Xbox 360 Three Rings Of death repair thread.

[dafeeessh]

I have started this thread in hopes of getting my friends Xbox 360 back to life. Another reason this thread was started was to help any one looking for a free guide to fix this issue. What i have seen on the internet has been pay for only guides witch for some reason makes me sick to think that i have to pay for something that should be free. Moding is not something you should have to pay for the moding community was started with people to cheap to have somthing done for them when it was cheaper to do it them self. So with this in mind i have started a free guide on my favorite forum. This guide will update every night for hopefully two - three nights.


1. Your first step will be to pull of the hard drive by depressing the button and pulling directly upwards. Please set this aside for you won't need it do the end. you will also need to remove the front panel from the Xbox. To do this you will need to put two fingers in the usb slot and pull firmly. The panel will snap off with a good amount of pressure.

2. You will need to pull off the end vents there are three tabs on each side depress these with a tiny screwdriver or other small pointy object. On the top vent you will need to remove one of the rubber feet on the bottom closes to the back of the console.

3.The third step will be to remove the casing. To do this you will need to depress the clips to they snap on the back of the xbox stating from left to right using your pointy object. Be sure to take your time this is the hardest part of taking apart you Xbox. When you get the clips on the back move to the front of the console to the three clips in the front unclip those and the case should come apart. If not make sher all the clips in the back are fully released.

4.now lift the plastic covering off watching the DVD eject button you can ethier pop it off or just be carefull. now you will need to use a torx T8 and T10 use the T8 on the 8 black screws in the middle. use the T10 on the rest. Once all the screws are removed carefully flip over the xbox and remove the top.

5.now you should see the motherboard. to remove the motherboard first pop off the daughter board by pulling it dirictly forward. you will need to remove the plastic air covering by depressing the latch on the back. now remove the fans by pulling them out of the fan slots. now pull the board out very carefully. once out flip it over and remove the X clamp the best way i have found to do this is two use a scewdriver to pop them off going very slow and using minimal force.

6.once the X clamps are removed the heat sinks should fall off if not give it a little pull. once you get the heat sinks off clean off the thermal paste with some alcohol. Now replace the paste with arctic sliver ceramique and replace the heat sinks.

7. Now put the xbox back in the metal tray and put in the daughter board do not plug the fans in. Now plug in the power and A/v cable and let the xbox over heat wait for the three red lights to turn to two red lights. Once the lights turn shut off the xbox and put the xbox back together.

You should be fixed.


if my friends xbox does this again i will report back.

[UZ7]

yeah dont forget to post detailed info on the screwdrivers you need lol... damn torx t8 tamper proof... lol

[Lestat]

there are tons of free guides and a massive forum at xbox-scene.com (the only place really that provides the community and tutorials, everyone else alot of times uses their info)

N O T H I N G fixes the RROD. and you will find that out in a few weeks when it dies again.

towel trick - good for about a week or two
X-Clamp trick - good for a couple weeks or a month if that
misc other different clamping techniques - same thing short term fix to an unfixable issue.

the only fix is the send it in to MS for RMA, remember the RROD RMA is THREE YEARS! everything else is 1 year.

i am not trying to stop you from writing anything i am just stating anyone who knows anything about the xbox or xbox360 knows that xbox-scene is free and never charges for anything.

infact i have never seen a site that charges for this info and if you found some please post them as sitest o avoid.
ebay is another place that charges for this info and its stupid for people to pay for this info.

again write it if you wish we will all listen but i can tell you from personal and community experience, the RROD is unfixable for more than a short period of time. there is no working long term fix. unless you have a BGA oven and can recook the motherboard so the solder resoftens and the BGA balls melt back down to hold the cpu/gpu in place.

[dafeeessh]

well can you tell me the source of the red light of death problem. i can not find a article saying the source of the problem, i read it was heat related so i pulled off the heatsinks and put on arctic ceramique. it fixed it for now if it does it again i will use custom made back plates and faster fans. i told my friend to send it back and he did not listen to me and broke the seals then figuring out he did not know what to do, so he called me. If it was my xbox i would of sent it back. i do not want to finish the guide if it does not permenatly fix the issue. If there is no complete fix i will tell him to start saving money.

p.s what is the X clamp trick never heard of it.

[dafeeessh]

i also read that the solder the xbox 360 uses melts at 300C and the main cause is the motherboard warping and causing stress on the solder joints. so wouldn't a back plate fix the issue. isn't that the reason you use a back plate for cpu coolers so you don't warp and damage your mother board.

here is a link to one of the sites i was talking about.http://3redlightfix.com/?hop=iamken

[angie1313]

I hate to burst any bubbles but Lestat is 100% correct. I tried the towel trick which got me about two more days of it working at the MOST. I broke down and sent it to be repaired. It didn't take tooooo ong either.

[dafeeessh]

the towel trick idea was to melt the solder to reflow cold joints which is nonsense because the solder melts at 300C and i do not think it will get that hot. from what i understand what overheating it does is skip over the three ring code and jump to the overheat code which will let the consol start when it is not overheating. there is no fix to the problem only a temp. fix which might last 10 years no one knows but everyone thinks they do.

