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[Tortuga2112]

QUOTE(futureunknown @ Feb 11 2007, 11:47 PM)

DO NOT touch the GPU when it is hot and cooling, one slight movement from your fault will result in the contacts going out of place.
Warning!!!!!!
Don't do this.

Sir, I know you have claimed to worked on many 360's and your english is so bad at times that I have a hard time understanding what your trying to say. But don't do this.

If you use the heat gun properly, THEN shim it and add a cooling fan ontop of the GPU, your good to go.

No offense to you sir.

But don't listen to some of these peoples stupid ways of doing things. Your just going to fry your board.
Let's put it this way.

If you want your 360 to look back to original and pretty, your box will screw up in short notice.
If you dont care and have broke your warrently seal, and dont really care about looks, then do it my way. It is the ONLY way your going to have your 360 last like a normal xbox 1. THE GPU GETS TO HOT FOLKS! need cooling and to have the heatsink fit tighter!

buddy,

I don't really think you should knock his methods. you don't like it, don't do it. but to call it a stupid way of doing things is not right.

and his post clearly states that english isn't his first language so cut the guy some slack. I'm sure a lot of others on the board appreciate mygamewireless' posts.

I, for one appreciate the help he offered me when I first encountered this problem.

frankly , I don't like your solution because its got to have the box sitting there in pieces. but that's just my opinion.

by the way, how many 360's have you repaired?  how long running is the longest running one?

also, there seems to be differing opinions on what the actual problem is. Some guys here think its the CPU and not the GPU.

[jasonthegreat]

Hey that fix may just work I'll have to try it when I get home thanks for the tip I have the three red lights and from what I hear Microsoft will fix it free if you argue with the enough.

[futureunknown]

QUOTE(Tortuga2112 @ Feb 12 2007, 12:38 AM)

buddy,

I don't really think you should knock his methods. you don't like it, don't do it. but to call it a stupid way of doing things is not right.

and his post clearly states that english isn't his first language so cut the guy some slack. I'm sure a lot of others on the board appreciate mygamewireless' posts.

I, for one appreciate the help he offered me when I first encountered this problem.

frankly , I don't like your solution because its got to have the box sitting there in pieces. but that's just my opinion.

by the way, how many 360's have you repaired?  how long running is the longest running one?

also, there seems to be differing opinions on what the actual problem is. Some guys here think its the CPU and not the GPU.

I m sorry. I never ment to come across as sounding like a mr know it all. But I have been into computers basically my entire life, im nearly 28 now. What I tried telling you or anyone else that might be interested is that apply pressure to anything that has molten soldier being used as a contact point... any and I mean any slight shift on the persons fault means that the contacts are going to go out of place.

You simply don't need any pressure on the GPU. and if you don't like my method then thats fine by me, but I know my method is still going to be running 6 months down the road... yes everything is together on my 360 minus the top. I also attached a 70mm fan blowing into the CPU heatsink N into the duct work to be drawn out quicker. This has mad the CPU run very nice and cool.

I am happy to also report the GPU is nice and cool. playing graw2 for 3 hours straight getting up to feel the heatsink evey 10 or so minutes proved to put a smile on my face.

The 360 isnt going to be in this physical appearance for long. I am going to design a cool box for it OR an idea I am throwing around but havent gotten around to making measurements yet, is trying to mod it into an xbox 1 case lolz.

been up solid for 3 days with off and on cooling intervals to test expansion. oh, I also shimmed it as well.

I've made similar repairs to pc agp video cards in the past. I know this method works great. But please people, dont put pressure on your GPU while its 800F, your just asking for trouble.

If you think my method sounds ulgy, who cares? do you want your box to keep running? or would you like to take it all apart again hoping that this time you dond phuck something up internally in the GPU core?

Do this method, then have the fun thoughts in your head of making it look purdy my making yet another modification.... yes.... microsnuff made a boo boo this time... a major one.. but we can fix it if you do it properly!

Should make a thread on case mods with peoples projects w pics!

