My 360 burned up
 

I was watching some movies on Netflix the other night and I got the 2 flashing rings (overheating). I gave it a few hours to cool and tried to start it up and it immediately went into the red flashing rings. I tried to file an online repair form with MicroShaft and they said my warranty has expired. It's a 3 year warranty and I bought the thing in Feb. 2008 and the Manufacture date is 01/26/2008, so despite not being able to find my receipt they should still be able to replace it. I E-Mailed them and we'll see if they can do anything about it. Otherwise, does anyone have any requests of how they would like to see a $550 XBox 360 Elite get blown apart? I'll try to fix it myself first (supposedly you can scrape off the crappy thermal paste and put on some Arctic Silver and be OK) but if that doesn't work I'm thinking 12 gauge 00 buckshot would be cool to see in slow-motion.

I havent had a lick of trouble out of my ole trusty N64.:lol:

My N64 is still going strong as well. Bought it used 6 years or so ago and used it a TON, still works like new.

fix it your self and sell it at at discount, no reason to destroy a perfectly good xbox.
what I understand the red ring of death to be is a glitch in the system that after it over heats it goes onto this vicious circle were even after it's cooled down it's still telling it self it's to hot to run. And the only way to break the circle is to "heat cycle" (bad) or the "penny trick" (good).

what beaks the cycle with the penny trick is you have to disconnect the power supply along with every thing else to fix it, and the penny's just keep it from happening again.

If it happens to my xbox I'll do a full wright up on here doing it the right way, with a fan, custom made heat sinks, and thermal epoxy.

(look it up on you tube you'll see how it's the best method out there but could use some improvement)

send it to Eovnu87435ds. He did the same thing to his xbox and fixed it the correct way.

I planned on trying to fix it first, if that doesn't work it's history :diablo:

Is that penny trick on YouTube? I've got the power disconnected right now, I'll plug it back in and see if it has reset itself.

EDIT: Plugged it back in and same thing, it got partway through the intro part and the fans went nuts.

yes it's on youtube......good luckhttp://www.oldminibikes.com/forum/im...s/thumbsup.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsz0l...eature=related

Thanks for the link, I'll look into it. This thing is MINT, not even a scratch on it, so I'd like to fix it rather than blow it to bits but at the same time it would be so satisfying...

EDIT: That penny trick is intriguing...who'da thunk? Makes perfect sense, I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. All the other vids I've seen and the guides I've read (no I didn't buy any, that's stupid IMO) all said that I needed to polish the heatsink surface, replace the thermalpaste, and add/remove washers from those X-clamps.

ya, a lot of the "fixes" are really stupid, and make no sense. lucky with rc cars we(rcm) know all about thermal conductivity air flow.... the penny trick is the only one that makes sense, tho better heat sink/contact could be come up with for the mod. I have heard that the x braces limit air flow, but I have no idea how true it is.......

If I were you, I would buy these:http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...108-096-04.jpg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-096-_-Product


and some thermal adhesive:http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-2406711..._2070_86774670

http://www.coolerguys.com/840556003083.html


it's pretty self explanatory after you watch the vid I showed you....these heat sinks will work way way better than the pennies and they won't shift like in the vid. but I guarantee you will have to cut some sheet metal out of the case to clear, but it has that plastic side panel to you'll never see it, and you'll never have to open it again.....I don't know if yours has the vent on that side, but if you drill some grid lined wholes right above the heat sinks it will work even better.

I have seen companies selling aftermarket cases for the 360- larger, but with much better cooling possibilities. Makes them look like like a mATX pc....

Um, well, destroying it pretty much removes any chance you have of getting a warranty replacement/fix.

Was your 360 in an area that it could breath easily? Throwing it inside of a cabinet is a great way to slowly cook hot electronics

Not recommended. I used a Nyko intercooler on my last 360 and it fried the power plug port and actually melted it.

Countless hours on my 64!! Still works!

I was thinking the pennies were a bit of a silly "fix." Sure they will transfer heat, but electrical tape doesn't conduct heat too well.

I like those cases, Lian Li makes a really nice one.

If it's not going to get fixed, what else am I supposed to do with it? I'm E-Mailing back and forth with MS tech support right now, hopefully they'll fix it under warranty. If they won't fix it I'll try to fix it on my own. If that doesn't work I'll take my hard drive off of it and blow it to bits.

I'm not stupid, I know what heat does to electronics. I've been building computers for about 10 years and the cooling has always been one the primary focuses of my builds. It was placed flat (horizontally, so it couldn't fall over) on a plastic table with nothing obstructing any of the vents on any side. It sits in front of my TV but there's 7-8 inches of room between the back of the XBox and the front of the TV, I know 12 inches is optimal but it "overheated" while watching a movie on Netflix.

