Tag Archives: XBOX 360

XBOX 360 – Red Ring of Death — Round 2 = FAIL, or did it?

Well, a good fix, but not a long term one, the firs time around.

XBOX 360 – Red Ring of Death — Round 1

So, this time I’m going to implement the X-Clamp fix, a more advanced repair of the box. Here is a video that basically covers what I am doing (this is not my video, I’m a much more exciting person than this dude).

Another relevant video. Between the two, there information is there on executing the ‘fix’ I’m attempting today:

Parts list for implementing the repair:

8 5mm .80pitch 12mm long socket head screws.
36 M5 washers
16 #10 nylon washers
1 vial of Arctic Silver CPU head sink paste

After following instructions from several sites, I used the above parts to try the X-clamp repair. After implementing the repair and hooking the XBOX back up to the TV, the 3 rings of death remain.

Looking over this ‘helpful’ Microsoft support page. Based on it’s diagnostic trouble shooting tree, it *might* be the power supply this time. Great. I guess I’ll have to go to one of those used gaming stores and see if I can get a power brick or at least plug mine into another XBOX and figure out if it’s the brick. Pathetic, overly complex, under-engineered device. Makes me wish I’d bought the PS3 or Wii instead.

I did notice that my XBOX seems to have upgraded cooling components.  You’ll notice that the CPU (large block) and the GPU (two piece sink) are quite a bit larger than the ones pictured in the online guides and videos above.

xbox_2523

Never the less, it has GPU cooling issues that resulted in the RROD (Red Ring of Death) .

After discussing this with my pal Steve in Reno, he prompted me to do a little more research on exactly which MB I have in this machine.  It turns out I have the ‘latest and greatest’ MS fixes for the heat issues (well, except the ‘glue’ used on the Elite systems) implemented in my ‘Falcon’ Motherboard, as noted by Wiki page, here:

Xbox 360 Revisions

Falcon

IBM 65 nm CPU

IBM 65 nm CPU

ATI 90 nm GPU and smaller embedded DRAM chip

ATI 90 nm GPU and smaller embedded DRAM chip

All Xbox 360 Premium machines and Arcade machines manufactured August 2007 introduced the new 65 nm CPU accompanied with a new cooler and still 90 nm GPU with the Zephyr cooler. The motherboard is based on Zephyr and requires fewer components (some capacitors and coils removed) for the new 65 nm CPU, resulting in lower costs.

XBOX 360 – Red Ring of Death (how I fixed my XBOX)

Arg…  just a matter of time before my XBOX died, it would seem.   While I was out having a fun vacation, the XBOX 360 was left on by the kids.  At some point it overheated and started to display the Red Ring of Death:

rrod_2198

I tried most of the common external efforts to reset a faulted piece of hardware.  Power cycled, removed power, performed a series of power cycles, left it unplugged for days,  everything I could think of that would help with a typical computer failure.

DID NOT WORK.

Interwebs to the rescue!   After a short Google for articles on the problem, I found a number of YouTube videos showing various ways to fix this annoying problem.  Watching them, they seem to fall into three categories:

Over heat with towels method

Penny method

Heat sink / X-Clamp fixes

Following reviews of various methods above (and I’m sure there are others) I decided I would first try a variation of the ‘Penny method‘ mentioned above.

Others have already documented this process, so I’m not going do it here.  What I will say is that my hybrid penny fix worked, at least for now.   The only change I made to the described Penny Process was that I used 2-penny stacks instead of three.  Another video I watched showed a successful fix with only 2-pennys, and that also allowed easy re-assembly of the C-clamp screws with the shorter penny stack.

There was a trick that I had to watch 4 videos to find.  That is how the proper sequence for removing the outter plastic shell.  I made the mistake of starting on the front (after removing the front panel, which you need to do first, BTW).  After removal of the little grey side panels (snap-crackly-pop, they will come out with careful prying) I tried to go for the ‘easy’ snaps on the front of the enclosure.

It tuns out you should unsnap the REAR of the enclosure first.  The little ‘slots’ across the back are access to a series of snapping clasts across the rear.  Use a small flat-blade screwdriver that will fit IN the slots to push in on them, until you hear a good snap.  Sounds like something breaking, but.. nothing did.  It’s just the way it work.  Once the 8 or so snaps are released, pull the rear apart.  It’s sort of tight, but it does come apart.   Once the rear is seperated, the front is of course very easy to unclasp.  Watch the little DVD/CD drive door button, you’ll need to futz with that a bit.

rrod_2202

Once 1/2 of the plastic over is removed, you’ll next need to remove the long silver (6 of those)  T-10 (that’s torx size 10, very small, for those playing at home).   Once those six are out the other side of the cover comes off, and you have something that looks like this:

rrod_2206

Now, one last photo.  I can’t say this with any certainty, but it was posted by others that the main issue is those crappy ‘band-aid’ heat transfer spounges on tops of the RAM chips.  There are 4 of those things.  The various penny fixes involved shoving tape wrapped pennies between the metal case and the chips to provide a more conductive material interface.  I used stacks of 2 pennys on each chip, tape wrapped then, reusing the bandades by peeling off the other side of the double-stick ‘band-aids’ fastened the penny stacks to the chips, re-assembled the case and tested.

rrod_2207

Following the ‘post-fix-overheat-to-reset-and-re-melt-heat-transfer-grease’ method, I fired up the box with the fans unplugged until I saw the TWO flashing red ring segments.  This indicates a full-overheating of the chips.   I let the machine cool down, plugged back in the fans, re-installed the fan duct (not seen in any of my photos) and….  VOILA:

XBOX 360 LIVES!
XBOX 360 LIVES!

Sure beats having to sign up for Windoze Live to start an ‘authorized’ repair request.  Microsoft can just ……………….     (you fill in the blank).

So, for litteraly 9 cents (8 pennys and less than 1 cent of electrical tape) I was able to fix the machine.  Of course they could have just put a proper heat sink on those chips for.. hm.. I’m sure less than 8 cents, but no..  just like Microsoft software, they only do an 85% job, and end-user repairs are generally required.