XBOX 360 REPAIR GUIDE

Hi,
My name is Luke and I have put together this guide to help you fix your Xbox as cheap as possible. I have
fixed many Xbox consoles including the elite version which Microsoft claimed they have fixed. I have
tried to keep it simple for you. I charge people 40 for doing this to their Xbox. My record is under an
hour. This should take you longer if youre doing it right.
This large guide will walk you through taking apart the unit and fixing the ROD issue.
Parts Needed
Electrical Tape
Bubble Wrap
Silver Foil/Kitchen Foil
Unusable Credit Card or Similar
Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink Compound
8 x 12mm M5 screws/bolts
50 x 1mm M5 metal washers
Drill + Drill bit for M5 Screws to Fit in
Heatgun (Paint stripper)
Angle Grinder or Dremil Multi Tool Something to file off some metal legs/standoffs
One of either Nail Polish Remover or Meth Spirits or Alcohol or Isopropyl
Scissors
Sandpaper (any type)
Q tips/Ear Buds (approx 20-30)
Pin of some kind.
Torx T8 driver
Torx T10 driver


How to get the Secondary error code
The E-code only shows up if you get 1 red light, otherwise there is no video output and you cant see
it(for 2, 3 and 4 red lights)...(in rare cases it doesn't even show up if you get 1 red light, proceed with the
secondary error code then)

The specific type of hardware failure can be determined by a "hidden" error code

* Turn the Xbox 360 on, and wait till the 3 red lights are flashing.
* Press and hold the sync up button (the small white one), while holding that button press the eject
button.
* The LED's will now blink the first number in the code (as described below).
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LED's will now blink the second number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LED's will now blink the third number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LED's will now blink the forth number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LED's will go back to the 3 red flashing lights.

You should be able to determine the difference between the 3 flashing lights and the error code lights
by the rate in which they flash.

Here is how you interpret the LED's to get the code number:

* All four lights flashing - 0
* One light flashing - 1
* Two Lights flashing - 2
* Three lights flashing - 3



You will for example get an error code like 0102 if you get 4 lights after the first click, 1 after the second,
4 after the third and 2 after the fourth click of the eject button...



How to take apart the Xbox


At first remove the faceplate, pull it towards you and carefully remove.


2) After that you have to remove the grey covers on top and bottom.
Each of them has 6 clips which you do first have to loosen with the help of a thin screwdriver, a
toothpick or something similar that fits through the holes.
Once a clip is loose you pull the cover up a bit to prevent it from snapping back in...
Some clips are pretty annoying just move the cover around a bit until they finally get loose as well...






















3) Then you will have to loosen the clips on the back of the 360 be the ventilation holes, hold the 360
like shown on the picture.
Then stick a pin in each hole like shown on the pictures and slightly pull out to prevent the loose clip to
snap back in and sorry for the roughness of this Xbox as it is a crappy demo one.










4) Once you are done with that, loosen the remaining clips at the front, then lift the upper part of the
case up.











Only the ones circled in blue unscrew as indicated above.


All unscrewed (red and blue)


6) Remove the Eject-button and then lift the white case.





Thats what it should look like (at least similar to this, there are a lot of different versions...)


7) Then unplug either only the SATA (shown below) cable [blue](if you want to flash your drive) or
unplug both if you are disassembling it completely
Then carefully remove the DVD-drive by removing it upwards.








8) Afterwards, remove the fan-shroud by pulling it up; there is a clip that fastens it in the fan.






9) Then unplug the fan and carefully remove it as well by pulling it towards the middle of the mainboard.
The bottom of the fan has plastic legs bedded into the chassis. Beaware some fan connections are
different














10) Now unclip the little white faceplate and remember the arrows are facing up for when you put it
back on later, unscrew the ROL board and unplug it out as well as shown below.












11) If you unscrewed all screws (red and blue), you can now remove motherboard out of the case.
Do it like shown on the pictures that is the easiest way.




12) Last but not least, unplug the last cables(SATA and power for the DVD).





Preparing the case


This "luke almighty fix addresses many design flaws that still plague the Xbox 360 and keep giving
people the "red rings of death". For one thing we wanted the motherboard to rest on a perfectly flat
surface, which is impossible without a little case modification. Another issue was to advance the
methods of applying even pressure to the CPU and GPU from both above and below the motherboard.
Yet another goal was to find some way to stabilize or reinforce the motherboard to finally stop any
flexing from occurring. As a bit of an unexpected bonus, this fix also helps your system run much cooler
as the whole metal chassis acts like a giant heatsink.

First you must do a little prep work before putting the motherboard back in. The two rounded screw
standoffs are a bit higher than the outer lip that the motherboard rests on. The outer lip is 3mm tall, so
each of these standoffs need to be 3mm as well, or else the motherboard will be flexing no matter what
x-clamp replacement method you choose. Please Note... this mostly pertains to units built before 2007.
We have found some 2007 metal chassis that Microsoft updated, as well as most Elite units seem to
have the fixed chassis as well (There are different versions of the metal chassis, so please check yours
yourself before you go sanding things down.