Are you talking about watching a Netflix movie online? or popping a DVD in?

I've been trying to link my Xbox to my computer for the longest. I'm having issues with the security on the router. Any clues?

That's the same thing I thought went I watched the video, "I was like, there's much better heat sinks out there than pennies" but it was the tape that got me I was like, wth?
So to me after you glue those copper jobs on it sounds like it will work well. The sinks I linked to you are for video card ram, and that's exactly what gets over heated on the xbox. 4 chips of RAM.....I don't know what it goes to tho:neutral:

That vid was full of crappy advice. Thermal paste is only marginally "sticky", electrical taped pennies do not transfer heat that well (but apparently better than band-aids), penny surface is irregular, and regular silicone paste is not going to damage components if it gets on the mobo.

Just get some aluminum the same thickness as the bandaids, trim them to size, and thermal epoxy to the chips. Or if you want to remove them at a later time, use the very thin thermal pads.

You guys were talking about mod cases, who's to say you can't take a micro pc case and mod it to fit? you can find them for cheap and it wouldn't take to much effort......hmm I got my self think'in now.

just clean it out dust is the problem
when mine red ringed it was dust on the processor heat sink

You obviously didn't read the rest of my posts:whistle:

Ahhh no! send it in! It's still under the 3 year red ring of death warranty, if you're getting 3 red rings! We bought our Xbox 360 about 2 years ago and it just recently gave us the 3 red rings of death. It said that the warranty had expired, but that is only referring to the standard warranty, not the extended warranty that MS put on all xbox 360's (for the 3 red rings problem only). Just go through the warranty process online and when it asks you what the problem is, say 3 red rings and the repair cost will be $0.00. Any of the other options were $100 lol. I would suggest just printing off the shipping label rather than waiting for a box to be shipped to you (idk if they still do that, though).

It really should still be under warranty for the 3 red rings. I could be misunderstanding the problem tho, so sorry if this is all irrelevant :P

Good luck,
Brijar!!!

hes getting an overheating problem. you need to get yourself some arctic silver. 8 5mm screws and 16 washers, clean the old thermal paste off(lighter fluid i found works great!) take off the stupid x clamps. apply the new paste and bolt the heatsinks down, 2 washers under the heatsink usually works great, those "chips" that he put pennies on dont get hot, its all about the gpu and cpu that is causing the errors. after you re-attach the heatsinks unplug the fan and let it get the 2 red rings, then you will be golden, ive fixed more then a couple this way

interesting......I looked up what you said, and it appears to be a bad heat sink connection that's causing the gpu to over heat and not the ramm?

I'm still clueless on fact of what causes 3RROD, as there are a lot of contradicting noobs out there with cheesy or dumb "fixes".....but I do have a bit of info....to reset your xbox after you've completed your 3rrod fix you must unplug the fan let it get the two red rings turn off plug the fan back in again and it should start up from there. This has been verified by several sources.

If you really want to go custom you could get a LianLi Case and put a good computer cooling system on it.

This room is pretty good as far as dust, I've got one of those Ionic Breeze air filters and it keeps the dust down really well. I blew through all of the cooling holes and almost no dust came out (after nearly 2 years of use, that's good!) So far I have my repair manuals (and several people) telling me it's a heatsink clamp problem, and others saying the VRAM is overheating. I think I'll go ahead and get those heatsinks, they must certainly work better than the stock thermal pads right? At the same time I'll do the X-clamp removal and hopefully that will fix it.

That video recommended using the "Towel Fix" to reset it. Can I get away with using a different method? I don't anything about fixing an XBox, but I know that it will cause a massive buildup of heat that could seriously damage components.

sounds good to me:yes: I would do both to.

try the fan reset, if it don't work for you do the towel method. but like you said, it just sounds really bad for it.

I figured I'd be better off doing them both now, can't hurt and doesn't really cost anything for the extra insurance.

I just got an E-Mail back from XBox support. Apparently I needed to read the fine print on the warranty, it's only 3 years for the 3 red lights or the 1 light with E74 error. I'll order some thermal epoxy, more Arctic Silver (can't find mine), and some ramsinks.

I wouldn't even jack with it. Just get a hold of someone that will give you an RMA number to send it in. You aren't talking to "tech support" You are talking to a room full of morons in India somewhere. It doesn't matter if you are on the phone or through email. They are not techs they are just reading a flowchart that tells them what to tell someone next. I still have the emails. They will even try to BS you so talk to customer support and if you don't get an RMA right away, ask for a supervisor. If they tell you they are a supervisor then tell them you want to talk to someone else. If they give you any crap, hang up and call back like it's your first call. If you can't find the receipt, it shouldn't matter the build date is within the warranty period, Period.

