Anyone ever try to fix their own RRoD?

[purbeast0]

I'm going to try and fix mine tonight, using this following method here.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/..._light_x-clamp_fix.htm

I'm going to go to home depot on my lunch break and see if I can get all the parts that I need to do this. I'm going to do the XClamp fix on both the GPU and CPU (since i will have it open and might as well). This XClamp fix is a little different than the normal XClamp fix.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has fixed their own, and if so, was it successful and anything I should look out for?

 

[Kev]

are you out of warranty?

 

[Trader05]

i just repaired mine. The hardest thing i ran into is getting the old paste off the cpu and gpu without the artic silver cleaner, i used isopropyl alcohol.

 

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
I'm going to try and fix mine tonight, using this following method here.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/..._light_x-clamp_fix.htm

I'm going to go to home depot on my lunch break and see if I can get all the parts that I need to do this. I'm going to do the XClamp fix on both the GPU and CPU (since i will have it open and might as well). This XClamp fix is a little different than the normal XClamp fix.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has fixed their own, and if so, was it successful and anything I should look out for?

I didn't use that guide because well I didn't feel like drilling. I used the usual methods and also heat gun the thing.

I fixed up 2. one I bought new that was out of warranty. then I bought one on ebay and fixed that up too.

If you're up for drilling these guys method is supposed much better. But its a lot of work.
link

 

[bdubyah]

I fixed my first 360 due to me voiding the warranty. It was made in early 07 and was a non-HDMI unit. I fixed it in early October of last year, but ended up keeping the one I bought to use while i was fixing it, so I sold it to a friend from work. I'm not sure how much it gets used now, but as far as I know, it is still going. I didn't have any problems with the process.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: Trader05
i just repaired mine. The hardest thing i ran into is getting the old paste off the cpu and gpu without the artic silver cleaner, i used isopropyl alcohol.

I was going to get some elctronics cleaner at radio shack when i go get the arctic silver, hope it isn't too tough heh.

i just went to home depot and had no luck at all finding the screws and washers. im going to try a more mom/pop shop tonight after work.

i picked up the drill bit though.

also, when you did the CPU as well, did you do any overheating of that to get the solder to reflow there? or did you simply just replace the washers and put arctic silver on it?

and yea i'm out of warranty, had my 360 since launch.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

I fixed mine but slightly different than the link you posted. I didn't drill anything, and I also did not "overheat it".

The hardest part was opening the 360 case, because on the back there's like 2 little slots on the left and 5 on the right. You have to push them all in at once. What I did was find an old CD spindle and cut it up and marked the slots with a marker, and cut them to size (looked like a wolverine claw haha), then pushed that in the slots and it popped open. A little time consuming but it worked. Took everything out, removed the clamps and cleaned the chips (both cpu and gpu) with rubbing alcohol and about 50 qtips. That took the longest time. There was almost NO thermal paste on both of my chips. It had all run off around the sides, so it was a thick mess. That's why it was overheating, nothing was ontop of the chips. I just bought a 2 dollar tube of paste, nothing special. Globbed that on (I put on a lot more than the tutorials said) Put it all back together using the screws and nylon rings, and worked fine. I did not over heat it with no fans and all that beforehand. It was a lot easier than I thought, just slightly time consuming

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure
I fixed mine but slightly different than the link you posted. I didn't drill anything, and I also did not "overheat it".

The hardest part was opening the 360 case, because on the back there's like 2 little slots on the left and 5 on the right. You have to push them all in at once. What I did was find an old CD spindle and cut it up and marked the slots with a marker, and cut them to size (looked like a wolverine claw haha), then pushed that in the slots and it popped open. A little time consuming but it worked. Took everything out, removed the clamps and cleaned the chips (both cpu and gpu) with rubbing alcohol and about 50 qtips. That took the longest time. There was almost NO thermal paste on both of my chips. It had all run off around the sides, so it was a thick mess. That's why it was overheating, nothing was ontop of the chips. I just bought a 2 dollar tube of paste, nothing special. Globbed that on (I put on a lot more than the tutorials said) Put it all back together using the screws and nylon rings, and worked fine. I did not over heat it with no fans and all that beforehand. It was a lot easier than I thought, just slightly time consuming

cool.

i've taken apart 360's probably 30 or so times so it takes me all of about 5 minutes to get down to the motherboard heh

the one thing i'm not certain about is why that one tutorial mentions drilling the hole larger. i have a friend (online friend) who has done that fix i posted and i'm waiting to ask him why the drill was necessary.

a coworker of mine boug this kit and did this...