Sanding the stand-offs



You can stack 3 flat metal washers next to the standoffs to see they are taller than 3mm.



Now stack 4 washers on the inner area of the metal chassis near the x-forms in the middle rectangle
area, and 3 washers on the outer part to see how they are nearly level. Actual difference is estimated to
be .75mm.

So for everything to sit perfectly flat, you need 3mm tall standoffs and 3.75mm between metal chassis
and the motherboard where the screws are.



Next you will need to sand down those 2 taller standoffs until they are level with 3 flat washers.




You can sand it by hand, but might want to use something like a small piece of plexiglass or something
else flat to help sand it to a nice flat surface.




if you have some sort of sanding tool that can sand flat surfaces this can save some time.







This is what the two stand-offs should look like when you are done..







Then recheck the height and it should be exactly 3mm which is the height of a stack of 3 washers. It is a
good idea to check the thickness of your own washers as some cheap ones are not deburred properly
and can give the incorrect thickness. Also nylon washers are not really recommended as they can
become brittle over time and also do not stand up to the pressure as well as steel washers.


Drilling the screw holes:



Now get a metal drill bit with a diameter of 5mm. You can also use a "unibit" step drill bit that can drill
through metal and deburr the holes at the same time.




And drill the holes and be careful to not apply too much pressure so you don't deform the chassis when
drilling.




After drilling it should look like that...




If you take a look on the inside of the metal case you will find stuff that looks like that if a common bit
was used.




Take the sandpaper again and sand all the chippings away until it is perfectly flat like on this picture.




Now you are done with the preparation of the case. Congrats


Turn around the case and insert the 8 screws/bolts whatever you have. If the panhead screws were
used, please add one spring washer to each between the chassis and the screw. This is so the x-form
part of the chassis does not get in the way. The spring washers are not needed with the tapered flat
headed screws.



Should look like that.




Then take the tape,




and fasten the screws with it like that.



Turn the case around and add 4 x 1mm washers on each bolt/screw total amount used in this process
should be 32 washers.

Preparing the mainboard



At first you have to disassemble your mainboard like described in this tutorial
After that you should have nothing but the plain mainboard which will look similar to the one on the
picture(there are many different versions)



Now turn the mainboard to the back side, you should see two big clamps that look like 2 big X, these are
the so called X-Clamps.



These X-Clamps are used to mount the heatsinks on the mainboard, unfortunately they are flexing the
mainboard meanwhile.
Because the flexing the solder balls are under extreme stress which causes them to crack while cooling
down after turning the 360 off.
Sooner or later this results in a cold solder joint or even a bridged solder joint(short) under one of the
chips which can cause the ROD...

Now take the screwdriver and place it in the hole of the X-Clamp that takes the bolt under pressure and
carefully lift the first leg of the X-Clamp up(be careful or you might scratch the mainboard!).





After removing the heatsinks it should look like that.






Now use a wrench to unscrew the old bolts since you will replace them with the machine screws later.



Then you gently scrape off most of the old thermal compound with the phone/creditcard(dont use a
knife it will scratch the heatsink).







You wont be able to scrape everything off with the phone/credit card so get some alcohol and clean the
heatsink from the rest(if something really doesnt get off you can also use some extremely fine sand
paper).





Do the same for the CPU heatsink until both look like that:



Now cut a piece out of your phone/credit card and remove as much thermal compound as you can from
the chip dies.





After that remove the rest with alcohol and Q-tips until you can mirror yourself in the chip dies





Once you have cleaned it to a mirror finish

Fixing the Rod

Reflowing the GPU and CPU with Ram
Be aware, using a heatgun is extremely risky being so close to the motherboard. As it will definitely start
smoking straight away if you dont isolate it properly, most people will have noticed that already.

Reflowing - The following chapters describes the process for fixing and further prevention of
microcracks on the solder balls which join the GPU and the CPU to the mainboard.


This is the bubble wrap I used. Any bubble wrap will do really.


Cut out a hole for the CPU and GPU.


So that it looks like that


Fix the bubble wrap with electrical tape ensuring you close everything so that no air can come through...


Same procedure for the other side, cut and fix with tape


Use some electrical tape to fix the rest on the backside; dont put any foil over the holes of the screws
though because it will melt.


