If you’re one of those suffering Xbox 360 owners experiencing the “red ring of death” for the second, third or 14th time, don’t go crying to GameStop.

The monster game retailer  has stopped replacing Xbox 360s that suffer from fatal lock-ups, according to a few store staffers among the 34 GameStops and EB Games in and around St. Louis.

The staffers spoke on condition of anonymity this weekend; an official statement from GameStop on the Xbox policy hasn’t been released. GameStop Corp., based near Dallas, owns EB Games.

For the six of seven of you out there who haven’t suffered the ring of death yet, the term refers to three of four lights around the Xbox 360’s power button flashing red instead of green right as the system stops functioning.

A number of blogs claim to offer home-brew solutions, but tech inspectors in Europe say Xbox 360 suffers from internal design flaws that are exacerbated by the high heat the system generates. The red lights symbolize a hardware failure, not a software crash.

In July, Xbox 360 retailer Microsoft extended the system’s warranty coverage in answer to the red-ring-of-death complaints, but that applies to exchanges made through Microsoft directly.

The Game Guy hopes to get a formal reply on GameStop’s Xbox 360 policy this week.

Microsoft has apologized for the high Xbox 360 failure rate, estimated by GameStop at around 30 percent. Most companies withdraw hardware from the market or issue product recalls if the failure rate exceeds 2 percent.

It’s believed that Xbox 360 users are tolerant because of the system’s huge library of games, including big hits such as “Halo 3.” But if retailers such as GameStop lose patience with Xbox 360, it’s likely that gamers may not be far behind.