[Lestat]

well can you tell me the source of the red light of death problem. i can not find a article saying the source of the problem, i read it was heat related so i pulled off the heatsinks and put on arctic ceramique. it fixed it for now if it does it again i will use custom made back plates and faster fans. i told my friend to send it back and he did not listen to me and broke the seals then figuring out he did not know what to do, so he called me. If it was my xbox i would of sent it back. i do not want to finish the guide if it does not permenatly fix the issue. If there is no complete fix i will tell him to start saving money.

p.s what is the X clamp trick never heard of it.



you've never heard of the X-Clamp and you cant find anything about the cause of the RROD.

you my friend, and dont take any offense to this but, what search engine are you using and where are you searching and what web sites are you going to...?

this info has been readily available for a VERY long time.

the RROD is caused by 2 things. both are the same thing just different areas of the mobo.

1)
the CPU is a BGA style cpu meaning it is soldered directly to the board using tiny little solder balls.
during the soldering process, which is placing the motherboard into an oven and cooking it to make all the tiny solder balls melt, the motherboard flexes from the heat. which is a natural thing. but doesnt allow the cpu to sit seat properly.
then it cools and flexes back, and cracks and pops up at least 1 corner of the cpu. usually the solder isnt broken totlaly but greatly weakened. although there have been plenty of RROD units that were DOA.
when you start gaming the cpu area gets VERY hot, way hotter than anyone here would ever run their cpu in their pc.
the motheboard starts to slightly flex again from the heat (or so they say) the solder underneath the corner of the cpu then breaks loose and causes the red ring of death.

2)
the EXACT same thing happens to the GPU, heat causes the GPU solder balls to become weak and disconnect form each other. Some have reported that its actually the Video Memory thats doing this (thus the penny trick)

what i mentioned above has been proven by a community member who has a soldering microscope and tested and inspected the underside area of the cpu bga. he could clearly see where a RROD xbox had the solder cracked and popped enough to make the system fail where a good working xbox did not have this issue.

To fix this issue MS has implemented 2 things.
a so called better cooling solution which involves a single heatpipe from the GPU to the cpu area. on the end of that heatpipe is a smaller heatsink to dissipate the heat.
the problem is they put it right IN FRONT of the CPU. and the air flow from the fans suck the air from that, thru the cpu then out the xbox.
so what does that do? it adds extra heat to the CPU,,,,

they also use epoxy to hold down the 4 sides of the cpu and gpu.
this is meant to keep the solder balls from breaking loose.
it does work...


fixes -

Towel Trick -

the towel trick as the other guys said is designed to overheat your system and make the solder remelt, except the system never can get that hot. but it does do something because the system will start working for another few weeks or less.
wrap it in towels until the unit shuts down from overheating.
it will do this automatically.

xclamp -

X-Clamp is a new heatsink clamp system that some guys designed and sell that replaced the existing clamps that M$ uses. it puts more force down on the cpu and gpu heatsinks thus creating more downward force on the BGA solder balls.
this has worked for several people, some it hasn't. but its a temporary fix.

Penny trick -

this trick involves putting a penny as a spacer between the GPU heatsink and the ram chips.
when you screw downt he heatsink it creates added pressure...

Heatgun -

your supposed to put tin foil around the motherboard and leave the gpu and cpu exposed.
get a VERY hot heatgun, one that can go over 1000 degrees, and on the front and back of the board go in cirlces around the cpu and gpu "socket" to remelt the solder.
let the board cool completely. then reinstall.
again, the problem is the solder cant melt,, its not hot enough.
but it is hot enough to do something. because just as the towel trick does, the system will come back to life, my first RROD which was a premodded box i bought that died 30 days after i got it. lasted 2 weeks after i did the heatgun trick. i am fairly 100% certain that the a-hole who sold it to me already had the RROD and he just did the heatgn or similar trick then sold it to me. i was not a happy friggin camper... but as usual he wouldnt do anything about it.


You could try heating the pi$$ out of it, then putting epoxy on each side of the cpu and gpu to hold it in place.
that might actually work
i have not seen anyone try that, but maybe someone at xbox-scene has done it.

none of these tricks work,,, not for very long.

the one and only trick that works is calling MS and getting an RMA.
the RROD RMA is 3 years. so you have more than enough time to get your warranty groove on.

if you opened your xbox your SOL, and microsoft has been getting better and better at detecting units that people have opened.


no matter what none of these "fixes" are perminent. (besides an RMA)

and when you RMA it you will get back a new version with the better cooling and the resin on the cpu and gpu to hold it down so it doesnt pop up anymore. (and it doesn't pop up in a visual nature it just cracks the solder or breaks it loose, you have to have a solder scope to see it.)

[m0da]

any idea how to provoke the rrod? I wanna get my 360 modded by m$ before 3 years are up!!
not joking btw. if it's really long, just tell me to search around and i'll be glad to :up:

[YukonTrooper]

any idea how to provoke the rrod? I wanna get my 360 modded by m$ before 3 years are up!!
not joking btw. if it's really long, just tell me to search around and i'll be glad to :up:
Wrap it up in towels and let it run. Keep overheating it until you damage a component. Voila, you have warranty material.

