My 360 burned up

[Modding_out]

Originally Posted by Unsullied_Spy

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.

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

[BrianG]

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.

[Modding_out]

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.

[emaxxnitro]

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

[Modding_out]

Originally Posted by BrianG

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 obviously didn't read the rest of my posts

[brijar]

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

[Modding_out]

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.

[Unsullied_Spy]

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.

[Modding_out]

sounds good to me 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.

[Unsullied_Spy]

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.

[J57ltr]

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.

[Unsullied_Spy]

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.

[lutach]

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.