[pimpmaul69]

hmm no offense to the guy above me but i dont think there is very many people on here to repair as many systems as me and mygameswireless.com and i have told people to put the heatsinks back on while it is still hot (5-10 minutes after heating) wich has the same effect... i personally disagree with the foil cause i find not using it to work better but we are both successful.. and i personally have a 100% success rate..not trying to brag just stating a fact that the method of doing it while it is hot and not letting it sit overnight like some do seems to be more affective... and i have never once added a single modification to a system nor had to to have to make it work.. and his english isnt that hard to read

[futureunknown]

QUOTE(pimpmaul69 @ Feb 14 2007, 06:13 AM)

hmm no offense to the guy above me but i dont think there is very many people on here to repair as many systems as me and mygameswireless.com and i have told people to put the heatsinks back on while it is still hot (5-10 minutes after heating) wich has the same effect... i personally disagree with the foil cause i find not using it to work better but we are both successful.. and i personally have a 100% success rate..not trying to brag just stating a fact that the method of doing it while it is hot and not letting it sit overnight like some do seems to be more affective... and i have never once added a single modification to a system nor had to to have to make it work.. and his english isnt that hard to read

I don't know if you refering to me or not, but I left my mobo cool for 30-35 minutes, then apply my thermal paste, by then it's been cooling for 40-45 minutes. It wont get any colder by that point in time.

If you fan the board properly before focusing on the GPU top & bottom, you wont warp or make the board bow in and out due to different temps at different parts of the board.

The foil is a waste of your time. There is no need, just dont have your gun on the highest setting sitting idle 1 inch off of a plastic piece

[mygameswirelesscom]

hey my repair R runing !

 I've probably put a good 90 day (169pg) of reading into doing all of this before
I plunged into it myself

can you tell us how long your 360 was repair?

and  how many 360's have you repaired? how long running is the longest running one?

can you tell us .....

[pimpmaul69]

QUOTE(futureunknown @ Feb 14 2007, 09:17 AM)

Hey bud.

I can understand you ok for the most part

I've probably put a good 40 hours of reading into doing all of this before I plunged into it myself.

You see, from what I gathered of the results you were getting from the one's you were repairing for people get returned to you in 1 week- 6 weeks time correct?

You see, I think that if you just do the heat gun methold and put some better thermal paste on, and put everything back together and keep it stock.  With that you have the major design flaw your overlooking that microsnuff made "cooling and circulation" relative to two very powerful processing engines.

Thing is, Microsnuff wanted to get out as many 360's to the general public as they could before the launch of the PS3. So with that said, they overlooked this big time by not putting enough testing into it.

In a nutshell.. doing the heatgun method and putting it back together will have the soldier contacts bottom center and outter section of the GPU start to get weak again. This is due to the contacts heating up and cooling off "by shutting it off" with each power/play cycle. Ok I think you get what I mean there

Now... I am not claiming to be a professional by any standards. But it is to my understanding with Microsnuffs major design flaw that us culprits are presented with.. we need to do something about it "if a last resort and no warrenty" is to take it apart, make sure contact is tight with heatsink/GPU and that the remelting is done right and most importantly...heatsink cooled by fan.

I think this is the only true long lasting method boys and girls. Sure putting it back together after doing a good remelting job will work, you will be pleased and play it with a smile... but soon... like for some of you that bought a 360, and two days later got the red ROL.. it will happen again in due time because the chip got too hot and phucked up those little itty bitty solder beads under the GPU

Good luck peoplez
PS it sure runs alot more snappy and game play seems to be better when things are running cooler.. well duh, even anyone into computer's and gaming would know that result

mygameswireless.com never said all his repairs come back.. and second his method of stepping cant cause the chip to shift because of the way he designed his device..if you look at it and use simple logic you will see that

QUOTE(futureunknown @ Feb 14 2007, 09:03 AM)

I don't know if you refering to me or not, but I left my mobo cool for 30-35 minutes, then apply my thermal paste, by then it's been cooling for 40-45 minutes. It wont get any colder by that point in time.

