360 died...E74..Attempt repair?

Mine seems to keep working again after I heat it up, so im think about that home kit where you open it up and use some x clamp thing or somthing..anyone know what thats about?
 
If you keep wrapping it in a towel and overheating it, it'll eventually get to the point where it'll be trashed for good. Don't keep doing it.

The xclamp replacement kit involves taking off the stock xclamp mounting clips for the GPU and CPU heatsinks and replacing them with washers and bolts. This helps to keep the board a bit flatter and bodges the GPU's broken solder joints by relying on pressure to hold them together again.

The best method is to heatgun or oven the board to reflow the GPU's solder (or professionally reflow but that's expensive) and then drill out the 8 holes on the underside of the metal chassis where the black screws go in to the xclamp mounts. Then use 12mm M5 bolts to go through the case, put 4x1mm washers on each bolt under the board, put the board in and then put 2x1mm washers on each bolt before putting the heatsinks back on. This'll ensure the board stays flat by effectively creating more motherboard standoffs, thus reducing the chance of it warping and popping more solder balls.
 
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So effectivly your just bolting the thing together abit harder?

Ive read some comments about reflowing the board in the oven, how do i go about that, is that before or after the clamp work?

God dammit, switched it off and on again and now its working!?
 
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cu3ed said:
So effectivly your just bolting the thing together abit harder?

Ive read some comments about reflowing the board in the oven, how do i go about that, is that before or after the clamp work?

God dammit, switched it off and on again and now its working!?
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Why not just tell MS that it has 3RROD? I doubt very much they check when it gets back to the factory just because of the volumes they deal with.

I know others on here have done the very same and it worked for them.
 
So whats the deal with sale of goods act and why are Microsoft exempt from it ?
never understood this whole well it's past 12 months have to pay to get it fixed thing what am I missing ?
 
C64 said:
So whats the deal with sale of goods act and why are Microsoft exempt from it ?
never understood this whole well it's past 12 months have to pay to get it fixed thing what am I missing ?
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I would go down the sale of goods act route myself (well I would probably just lie and say it RROD and send it back). You have to expect a bit of a fight to get it repaired or replaced under SOGA though and not veryone can be bothered.
 
Legally MS should have been seriously done for this, i mean of this was anything else their would be serious repercussions for the poor quality of these things!.
 
True I am very surprised it's never been on watchdog but then again the media are probably in Microripoffs pocket and scared to say anything bad against them.
 
Well ive stripped it apart, what do people think about just swtiching it on without the fans connected, after you have done the x clamp fix to reflow the solder.

TBH im scared of putting it in the oven lol.
 
It seems either way works though I'm not sure which has the higher success rate. Best to wait for replies from more experience people than me :p
 
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Buy an arcade and get it chipped to compensate for what they've stolen from you. :p

Seriously, if I'm reading the OP correctly then it has broke after 12mths? you should contact Microsoft as there is no way they can get away with not replacing it, it's bordering theft selling knowingly flawed hardware and offering only a token extended warranty which doesn't cover all the inherent faults.
 
cu3ed said:
Well ive stripped it apart, what do people think about just swtiching it on without the fans connected, after you have done the x clamp fix to reflow the solder.

TBH im scared of putting it in the oven lol.
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That will never reflow the solder. The 360's solder melts at 218 degrees C. Running the console without the fans will NEVER make the GPU hit 218 degrees C, ever. The only reason this ever seems to have any success is because the heat it does get to (maybe 120 degrees C) makes the board flex a tiny bit.

I personally wouldn't bother with it. A long time ago I had a console that wouldn't boot up straight away so I did try the overheating thing and sure enough it did work ... for a week or two. From reading other people's experiences, this is generally a temporary fix anyway.

In short, if you don't want to put it in the oven then that's fine (although really, the thing's screwed already, what have you got to lose? ;)), just try booting it straight up again without doing the overheating thing. It should work fine anyway, although it won't be a permanent fix.

Also, people are forgetting that his warranty may have been voided in other ways. Possibly from a case/fan mod etc. There's plenty of reasons why he wouldn't be able to send it back to MS, and they don't have to involve anything dodgy.
 
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No, I didnt mod it, so was fine to send back, but after reading everywhere its clear MS dont repair a single failed red light, so figured whats the point.

Ok, oven trick it is, so heat the oven up to about 220 and lean the motherboard in for about 6mins?
Do you do this after the x clamp fix and re-seated the heatsinks.

By the way, after taking it apart, the heat sinks are a ******* disgrace!

edit - No disguised swearing please. Jedi
 
You probably won't need 6 minutes. Around 4 minutes should be fine. Take the heatsinks off and cover all of the capacitors and plastic parts well in foil.

The reason you take the heatsinks off is because with the pressure they're putting on the chips and the heat from the oven, it'll flatten the solder balls and completely trash it.
 
Yes, preheat the oven first. 6 mins is too long, 3 to 4 mins is plenty. Just wrap it up, but keep the GPU, CPU, ANA/HANA and memory chips exposed.
 
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