Xbox 360 - Random green/red tinge on screen?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Hi,

I've had a 360 for years, bought it back in 2006 when GoW came out. But after the first year of ownership my game playing tailed off and it hardly got used. For the last 4 years all it's been used as is for playing streaming media now and again (and I mean once in a proverbial blue moon) so it's had a fairly easy life.

Until GTA V came along that is. Have been playing it fairly regularly since launch but again, not for marathon gaming sessions. Anyway, last night I was playing it and all of a sudden the screen went green with the odd thick line of red. It flickered a bit then calmed down and returned to normal. It then repeated this about 30 mins later when it started doing it again and continued to do so every ten minutes or so. I switched the console off and restarted it an hour later after it had a chance to cool down. Worked fine for about another 2 hours then did it again.

Is this common? Is it an overheating issue? I took it apart this afternoon and cleaned it out but it wasn't very dusty at all inside. Is there something that can be done to address this issue? I'm thinking maybe remove the heatsinks and replace the old thermal paste with something like AS5?

Any advice appreciated. :cool:
 
Sounds like what I had with my first Elite 360. Was within its 12 months, sent it to Microsoft and it come back days later with a new motherboard with the smaller processor, but kept the original heasink. It ran so cool, fans rarely had to spin up!
I like you didn't use it much, and it was kept in a well ventilated location.
 
Yeah, mine is kept in a well ventilated location too. Last night out of curiosity I flicked the switch on the part of the cable which goes into the rear of the Xbox from 'HDTV' to 'TV' and switched the console on. It played GTA V for 3 hours with no graphical issues at all, albeit the display was blurry and rather rubbish because it wasn't displaying in HD. I guess that worked because the GPU wasn't being pushed as hard maybe?

Thinking of replacing the old thermal grease with MX-4 paste which I have here. And possible doing a case mod to fit an externally powered 120mm fan on top of the case. I looked at 12v fan mods for the stock fans, drawing power from the DVD drive but it seems that this can cause read errors with discs which is far from ideal. Not confident of soldering onto the motherboard so an externally powered option would seem to be the best solution. Having said that, I'm not sure all or any of the above will cure the green/red screen glitching.
 
I had an issue like this but it turns out it was screen burn in from watching snooker. :o I need a new TV it seems.
 
Coincidentally, the TV I'm currently using it on does have a little screen burn and I'm having a new TV delivered next week. Also, I've had a few more thoughts. Some folk it would appear are runing their 360's with the top of the case removed to assist cooling? Also, I've got a laptop cooler which is USB powered, was thinking of sitting the Xbox on top of that to get some airflow through it to see if that helps?

Will be interesting to see if it is indeed the TV which is at fault. When you quit a game suffering from the green/red tinge issue and go back to the Xbox dashboard, everything is fine again. I would have thought that if there was an issue with the GPU it would still happen even at the dashboard screens?
 
Draeger said:
Coincidentally, the TV I'm currently using it on does have a little screen burn and I'm having a new TV delivered next week. Also, I've had a few more thoughts. Some folk it would appear are runing their 360's with the top of the case removed to assist cooling? Also, I've got a laptop cooler which is USB powered, was thinking of sitting the Xbox on top of that to get some airflow through it to see if that helps?

Will be interesting to see if it is indeed the TV which is at fault. When you quit a game suffering from the green/red tinge issue and go back to the Xbox dashboard, everything is fine again. I would have thought that if there was an issue with the GPU it would still happen even at the dashboard screens?
Click to expand...

It's more likely to happen when the system is running hot, which would be in-game.
 
TheVoice said:
It's more likely to happen when the system is running hot, which would be in-game.
Click to expand...

Agreed, certainly makes sense. But you would think that when it gets to the temp which the problem occurs at that when you switch immediately back to the dashboard the problem would still be there at least for a minute or so until the components cool down. But as soon as I switch back to the dashboard the problem vanishes and everything is ok. Rather weird.

I've just removed the case lid etc and will try running it with that off to allow the hot air to escape more efficiently, see if that helps.
 
The solder on the GPU/scaler chip is probably degrading... this is what started happening on my first 360 until I eventually started getting "Resolution not supported" type messages on my TV and no signal, I thought it was my TV at first but nope it was the Xbox at fault.
 
I wonder if dropping to 720p from 1080p would help by giving the scaler a bit of an easier time? The difference to the eye between 720p and 1080p is marginal anyway is it not?
 
Hmmmm. I removed the case completely so the unit is sat naked with the heatsinks etc fully exposed. Been playing GTA V since 7.30pm non stop without any graphical glitches so far (touch wood). So it could be that its simply overheating a bit and causing the green/red stuff. Not an ideal solution to leave it this way as the Xbox itself usually sits under our TV on a glass shelf in the living room and we have an inquisitive 3 year old who would have a good poke around the innards of the case I think. Perhaps it is time to renew the thermal paste and carry out the fan shroud mod. I'm reluctant to 12v the rear fans as it would seem many have had issues doing this when it comes to the DVD drive and lacking power etc.
 
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