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[Bassachusetts]

Hello, I am fixing an Xbox 360 for a friend, it has E74, at first I thought, no big deal I've fix a million e74s, but then it turned into an epidemic. I've tried every method that I know to attempt to repair this console, I have tried: XCLAMP Fix, Heatgunning (multiple times), and the penny trick and I have had nothing but brutal failures. Does anyone know of any further methods I could attempt that could fix this console? Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Guys!
-Bass

This post has been edited by Bassachusetts: Jan 10 2010, 11:19 PM

[gregcy89]

hello there mate
i have the same problem with my elite...
ill try to help you out....but you must first tell me if this xbox 360 is hdmi equipped......
ok?
 

[ste030]

hdmi xbox's are really bad for this

[Pikeyp]

Hi,
I'm afraid the only way that you are going to be able to repair this unit now is probably by reworking the GPU with an expensive Infrared Rework system.
I have one and have fixed quite a few now using this method but they are expensive to purchase.

Hope this helps....

Regards.

 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This post has been edited by Pikeyp: Jan 15 2010, 10:32 AM

[iTry]

I have 2 hdmi e74's that i used a griddle preheater and hot air rework gun with bga nozzle y1919
Clean off all exsisting traces of thermal gel with rubbing alcohol or arctic clean (i used arctic clean)
Preheater set to 177 celsius
Place clean motherboard on preheat about 3/4 of an inch from the heating surface
Place bga nozzle as close to your motherboard as you can without touching it directly above the hana chip
Turn on hot air rework station half air power at 100 celsius, wait one minute
Turn up to air power 60 at 200 celsius, turn off preheater, wait one minute
Keep at air power 60 turn heat to 300 celsius 3-5 minutes
Let cool one hour
Replace thermal gel and heatsinks

Shousl be good to go, i have one e74 that has run no problem for the last 6 monthes,
the other is a new repair so far so good

I use a BlackJack bk4050 for my rework station
I dont use hardware store heatguns, or hot air welders as they are NOT designed for bga repairs
And i dont have enough cash for a IR rework station
None of my repairs have ever come back and have repaired 45+ consoles

Hope this helps
If anyone has any more rework tips for me i would love to hear them =)

[gregcy89]

hey guys....
i wanna tell you something but its really weird...
the first time when i fixed my 360 elite(hdmi of course) x-clamp from ebay , it lasted 1.5 month
then it kept freezing untill rrod appeared
then i did it again and it lasted 2 weeks and then every day....
the weird thing is that when i did it for the last time i just repeated evey step of xclamp and  I LOWERE THE DISPLAY OUTPUT and it works 5 days with hard playing evey day....(4-5 hours without a single stop)...
its really weird .....isnt it?
i believe its the ANA chip which does the 1080p scaling
thats why many elite with an hdmi output are unfixable.....but they can be fixed by lowering the output resolution after you perform an xclamp fix successfully.....
thats why im asking  Bassachusetts  if he has hdmi on his 360.....

This post has been edited by gregcy89: Jan 17 2010, 09:26 AM

[jeffrey92]

options:

-putting in oven for a few hours at a low temp to try to unflex board --> then do xclamp

- complete oven reflow (should do the trick)

in my experience, e74 has always been a gpu problem so focus on that. Also, I personally recommend to remove epoxy before a reflow. you can do this by heating up the board... get a pan or something and heat it up really nice for a good 5 + minutes and then use a popsicle stick or small screwdriver to carefully remove epoxy before you do the reflow

[Machine15825]

Putting the xbox in the oven is a HORRIBLE idea.  Putting it on a griddle at 3/4inch above will flatten the MOBO out...   And more times than not its the hana/ana related not gpu related...   but that is just my experience.

[Copter64]

I had the same issue with my xbox getting E74 time and time again.  Heatgunned it a bunch and kept getting e74, finnally i decided after heating I took the back of my screw driving after heating it for about 3-5 minutes and put pressure on the HANA chip and held it there being careful not to move the chip at all.

While holding it there I decided to use the heatgun and turn it onto cool and blew the heat off while keeping pressure on the chip.

Haven't had any issues yet.

And e74 is RARELY a gpu issue, most gpu issues don't even allow video to display at all.

This post has been edited by Copter64: Apr 10 2010, 09:12 PM

[Copter64]

Just got some Liquid flux to try to reflow my HANA chip, worked good but for how long.  This time I will try to keep it at 1080i just to try it.

[nitz0]

From my experience, it's usually ALWAYS GPU related. I literally repair 20-30 consoles a week using BGA Re-Flow machine and I only focus on the GPU. Most errors do lie under the GPU, even if it's E74...

Like I said, I Re-Flow GPU only and have 98% success rate on first Re-Flow, even on the ones previously repaired/heat gunned.

Also, heat gunning is a bad idea and it's just going to ruin the solder balls under the BGA's as you're pushing too much heat/air onto the solder balls, they need to be slowly increased by a few degrees a second.

If you can't get it going, send it off to someone to get it repaired.  Check out 360RepairKings via Ebay($25)

[Copter64]

I think I may need to 12v mod my falcon

I have been playing on a xenon that I have fixed and it has been running great.  But I want to just use my HDMI instead, so I think I may just end up using the 12v mod or try to make the dvd external then use a cpu heatsink on the GPU, i'm sick of the crappy thermal design.

I may end up removing the shroud keeping the back fans around 6v then putting my big fan at 12v, but i have to figure out where the hell to put my DVD-drive.

Any suggestions?

Here is my current setup, but the gpu of course is blocked by the DVD....

[gregcy89]

nice mod dude but i still believe the dvd drive won't let the gpu to cool enough so.....the only way is to do the ''dvd drive out'' mod....its easy....all u got 2 do is to dill a 2cm diam. hole in the upper case cover of your 360 and 'baang' it's ready. you will be impressed...for example after playing a game for 2.5 hours...the gpu heatsink will be cold as snow! and even more colder if u put 2 cpu heatsinks ( the new silver version - falcon one)
i placed one on cpu
one on gpu
120mm 2.000rpm fan outside+the dvd drive is outside.....COLD!

[Crawler]

i know this may sound crazy, take of the gpu heatsink, and on the sides of the smaller chip, cut 2 thin strips of a credit card, and put them on the side of the smaller chip, assemble the heatsink, turn it on, if it still has E74, let it overheat, and it should work

[MorboTron]

One piece of advice I have to give to the topic at hand is to check the metal housing itself.  On 3 different Falcon models I have had in the workshop, The metal housing was warping or bent a bit.

After re-flowing the motherboard (Read as HANA and GPU with a rework station and preheater, NOT heat gun), and straightening the metal housing out, all three have been running for 5 months, 3 months, and 3 hours respectively.  The first two had E74 occurrences over and over again until I straightened the metal housings.  I think it may have to do with the housing flexing the motherboard while the board is warm and distorting it as it cools.

No this is by far not a be-all-end-all fix, because there is distinct possibility of a bad chip, but the three most recent systems I have repaired are showing no issues.

So, check those metal housings.  It could be part of your issue.