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360...&qid=1248286180&sr=8-1

which looks to be pretty much exactly what i'm trying to do, and it's pretty damn cheap. however it does not have any mention of drilling in the instructions because he's done it, and i'm actually using the 360 he fixed currently.

 

[Trader05]

purbeast,

i bought the xecuter kit pro (which i probably could of got a generic kit on ebay), there was no drilling involved or heating. I just took everything apart, seperated the board from the motherboard base and took off the xclamps. My processor heatsink didn't even seem like it was on at all, the GPU came off like normal. I used qtips and paper towls with alcohol to try to rub off the old paste, it was a royal PITA for me. I just applied AS5 like i would with a regular cpu, thin layer spread with my finger tip in a baggy. You have to take the xclamp screws off the original heatsinks with pliers. They gave me the torx screws and 8 nylon washers and 8 metal washers. The head of the screws went behind the board with no washers, and between the board and heatsink was the washers, with the nylons on the board end. Put everything back together and it was working fine, i've been playing on it like crazy since sunday.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

Originally posted by: purbeast0

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure
I fixed mine but slightly different than the link you posted. I didn't drill anything, and I also did not "overheat it".

The hardest part was opening the 360 case, because on the back there's like 2 little slots on the left and 5 on the right. You have to push them all in at once. What I did was find an old CD spindle and cut it up and marked the slots with a marker, and cut them to size (looked like a wolverine claw haha), then pushed that in the slots and it popped open. A little time consuming but it worked. Took everything out, removed the clamps and cleaned the chips (both cpu and gpu) with rubbing alcohol and about 50 qtips. That took the longest time. There was almost NO thermal paste on both of my chips. It had all run off around the sides, so it was a thick mess. That's why it was overheating, nothing was ontop of the chips. I just bought a 2 dollar tube of paste, nothing special. Globbed that on (I put on a lot more than the tutorials said) Put it all back together using the screws and nylon rings, and worked fine. I did not over heat it with no fans and all that beforehand. It was a lot easier than I thought, just slightly time consuming

cool.

i've taken apart 360's probably 30 or so times so it takes me all of about 5 minutes to get down to the motherboard heh

the one thing i'm not certain about is why that one tutorial mentions drilling the hole larger. i have a friend (online friend) who has done that fix i posted and i'm waiting to ask him why the drill was necessary.

a coworker of mine boug this kit and did this...

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360...&qid=1248286180&sr=8-1

which looks to be pretty much exactly what i'm trying to do, and it's pretty damn cheap. however it does not have any mention of drilling in the instructions because he's done it, and i'm actually using the 360 he fixed currently.

I bought almost the same thing off ebay, just with a few less things since I had rubbing alcohol and screw drivers already. I didn't drill anything and I have no clue why that one page says to drill. If you buy that kit from amazon you won't need to drill. Like Trader05 said too, you'll need some pliers to get the heat sink off, otherwise that kit has everything you need

 

[RaiderJ]

Fixed two RRoD 360's. One w/ parts from Home Depot, another with a kit like the one linked to above. Time consuming, but works well enough. If I were to do it again, I'd just buy the kit. Worth the time savings rather than trying to go to the store and dig around for the parts.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Did it to mine last year, it worked even before I did the overheat, guess the pressure fixed it. Still working.

I used parts from home depot and ace hardware, which was time consuming and annoying. Once I got the parts the mod was easy as pie.

I also did a mod that provides more airflow over the GPU heatsink.

 

[skyofavalon]

just do the switch -a-rooey with bestbuy,wal-mart,kmart, whoever. The store doesnt get skrewed,they just send it back to Microsoft.Its easier and you get a brand new unit. I just did my 2nd one. I have an April 2009 arcade model now.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: skyofavalon
just do the switch -a-rooey with bestbuy,wal-mart,kmart, whoever. The store doesnt get skrewed,they just send it back to Microsoft.Its easier and you get a brand new unit. I just did my 2nd one. I have an April 2009 arcade model now.

congratulations on fraud.

anyways, no luck tonight at the mom/pop shop. going to try lowes tomorrow which i have heard does have the parts. i just didnt realize there was one near my job before i went to lunch today lol.

i did take my 360 apart tonight and took the xclamp off and cleaned the cpu and stuff.

man the xclamp just feels very cheap and thin. cant believe they didn't just bolt the heatsink down to the board.