If you fan the board properly before focusing on the GPU top & bottom, you wont warp or make the board bow in and out due to different temps at different parts of the board.

The foil is a waste of your time. There is no need, just dont have your gun on the highest setting sitting idle 1 inch off of a plastic piece

yes i was talking to you... what we both are saying is to apply the pressure while it is still hot and not letting it cool all the way down.. never have needed any cooling and alot of my error 102/0020 repairs have been over a year now with no returns.. but cooling it is good so if it works for you go ahead... i just dont charge enough to go through all that trouble.. if i had problems then i could see changing my methods

[pimpmaul69]

the thing why peoples systems in my opinion dont last because they wait for it to cool off.... i never have let it cool off before assembling the heatsinks..but wait about 5 minutes atleast.. just put pressure on heatsink and as5 when reassembling so you dont slip and shift gpu... i am not saying put a lot of pressure just enough to reassemble x-clips... but yes the oldest 360 3ring fixes ive done have been done over a year ago.. the the latest 2weeks ago... about 50-60 of them... so everyone has there methods some work some dont..i just know mine has always worked

[futureunknown]

hmm.

too each their own I guess, although I dont think applying pressure after 5 minutes is going to do anything. Do you know how fast soldier hardens?

I think maybe now the problem most are having, is their not doing it right, not getting the chip hot enough. I might try putting mine all back together with no cooling and see if it lasts... or sell it, I dont know yet. From everything I read on the net, I was led to believe the issue was the GPU heatsink not cooling properly with the dvd drive just 1/8th an inch above the gpu heatsink. But you say you have reset the gpu's and put em all back together an they've last over 6 months still... so maybe ill stick it back together. I know the way I have it set up now is alot more healthier for the system what ever way you want to look at it, and know it will last for years the way I have it set up......its just that hellish heat inside is what scares me.

[Tortuga2112]

that's a pretty bold statement to say that you know it'll last for years.

if you'd already done a bunch and they've lasted more than a year then ok.

but you said your longest running one is 6 months. how many hours a week on average does that particular xbox get used?

I think that's how we should be rating the 'fixes' , hours of usage.

that will give everyone doing this a better indication of which method lasts longest.

for pimpmaul and mygamewireless, do you guys keep track of the serial numbers and the mfg dates?

I think it would be good to know , maybe this way we'll know which consoles are at risk of developing the

3rlod.

I guess when the next gen 360's with the cooler cpu come out , that will be the major dif.

right now as far as we know its completely random. but if we could determine the latest dates of the majority of the affected consoles , at least we'd have an idea of which ones to try to avoid.

anyone have a really recent one that's still been hit by this prob?

the latest I've seen is one that was mfg date apr 06.

If we still see this happening to consoles manufactured into mid 07, then we'll know MS isn't doing jack shit to address the problem.

Oh , I forgot , according to them there isn't a problem.

[futureunknown]

QUOTE(Tortuga2112 @ Feb 16 2007, 12:14 AM)

that's a pretty bold statement to say that you know it'll last for years.

if you'd already done a bunch and they've lasted more than a year then ok.

but you said your longest running one is 6 months. how many hours a week on average does that particular xbox get used?

I think that's how we should be rating the 'fixes' , hours of usage.

that will give everyone doing this a better indication of which method lasts longest.

for pimpmaul and mygamewireless, do you guys keep track of the serial numbers and the mfg dates?

I think it would be good to know , maybe this way we'll know which consoles are at risk of developing the

3rlod.

I guess when the next gen 360's with the cooler cpu come out , that will be the major dif.

right now as far as we know its completely random. but if we could determine the latest dates of the majority of the affected consoles , at least we'd have an idea of which ones to try to avoid.

anyone have a really recent one that's still been hit by this prob?

the latest I've seen is one that was mfg date apr 06.

If we still see this happening to consoles manufactured into mid 07, then we'll know MS isn't doing jack shit to address the problem.

Oh , I forgot , according to them there isn't a problem.