Sometimes you have to make a stink, No need to drop F-bombs but get your point across. Remind them that the PS3 just dropped in price and how you will tell everyone that will listen that the Xbox is a POS, and Microsoft will not honor their warranty.

I had a problem where I had downloaded to the HD and then after a few days it wouldn't play and gave me a weird error about not being able to read and needed to be downloaded again. My problem at the time was that the door would not open and I was stuck with whatever was in the player except Forza 2 that wouldn't play. I went round and round with their "tech support" who gave me useless info ("is it plugged in?") Duh it's on you moron. I finally sold it to a kid that said he could fix it and bought the arcade version.

To me if you are not technically proficient you should not be in tech support. One of the first rules of troubleshooting is know the equipment.

Jeff

Or you could do what a guy I know did and buy a new one then swap the guts and take it back.

Microsoft wouldn't warranty it, so I did the X-Clamp fix to it and it boots up and runs now. The problem is that it still thinks it's overheating, I fired it up and did a quick test drive in Forza 2 and after 1-2 minutes the fans started speeding up again so I shut it down. I was testing it without it completely put back together but the fan shroud and everything was all attached, it was just missing the covers. I check the heatsink temp on the GPU and it was at 100 degrees (perfectly acceptable temperature for computer hardware) and the CPU didn't even feel warm so I didn't bother checking it. I still have the factory thermal pads on the RAM and they were at 95 degrees, so nothing was actually overheating. I took the shroud off to see if I could notice one of the fans not spinning right and they appear to be working just fine. It seems to me that the XBox is confused and just thinks that it's overheating when it really isn't. Any ideas?

EDIT: Appears to be fine now, I let it sit on the dashboard for a little bit and the GPU temp came up to about 100 degrees and stayed stable there. I played some Bankshot Billiards and it only hit 104, then a Terrorist Hunt in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 got it up to 117 and still stable. I think it's ready to go back together now. Must have been the new thermal compound taking a little bit of time to set up.

PS3 rules (PS4 will be better). I have left it on for days with no trouble at all. GT5 rules and it'll be added to my GT collection. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNvWwGX51d0 (little kids don't click the link, grown folks lingo)

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Wow lutach, wasn't expecting that out of you. That's like someone posting a problem about their T-Maxx and people jumping on them for not buying a Savage...

My fingers went out of control :lol:. I like that one prank call though. I never got the hang of the 360's control.

lol, glad it woorked out for ya dude, its funnhy how badly 360's are built when ya take em apart huh?

Oh geez, it's one step up from cardboard and duct tape. I don't know who designed the hardware on the XBox 360 but he needs to be fired.

tell me about it i have been through 4 of em so far.

That sound a lot like the stuck rotor on the Novak HV ESC. Once it thinks the damn thing is stuck there nothing you can do to change it's mind. Other then send it in for a 75.00 blipping upgraded esc. :grrrrrr:

It worked for a few weeks, now it's back to the 2 rings. I tried tightening down the heatsink some more and it went up to 3 red rings. Backed off the screws and let it sit for a while and it runs for maybe 3 minutes before the fans go nuts again. I have been going over every component on it and none of them had exceeded 105 degrees at the time of shutdown, that's well within the acceptable limits of the hardware.

Forza 3 comes out in 3 weeks, I am really tempted to go buy a new Arcade and put my Elite's hard drive in it and then either toss my Elite or keep it for parts (I may take the case off and put it on the Arcade, the black looks SO much better).

Just buy the Elite and be done with it. Or if your a COD fan, reserve the special edition 360 Modern Warfare editon with two controllers and the 320gig HDD.

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/images/bo...ContentsLG.jpg

don't the 2 rings have some thing to do with the fan?

HEHEHE, so I am not the only one who uses the "lifetime replacement warranty procedure"!!! The only way to fly, IMO. Wlmart has gladly taken back many "new" itews from me, no questions asked. Why should I pay twice?

Designers these days are all snot nosed brats straight out of college... (said in a very winy voice, the kind that belongs to a kid whos mom wiped his ass thill he was 15) "I deserve this designer job, I went to college and made a 3.0 gpa..."

I would presonally like to open hand pimp slap (with the left hand, no less) all of this little POS kids. Some of the crap I have to deal with trying to repair these days is beyond reproach... Just let me get my hands on them, it will only take a few seconds to get my point across!

Go Novak!!!