ive treated my xbox 360 like it was my life i was guarding and no RROD for me yet. but it scratched 3 of my CD's- one being halo 3 (but it was only partially scratched so it kinda works stil).

Wow. I know the 360 HW sucked until recently, but I think we should commend your 360 for lasting so long with that heat. I bet it was like burning your hands. :)

I thought the elite was supposed to fix the RROD issue? Maybe I was wrong. Lets hope "Jasper" removes this issue completely.

Most people suggest you to cool better the replacement XB you'll get: given the fact that without that RRoD MS wouldn't fix more and more worryingly frequent E7x errors under guarantee after the minimum mandadory period, I'd make quietly stew the replacement too until it RRoDs, just to punish MS: you have another console too, haven't you, so you won't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting again for a replacement...

The Elite has nothing to do with the RROD issue. His Elite was 1 1/2 years old, so it had probably not even a Falcon chip.

Next time you better read the OP more carefully.

But the top of the 360 gets hot, so in what way are people in the thread wrong?

If the system's actually getting hot on the top or bottom, it's not going to matter one way or the other anyways. It shouldn't do that.

And even so, placing something on top of it would actually more likely act as a heatsink than anything else, and pull away the heat, since it's not blocking your airflow.

It's a simple matter of physics and computers, guys. The 360 is no different in these respects than the millions of systems prior.

Are you saying it's fine to block the ventilation holes on top of the console? And it's also fine to put another heat source right on top or below the console?

 If you look at the picture,the hot air from the back HAS NOWHERE to go...but the wall. Indeed,keeping it in an opened space is good,but the hot air from the vents needs to go into an opened space also. Try redirecting the box so you`ll have no problems in the future.

Hope I was helpfull

While you should never block any ventilation holes, those ones are mostly useless if you've got the two ends (HDD side and opposite) unblocked. I've tested them for airflow and it's incredibly minimal.

Additionally, I very, very much said nothing about another heat source being okay. You're an idiot if you run something else that creates heat while you're running your 360.