[Tortuga2112]

the very first one I did was on jan 1st/07. so I'm pretty new to this also. lasted for just over a month, I wasn't really keeping
track of how many hours of use though .

I would estimate maybe about 40-50 hours of gaming. its on round 2 right now.

I've done about 4 or 5 since then for some friends. can't really say much about those yet though , as they haven't had that many hours of actual play time.

the first one has an extra 70mm fan in front of the cpu. it did keep it cooler , but it still failed.

the  2 others I did with 60mm fans are still running with no probs.

I've done a couple with 40mm fans strapped to the cpu heatsink. but I've only tested those for a couple of hrs. I will be giving them back to their owners for more usage when I get home.

i'm out of town right now , but when I get home on saturday I'll post more details and some temp readings i've taken.

I would be quite satisfied to get a year's worth of use from them before heat gunning again. but we'll just have to see. right now, I'm just glad that I can get them going again with the heatgun. anything's better than that flashing evil eye.

I've seen a few other fan mods that I'm going to try. I too, believe that keeping 'em as cool as possible can't hurt. how MUCH it actually helps is yet to be determined.

The next one I do , I'm going to try to put pressure on the chip somehow. haven't yet decided which method to use to do this.

[futureunknown]

QUOTE(Tortuga2112 @ Feb 16 2007, 08:28 AM)

the very first one I did was on jan 1st/07. so I'm pretty new to this also. lasted for just over a month, I wasn't really keeping
track of how many hours of use though .

I would estimate maybe about 40-50 hours of gaming. its on round 2 right now.

I've done about 4 or 5 since then for some friends. can't really say much about those yet though , as they haven't had that many hours of actual play time.

the first one has an extra 70mm fan in front of the cpu. it did keep it cooler , but it still failed.

the  2 others I did with 60mm fans are still running with no probs.

I've done a couple with 40mm fans strapped to the cpu heatsink. but I've only tested those for a couple of hrs. I will be giving them back to their owners for more usage when I get home.

i'm out of town right now , but when I get home on saturday I'll post more details and some temp readings i've taken.

I would be quite satisfied to get a year's worth of use from them before heat gunning again. but we'll just have to see. right now, I'm just glad that I can get them going again with the heatgun. anything's better than that flashing evil eye.

I've seen a few other fan mods that I'm going to try. I too, believe that keeping 'em as cool as possible can't hurt. how MUCH it actually helps is yet to be determined.

The next one I do , I'm going to try to put pressure on the chip somehow. haven't yet decided which method to use to do this.

Oh yes.

I forgot to note that I have the 80mm fan on the GPU blowing down and the  60mm on the CPU blowing in. By doing this, it's helping push that hot air through that vent for the 80's to suck it out faster/cool the alum/copper better.

If you've been into computers and overclocking the snot out of em.. This just has to make sense.. but to repair on a customer level.. I understand why a couple of you wont do it this way.. gotta give it back to the customer looking the same as it came to you. Let me say I hear where the couple of you are coming from.

But on a personal basis owning one. I think eather doing it my way, then making it look a little neater, or putting it in a custom case is good, or if you have the money to burn, you can water cool it and slap it back together.

[futureunknown]

QUOTE(futureunknown @ Feb 16 2007, 12:27 AM)

The two that I did have the tops off with a fan on the GPU.. as for mine, its a jan 06 model. Since I fixed it on feb 10th, ive played it a good 7 hours a day.

My main question to you is, in your repairs, how long have they lasted stock with the top on and no additional cooling?
I some how still seem to think its a heat related issue which is breaking the contacts.. or maybe just maybe... it was a error on microsnuffs end when running them through the oven :S

correction. my 360 was manufactured 3/20/06

[Tortuga2112]

water cooling is too expensive in my opinion, and it still doesn't guarantee its not going to fuck up.

if you got cash to burn and wanted to do it as a preventive measure, then ok.

but I wouldn't watercool a box that's already showing signs of future problems.

at least fans are cheap.

as far as leaving the cover off , that's not the way I want to have mine , as I sometimes bring it to friends houses.

I still want it to be portable.