Cover everything with aluminum foil making sure that there are no holes again and secure down with
electrical tape.
!!READ ALL THIS SECTION BEFORE RELOW!!
Get your heatgun and use it on the lowest setting to warm it through for 1 minute from a distance of
approximately 20 cm. The electrical tape will start to show where you missed as it is warming up. Keep a
close eye on the tape; if you notice a gap/hole just pad it down with a flathead screwdriver or something
flat so it doesnt melt your skin from a distance whilst warming up the board from a distance. Now
move in as close to the chips as possible without touching the chips with the gun. Never keep it at the
same spot, move it over the whole area in circles. Heatgun it for around 3 minutes up close and
personal. Dont forget to keep an eye on that tape. You will get a little bit of smoke coming from the
board (dont worry the smoke is generated from the bubble wrap melting a little bit)
This is now fixing the microcracks in the solder balls which join the chips to the board. Also make sure
that you never move the board or accidently hit the table while you are reflowing it because this might
mess it up completely and cause the balls to move out of place

Let it cool down for at least 45 minutes and after that carefully remove the aluminum foil and the rest of
the isolation. You will see that the plastic melted but the most important components are still covered
(like the big caps). If you still got time, turn the mainboard around and heatgun it from the other side as
well (thats what I always do) but the first time should have been enough already. On the backside you
wont have to isolate anything as there isnt anything that melts at low temps just watch out for the
plastic parts (you shouldnt be anywhere near them while heatgunning though because it is not the area
that you want to reflow...)
You could put it back together if you wanted to back to stock/factory defaults without the X-clamp fix
and it will work but, I recommend you do the X-camp fix to prevent the microcracks happening again





This is a little example of what happens if you dont isolate it properly...
On the right side I only used aluminium foil, the big caps that the arrays point at melted at the bottom
and the top is burned and raised a bit. If I wouldnt have stopped when they started smoking I bet they
would have blown up
Now you are done, congrats on that!

Apply thermal compound of the size of a rice grain on each die(half a rice grain for the small die)
If you also want to cool the RAM next to the GPU heatsink apply some thermal compound and install a
metal washer(1mm thick) on each.









Now get the credit card and cut out 7 strips.




Then fasten them with glue or thermal compound on the sides of the chips like this, make sure they are
not touching any resistors on the chips (little tiny chips). You will still have to cut the strips to the
perfect length.







When you are done take the perfectly clean GPU heatsink and press it onto the GPU and the CPU.




Take the heatsink off again and check if there is residue of thermal compound and make sure that it is a
square for each chip die, at least the center ones. If it isn't take the credit card pieces for this one of and
fasten them on a strip of electric tape like that.




Then sand it down quite a bit and when you think it is thin enough stop and retry if you get a good
imprint of thermal compound.
This step is very important because this is how you can check if the heatsink is taking the center chip die
properly under pressure if there is not a complete square it doesn't make contact which is fatal for the
fix.
In 90% of the cases you have to sand the credit card stripes down, at least for the GPU...

When you are done, it should take the outer part of the chip under the same equal pressure like the
center die, be very accurate, this step is very important for the long term success of the fix.




This is a good imprint of thermal compound!




After that apply thermal compound on the RAM and stick a washer on each.

Now you have to go on with the case again...

Installing the mainboard




Now take the mainboard and carefully insert it into the case. Do it very slowly and once it is in the case
keep it in horizontal position, watching out for the screws...




This is what it is supposed to look like when you are done, once the screws fit you might still have to
move the mainboard around slightly so that the 2 plastic pins fit properly(one is under the memory
ports the other under the USB ports).




When it sits properly add two additional metal washers (1mm) for each screw, in total 16(8x2 washers)




Then stand up on its side, watch out that you don't overdo it or the washers will fall off...




Then screw the screws in a bit one by one, only like two turns for each until all 4 are in...




Screw them in with your fingers only at first, as you don't want to tighten it up completely yet. You only
want the heatsink to be fast enough so that it doesn't fall off while screwing the other heatsink in, DONT
USE THE SCREWDRIVER YET!!!




Then put it back in vertical stand, double check that all washers are still in place and put the heatsink on.




Now tighten the screws again with your fingers only, just like before and screw the mainboard to the
chassie first with the other screws you took out when taking apart the xbox. Red ones (obvioussly
forgetting the middle bit) below







Then tighten all screw/bolts up to the maximum with a screwdriver. When it is snug, loosen each screw
by half a turn again as this is necessary because you might still get the error. So if you've tightened the
screws and still have the ROD, loosen the screws slightly until it goes away. If it is too tight it often still
shows the certain hardware error...



Put your xbox back together and that's it if you did everything right. Your xbox should now be fixed. If
you should still have issues try different adjusting the tightness for the screws, as always you must find
the perfect screw setup since every xbox differs slightly.
If this still doesn't fix it you might have to heatgun the unit. Also make sure that you have checked that
your secondary error code can be fixed with the x-clamp fix as this can save you a lot of time

Many thanks

Luke
http://www.tlsystems.co.uk/
http://www.tlsystems.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=5&sid=4f61e4ff7237808bdde1e9a88f12fa54