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[leorimolo]

Ive thought my xbox was dead it had  black screen for weeks. Then one day it turns on? WTF was that?. I read and found out about cold solder, I Also knew my xbox had error 102. So it worked, no freezing, nothing until yesterday it started freezing again with weird grafical errors on the screen. Now this got me thinking couldnt it have been caused by the cpu? maybe melting the siolder on the two ram chips that lie under? If not what explains these sudden frezees?

LEo

[twistedsymphony]

"cold solder" is really a "cold solder joint" meaning no electricity can flow through it... so no data can be transmitted between the chip and the motherboard the lines are "cold"

heating it up causes the solder to re-melt and potentially FIX the problematic joint.

[iLLNESS]

fyi, cold solder joints are generally caused by blowing on the joint after soldering it to cool it down

but aside from that, when a normal joint becomes cold it is generally caused by the joint constantly heating up to a high temperature and cooling down over and over

this is a common problem with the main assembly relay in hondas cars (takes around 10 years for the joint to become cold though)

but as far as cold solder for you, i highly doubt thats the problem. if your feeling lucky, you could take a heat gun to the back of the motherboard so all the joints will reheat and the solder flow again to remove any possible cold solder joint. personally i wouldnt though as you may damage some components.

[Chancer]

QUOTE(iLLNESS @ Aug 11 2006, 05:51 PM)

fyi, cold solder joints are generally caused by blowing on the joint after soldering it to cool it down

Ermm not really.
the problem usually occurs when  a soldered joint is not heated sufficiently to cause correct solder flow to occur.
Cold or Dry joints are very common when low powered soldering irons are used  in an attempt to avoid damage.
Poor production process causes poor solder joints which eventually get worse with heating/cooling and expansion/contraction of the PCB

[leorimolo]

So how come it only freezes when you play real games and not in the dashboard

[Tito2k6]

QUOTE(leorimolo @ Aug 11 2006, 06:51 PM)

So how come it only freezes when you play real games and not in the dashboard

Don't worry.  It'll start freezing at the dash and eventually you'll get red lights at startup.  It seems to get worse over time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

This post has been edited by Chancer: Aug 12 2006, 10:19 AM

[leorimolo]

been there done that TWICE!

[IAmCanadian]

Also, 'cold' joints can be caused by the part moving right before the solder solidifies, causing a cloudy solder point, which can be sometimes easily shaken loose.

[G0t M4xx 21]

QUOTE(leorimolo @ Aug 11 2006, 12:51 PM)

So how come it only freezes when you play real games and not in the dashboard

Most often, these cold solder joints are on the ram chips for some reason, and when sitting in the dashboard, hardly any memory is being used (the entire dash fits on a 16mb flash chip). But, once a game is played, the memory is being used more often, and errors begin to occur. Depending on the region of memory that is being corrupted, you will begin to see visual artifacts, glitches, and freezing.

If the problem gets bad enough, vital things may get corrupted like the kernel or the dash (resulting in almost immediate freeze), and the 360 may even fail the POST, in which case you will get 3 red lights.

[hignaki]

Yeah, I think I've fixed any future cold joint problems I could have had by running over the mobo with my heatgun (not the whole thing, but most of it).  I watched for the solder to remelt, and moved to a different area.

Just preventin' future problems, and as long as you stay way from heat-sensitive components, I think it's a good way to go.  Of course, there are risks with doing it...



Some solder joints can have the same effect by cracking and breaking off from the PCB

[leorimolo]

Got maxx can u fix it?

[G0t M4xx 21]

QUOTE(leorimolo @ Aug 11 2006, 11:04 PM)

Got maxx can u fix it?

The only real answer I can give is maybe.

Honestly, the only thing I'd do is jsut reflow the solder on the ram chips and the gpu/cpu/SB, and hope for the best, other than that there's not much I can do until we have a greater understanding of how the console works.

In most cases I've seen reflowing the chips fixes it, but it has not worked in every case so I cannot guarantee anything.

But this is not the BST forum so any further questions can be sent to me via PM