 

[Auryg]

I've fixed 4. 4 are still trucking along after at least 1 year and the other went kaput.

 

[biggestmuff]

Excuse my ignorance, but I've never had an issue with my 360 (I guess I will now ) so I've never bothered to research or even begin to care about the issue.

What is the xclamp? Is it the x-shaped, metal bracket? What does it do? Is it supposed to hold the heatsink firmly against the CPU and the GPU?

What does the community believe the problem to be? I'm guessing the xclamp is loose or becomes loose, therefor the heatsink is decoupling from the CPU/GPU?

 

[Spineshank]

I have a little side gig fixing these on Craigslist. I have used Team Xecuter's RROD kit which works well but it is way over priced. I also use the heat gun method.

 

[purbeast0]

well i am overheating the GPU right now.

as soon as i powered on my 360 though to overheat it the RRoD was gone. i figure I'll let it overheat to reflow the solder though so that it (hopefully) fixes the problem for good.

i'll report back after

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: biggestmuff
Excuse my ignorance, but I've never had an issue with my 360 (I guess I will now ) so I've never bothered to research or even begin to care about the issue.

What is the xclamp? Is it the x-shaped, metal bracket? What does it do? Is it supposed to hold the heatsink firmly against the CPU and the GPU?

What does the community believe the problem to be? I'm guessing the xclamp is loose or becomes loose, therefor the heatsink is decoupling from the CPU/GPU?

the xclamp is this x shaped clamp on the underside of the motherboard. it is clamped onto these metal prongs sticking out of the heatsink and holds the heatsink in place.

the problem i believe is that as the console gets hot, the xclamp kind of warps and causes the security to the heatsink to come lose, and that in turns makes everything hot and causes the solder to come undone in certain places.

the xclamp really is a crappy design, i can't believe this isn't just secured to the motherboard by screws or something. the quality of the xclamp is pretty flimsy as well, except for the center portion. and you can just pry it off the heatsink parts with a small screw driver pretty easily.

oh and i figured out why some people don't need to drill holes like i did.

it's because some methods have you screwing the heatsink directly to the motherboard, w/washers between. so its screw -> washers -> mobo -> washers -> heatsink. the llama.com method has you screwing to the metal chasis that the motherboard is screwd downto. so its screw -> chasis -> washers -> mobo -> washers -> heatsink.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
well i am overheating the GPU right now.

as soon as i powered on my 360 though to overheat it the RRoD was gone. i figure I'll let it overheat to reflow the solder though so that it (hopefully) fixes the problem for good.

i'll report back after

Success? Still working?

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure

Originally posted by: purbeast0
well i am overheating the GPU right now.

as soon as i powered on my 360 though to overheat it the RRoD was gone. i figure I'll let it overheat to reflow the solder though so that it (hopefully) fixes the problem for good.

i'll report back after

Success? Still working?

oh damn i forgot to report lol.

yea all seems to work well. i gave sf4 about an hour run last night and it was holding strong

 

[UpgradeFailure]

Originally posted by: purbeast0

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure

Originally posted by: purbeast0
well i am overheating the GPU right now.

as soon as i powered on my 360 though to overheat it the RRoD was gone. i figure I'll let it overheat to reflow the solder though so that it (hopefully) fixes the problem for good.

i'll report back after

Success? Still working?

oh damn i forgot to report lol.

yea all seems to work well. i gave sf4 about an hour run last night and it was holding strong

Awesome :thumbsup:

 

[Dari]

I had a witty comment but this is just crazy. Good luck to all.

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: skyofavalon
just do the switch -a-rooey with bestbuy,wal-mart,kmart, whoever. The store doesnt get skrewed,they just send it back to Microsoft.Its easier and you get a brand new unit. I just did my 2nd one. I have an April 2009 arcade model now.

Is this where you buy a new one, replace the unit with your old one, close the box and return it? Because if you were to just return the one you have they would know by the serial number that it didn't come from their store. It happened to a friend of mine when he tried to exchange his PSP that he bought at Gamestop to Wal-Mart. The look on his face was priceless when the woman behind the desk looked up the serial number in 5 seconds and asked him what he was trying to do.