xbox 360 Red Ring of Death

TDevlin

TDevlin

TDevlin

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3 Nov 2011
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286
I've had a good run with my xbox, got it in 2006, so have had it a while and unfortunately that means it's out of warranty. I've ruled out all the basic fixes by turning it off and on, reconnecting all cables and the hardrive etc, but none of these work.

The main problems are the screen freezing and graphical corruption, and occasionally the three red lights come on as well. Also in the short time I can play it before it freezes up on me again, it appears to run much slower through the menus with increased loading times.

Is it possible to repair the console myself and has anyone else on here given it a shot?
 
Camalot said:
Is there a kit you can buy off the bay? I x clamp or something?
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not sure mate, maybe. I've done a bit of research today and the most popular fix seems to be taking it apart, removing the CPU and GPU heatsinks and reapplying thermal paste. Think I'll give that a shot once I've found a decent free guide on how to do it and bought myself any tools I might need.
 
Buy an XBox 360 repair kit on eBay. The most effective repair involves opening Xbox, putting the main board in the oven to reflow solder or using heatgun, replace X-Clamp and then applying more effective thermal paste. That should bring her back :). Make sure you follow online tutorials word for word, especially when putting main board in oven!!
 
Xecuter 360 RROD Repair Kit Pro II *LATEST VERSION

Got all you need in this kit.Bit more expensive than fleabay ones but the bolts in this kit work without having to drill bigger holes in the metal plate/box
tuts on the team xecuter site
 
I've repaired many a RROD's. It's fairly cheap and easy to do.

Anyway, go onto eBay and search for RROD. The cheapest ones at about £1-1.50 will be just the basic screws/washers, but pay a little more, maybe £3-4 and you'll get a kit that has screws/washers/paste/decent guide/opening tool and screw drivers needed. Also if you have decent CPU paste like Arctic Silver etc, use that instead.

I would go for one of kits with everything if you dont have the tools etc.
 
My xbox had the RROD for over 2 years but I didn't really care as im away most of the time and I have my laptop. I used one of the kits(ones like the £4 ones mouse mentioned) around a month back and its still going strong.

It takes a few hours to do, which i was surprised about as i heard it was quite a quick process, but the guide I got with mine explained everything in more than enough detail.

Basically it involves taking all the sides of the case off, removing the drive, cooling fans and heatsinks and removing the old paste. Then replacing it and resecuring the heatsinks with screws instead of the old x clamp(If you're lucky yours will work at this point, if not the next step is required). You then overheat the GPU for 30 mins or so by positioning the fans so that the sensors dont register the console overheating. Then all thats left is to just put it back together.

The only risky part for me was removing the old x clamp as you have to lever it off with a screwdriver or something similar. I should also mention that depending on what thermal grease the guys at MS used between your components and heatsinks it can be a right pita to remove.
 
Cheers for all the advice, that's me been on ebay now and bought myself a kit, so hopefully it'll come in the next few days so I can make this a wee project to do next weekend.
 
Was just thinking, is it necessary to get an anti-static wrist strap, or take any other precautions for static electricity while working on an xbox?
 
TDevlin said:
Was just thinking, is it necessary to get an anti-static wrist strap, or take any other precautions for static electricity while working on an xbox?
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No need for an anti static wrist strap but it wouldn't hurt to touch a bare piece of metal on the back of a pc case(or something similar) before you start.
 
Reeve said:
No need for an anti static wrist strap but it wouldn't hurt to touch a bare piece of metal on the back of a pc case(or something similar) before you start.
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cheers, I'll do that then. Just making sure I've got everthing I need before I attempt this.
 
If you got The cheap kit Remember what I said earlier about the bolts touching the case. it can/will warp the mainboard, If they are too big . they have been on the cheap kits I have bought from the bay
 
That set looks OK to me. The nylon washers are important.

My RROD took almost 3 hours to fix. It's quite fiddly taking it to pieces, but once you've done it once you wonder why it took so long :)

The instructions that came with my kit got me to run the system without the fan on for about 45 minutes to make sure the GPU got extremely hot. No need to use an oven/solder iron etc. Mine has been running perfectly ever since, now over a year since I fixed mine.
 
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That is exactly the same kit I used to fix my RROD, it does the job perfectly. I'm still using that small tube of thermal paste on my PCs :D
 
I don't remember having any problems when I did mine and it has been working fine for 18 months.
 
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