[Lestat]

any idea how to provoke the rrod? I wanna get my 360 modded by m$ before 3 years are up!!
not joking btw. if it's really long, just tell me to search around and i'll be glad to :up:

shame on you, you should not be allowed to have the goddess sung hi lee as your avatar,, your not worthy with an attitude like that.

yes the towel trick will kill your xbox but i can guarentee you that you MAY NOT get the RROD... period.. ther eis no guarentee that the towel trick will invoke the RROD... it will kill your box but unless its the RROD MS will not warranty it.

[KoHaN69]

Wrap it up in towels and let it run. Keep overheating it until you damage a component. Voila, you have warranty material.

but flip it upside down, so its doesnt melt it down, but have it come off? :shrug:

im sure u'll RROD before your 3 years are up, just leave it on for a week a 3d game menu instead, or do the towel trick at 2.4 years.

And lestat- he has a very good point, albeit it seems unethical at first, what would be much less ethical is his 360 RRODing a month after his 3 years are up, and telling him to F off :yepp:

[Lestat]

And lestat- he has a very good point, albeit it seems unethical at first, what would be much less ethical is his 360 RRODing a month after his 3 years are up, and telling him to F off :yepp:

yeah,,, and i've seen MS do that crap too.
but i have also seen them warranty a 360 i got off eGay... they said it wasnt registered to me, i said,, hmm i dont know what to say, i got it from a local game shop as an officially refurbished unit.
lol,, so i was kinda naughty too.

but we dont openly suggest damaging hardware for warranty reasons, that was my point.

the 3d game menu for a few days will get it going.

one thing you have to watch out for is if you have a newer one that uses the epoxy on the cpu/gpu its going to be really hard to RROD.
the epoxy holds the bga in place so it cant pop loose and give you the RROD.

i would be hella mad if i did all that just to get the 2 lights or 4 lights...

[Hutch]

I just got my brother's 360 working again. It was giving the RROD. I'm not into 360 at all, only games I play are rockband and GH2, but I decided to look into the issue further. The problem lies in the lead free solder, and pretty much everything else that lestat said. What else uses lead free solder that has abnormally high failure rates? Dell notebook power jacks and Micron D9's. Dell notebooks are notorious for having their DC power jacks fail. For anyone who has repaired a Dell notebook power jack, they'll tell you that they're different to solder new jacks on because they use lead free solder.

The biggest advantage of the Tin-Lead solder is it's ability to asborb a lot of strain without hardening and cracking, which I believe we're seeing happen with the cancer-free, poor performing solder.

[dafeeessh]

my friends Xbox is still working just fine. no more red rings or any other non normal behavior

[Hutch]

Once you do the towel trick and get it to work, you've got to modify the xbox to allow it to cool the cpu better. Try looking around for low profile server cooling parts, or even laptop cooling parts.

[Lestat]

Once you do the towel trick and get it to work, you've got to modify the xbox to allow it to cool the cpu better. Try looking around for low profile server cooling parts, or even laptop cooling parts.


there was a website who did a mod on the 360 with all laptop cooling fans/heatsinks.

it was a wicked mod,, very nice work but took alot of money and time to do it. and some modding skills.
BUT it worked very well and allowed the 360 to run at a much cooler temp.

you might google for "xbox360 with laptop fans" or something similar to that.

[Hutch]

there was a website who did a mod on the 360 with all laptop cooling fans/heatsinks.

it was a wicked mod,, very nice work but took alot of money and time to do it. and some modding skills.
BUT it worked very well and allowed the 360 to run at a much cooler temp.

you might google for "xbox360 with laptop fans" or something similar to that.


The best laptop cooling parts would be one's designed to cool the mobile P4's. I've got a Mobile P4 3.2ghz w/HT in one of my notebooks and the heatsinks/fans are incredible. They probably weigh more than a tuniq tower yet they're short enough to fit in a notebook.

I'd take a look at 1U or 2U server cooling parts though. They're likely the much more effective and cheaper than laptop parts.

[Sparky]

I just got my brother's 360 working again. It was giving the RROD. I'm not into 360 at all, only games I play are rockband and GH2, but I decided to look into the issue further. The problem lies in the lead free solder, and pretty much everything else that lestat said. What else uses lead free solder that has abnormally high failure rates? Dell notebook power jacks and Micron D9's. Dell notebooks are notorious for having their DC power jacks fail. For anyone who has repaired a Dell notebook power jack, they'll tell you that they're different to solder new jacks on because they use lead free solder.

The biggest advantage of the Tin-Lead solder is it's ability to asborb a lot of strain without hardening and cracking, which I believe we're seeing happen with the cancer-free, poor performing solder.

Can't be as bad as the HP power jack epidemic a few years ago. Those things would come loose all the time, some of them breaking free of the board and blowing the whole laptop up (try to plug in adapter, jack pushes off the board backwards, sending 19V through the circuitry it scrapes across....bye bye magic smoke)