XBox 360 problems

[Tedzed1]

I am now onto my fourth Xbox 360, and yet again, guaranteed problems have arisen, tonight the box kept freezing, switched off, and would restart again ok, then after a while, the dreaded 3 rings of death, so on check it threw up error code 0110, which points to RAM or RAM/GPU connection problems, once it has cooled down, it works ok again for about 15 mins.

the problems with the Xbox, is most of the critical SMC's are cold soldered, and microsoft were often slated as to not providing enough cooling provision with their method of heat shielding, so it looks as the GPU processor needs reflowing, now I have tried this method myself in the past with a hot air gun without sucess, and ended up with nearby electrolytic caps swelling and evacuating their innards, I think the problem was I overdone it a bit, so what to do with this box, it has had an X-CLAMP kit fitted in the past, (the point of the clamp kit is it puts more pressure on the SMC than the original Xbox clamp) and worked for quite some time.

I have seen and heard of many versions of the hot airgun fix, but can you believe everything on YouTube

Has anyone on here got the facilities to reflow SMC's, or any idea on the correct way that I could do it with a hot airgun, I have even seen a demo of someone doing this with a blowtorch, straight onto the heatsink,
but I think this worked more out of luck.

I know it is a longshot, but has anyone on here got a reflow station, and would be willing to try the repair for me, they will be suitably recompensed for trying.

to give you an idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDukXDn5TjI&feature=related

And this is the fix I tried in the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO03wLx_Nlg

[Tedzed1]

ITS FIXED:omg: Well I had nothing to lose, so gave this a go,

Seeing as the original microsoft clamps had been replaced in the past, the originals which are just clip on are basically tensioners that hold the heatsinks onto the CPU and GPU with only a moderate pressure, these are removed, add substituted by 8 screws, with a flat washer and two nylon washers per screw each side of the board, the nylon washers are supposed to give the correct gap between heatsink and motherboard, to exert a little extra pressure on the heatsink.

so substituted the clamp kit screws for 8 longer screws of the correct thread, and 8 metal washers, and 8 nuts, so fitted the nut and washer to the bolt first, then pushed the bolt through the motherboard, screwed it into the heatsink, then tightened the nuts, until there was firm pressure on the heatsinks.

so I now had a board with heatsinks firmly attached, and 8 bolts protruding about half an inch below the bottom of the board.

now this is where it gets silly, the next stage was to place it on the GEORGE FORMAN grill, to sort of pre-heat the board, and I left it there nicely warming away for about 10 mins checking the temperature every now and again, making sure nothing was looking amiss, or any electrolytic caps expanding.

So when it got to about the medium rare stage:D, out came the heat gun, set to medium heat, and worked it between the two heat sinks for about 4 minutes, then onto high and the same technique for about 1 1/2 minutes, off with the grill, and heat gun on to cool for a further five minutes, to bring the temperature down slightly.

switched off, and then left it for about half an hour to cool right down, then removed it from the grill, I could hear it making tinkling noises in the kitchen as it was cooling.

When it was finally cool, removed the bolts, and refitted the clamp kit originals, inserted the switch unit, DVD-Rom drive, and power lead, and hit the on button, to be greeted by one green light, instead of the dreaded 3 red lights, I could not believe it at first, I was sure I had cooked yet another board, (tried to fix one before, and ended up with swollen caps), so reassembled it , and tried a game.

It is working perfect, no problems at all.

Was this luck, or a well executed bodge. I did not believe this would of worked, but as the console was dead anyway, I had nothing to loose

[tiv48]

i dont belive that microsoft have still not sorted this out , mt younger brother has an xbox elite and has gon back twice with overheating problems
rob t

[Tedzed1]

Hello Rob, yes the failure rate is horrendous, they brought a re-designed chipset out a couple of years ago (codename jasper)
that slowed the failure rate down, but the new slim version of the xbox 360 has supposedly overcome this problem.

Only time will tell.

[dennishoy]

Well if anybody wants a 360 to experiment with, there are always loads going in my local auction at around £10 without PSU or £15-£20 with the PSU.
I'm fairly sure none are working.