On 360 fats how did the red color rings happen? Did the heat from the system cause a transmutation causing the chemicals in the green lightbulb to turn red (similar to neon lights)? Or did microsoft, in addition to green light, also build red lights into the 360 to notify costumers that there is an internal problem?

Really?

yes. I've been wondering this for a while.

They originally had included a red LED set up in the power start up area to notify of a problem.  They removed it with the S model they now have out.

oh ok so it was built to notify problems like this gotcha

And it became so symbolic of a problem, that they decided to get rid of it.  I believe also they save a few cents by only having a green LED in there instead of also including a red one.  They still give a message out saying there is a problem, just not with the RROD.

it might have even elminated some of the problem getting rid of the extra lights. more places for the heat to go :p

But it wasn't automatic like many believe. Actually, inside every old XBox360 there was a dwarf serving as cheap general purpose controller, including thermal management. When overheating started getting the dwarf's ass burnt, he switched on the red lights, begging for mercy.

It all started with a thing called Big Bang...

You know, you can have dual-colored LEDs.

The idea behind the ring was to serve 2 purposes:

1. To show when it was booting up, and how many controllers were plugged into the 360.

2. To troubleshoot issues with the 360 in the case of an issue. Each quadrant meant a specific problem, if it was red. RROD was the 'Red Ring of Death', which was the display when 3 of the 4 quadrants were red - meaning your X360 was bricked.

Now, if your wanting the other answer as to why RROD actually happened to the 360, the simple answer is 'Cheap thermal paste on the GPU'. Got too hot, and came off. More development time would of solved it. Over time, it was fixed through a mixture of a GPU clamp, better thermal paste, lower wattage demands (thus cooler temperatures), and better ventilation system(s).

A Slim 360 is vastly cooler, temp-wise than the originals. I've owned 3 different generations of 360s, so I know this too well.