter make it desiderable to me for the overheating problem, let's wait a few years... mine is a jasper (if I rember well) and I was said it that was rrod immune.. but e74 happened a few months ago so...

I don't know if that specific one (the Elite) in the ad I saw was a jasper or not.But as for the Wi-Fi adapter,30€ or less can easily get you one.

that's right but I hardly use live as I don't have subscription (I only download some game extensions and demos) so I don't really need it... but it's a great accessory to have, so maybe I'll get it

Turns out the guy in the ad with the xbox 360 elite has already sold it. I found some other ads too that I'm considering. If anyone finds an ad or offer which sells worldwide, RROD or not, please, do tell.

the easiest way, give a look on ebay there are hundreds..

Of course, did you think I haven't? But how many of them ship to where I live?

Sorry, I didn't know that the shipping was a problem.. anyway, you're in europe and most european sellers sells worldwide.. or you can do a search on foreign ebay, email the seller, present yourself saiyng you're very interested and telling him a specific way for shipping to your country (so you don't have bad prices surprises)...