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[brywalker]

This sounds interesting. I currently am having my system lock every time I play Crackdown. I hope that doing this would help.

So I opened my system up. Come to find out that 1 of the black screws on the rear plate was stripped from the factory! AWESOME! No freaking clue how I am going to get it all apart now. I fear this is my only option, there is obviously some sort of heat issue here.

My only worry with this fix is that it is adding pressure to the components that are under the card. I think that shimming the poles with washers might be a better fix.

A copper heatsink would have been a great fix - I have no clue why they didn't design it this way!

[dokworm]

Cost.

[esmith13]

instead of inserting something to increase the pressure, I followed a tip I found on another site. I completely removed the motherboard from the lower cage it is screwed onto. I sat the lower cage down on the ground and took a large phillips head screwdriver (I used a #2) and pressed down on the eight holes used to screw down the heatsink. Basically the idea is to dent those holes outward (you press from the inside of the cage, outward) so when you screw it all back together it adds the needed tension to hold the CPU and GPU down.

I also found pressing down on the small chip with the silver label (press it down onto the motherboard) helps most 0102 errors I have seen.


I did the above two things on my 1yr old premium system and it has worked flawless ever since with no crashes or glitches. It's been about 2mos now that it works fine. I use it for 2-4hrs a day about 5-7 days a week, playing GoW.


Eric

[dingobiatch]

Damn. Okay, so I took out the motherboard, and on the metal plate with the X imprints, i put two small squares (made of 2 layers of jewel case plastic) in the center of the X's. I'm starting to think.. was I supposed to put the squares INSIDE the clamp? As in:

Motherboard
Plastic squares
Clamps
Metal case

??

Anyway, no luck. Still getting 0102.

[ZZZMaestro]

Last night I came across this thread and thought I would give it a try....


Here's my $0.04  .... (play on words)   ... I added 2 pennies on each X brace.  With the motherboard removed - I put them on the X-shaped indents (centered).  I set the motherboard on top of it and held pressure against it (to keep the pennies in position) while I flipped it over.  I then tightened down the black screws and voila ..... it worked.

I no longer get any errors (previously had 0102 error).   I played it for 6 hours last night and it worked great... no lockups, or overheating or any other errors.


I just wish M$ would have added its own $0.04

[DrJeckyll]

Lol! I did the exact same thing to my 360. After I read that the black thing under the x-clamp actually causes problems, I decided to remove that little black bastard and slid two glued together square pieces of a jewelcase of about 1 inch or 2,5cm. It actually spreads the pressure more evenly across the back of the board. Booted right up.

[osamapl]

ohhhhh shit !!! i wanna try this so bad nice find!!

so what i do is (correct me if im wrong)
1.unscrew the x clamps a bit and slip some plastic inside
2.Can some one put a picture up of how it looks with the plastic (working)

[DrJeckyll]

Guess I should open up a topic for the "Jewel Case-method"  

[ahtze]

This method is interesting and easy I think. I like this and the "rubber pad" exchange method to fix 360, they are kinda easy and cheap.

Hey, I wonder if you could post some pics (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Just incase my eraser mod failed when time goes by(I know my eraser's elasticity will break down someday and I have to exchange the eraser). Seems like the pennies will work better(they won't failed imo).

This post has been edited by ahtze: May 14 2007, 10:09 PM

[Cyberlunacy]

you guys don't be putting too much force on them
like the guy who said the screws where almost too short after he added hard plastic from a cd jewel case.

you have to remember your dealing with a naked cpu/gpu core and the corners of said cores are extremely brittle and will break.

also don't use hard plastic.
you also have to remember there are tiny resistors and such right under the x-clip and you can break them off with excessive force and hard plastic.
use a medium density rubber material or cardboard. that way the resistors and such can sink into the material and not hurt it.


now i am not saying what you are doing is wrong but the bricking will continue to happen, i give it less than 2 months and it will brick again.

force exerted down on the heatsink isnt the fix, and can damage things, and is only a temp fix.

i have done several ring of death boxes and simply pulling the heatsink and clips off has actually bought the units back to life.
granted they will break again.


another option and i did this and it lasted 2 months.

take tiny squares of cardboard and drill a hole in the center the size of the x-clip screws.
put 2-3 little squares per screw and tighten the shit out of them.

this also applies more pressure.

but the cardboard under the center is actually easier.

[DrJeckyll]

QUOTE

also don't use hard plastic.
you also have to remember there are tiny resistors and such right under the x-clip and you can break them off with excessive force and hard plastic.
use a medium density rubber material or cardboard. that way the resistors and such can sink into the material and not hurt it.

The hard plastic spreads the pressure evenly so there is not very much pressure on each resistor. Besides it's not floating in thin air and it won't dig into the board. My Zalman Cooler also has a backboard but one of metal and that cooler is much heavier that this one.

You can see how well it works by pushing screwdriver a screw driver into the palm of your hands. When it hurts stop and apply the same pressure now with two square pieces of jewel case between your hand and de screwdriver. That difference alone is huge. You'd need a hammer to smash those resistors under that piece of plastic.

QUOTE

force exerted down on the heatsink isnt the fix, and can damage things, and is only a temp fix.

i have done several ring of death boxes and simply pulling the heatsink and clips off has actually bought the units back to life.

The two pieces of plastic are roughly as thick as the black devil minus the height of the clamp and resistors. So the pressure is equal but spreaded.

The force is actually exerted upwards and downwards equally.

The screws go back the same as it went out. The clamp does not touch the casing here. Something must have gone wrong.

[dennijr]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT ACTUALLY WORKS!

ive been sitting on my computer instead of my 360 for 2 months(all fucking summer) cause my 360 got rrod(error 0102) i was about to go to home depot next week to get parts to try something else when i stumbled upon this, do u know how many broaken/extra cd jewel cases i have? anyway, i decided to try it cause it was easy and i thought whats the worse that could happen to a 360 that already doesnt work? sure enough, after some smashing of a jewel case and screwing back down the mobo, it worked...

u guys are my heroes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[bonsc2]

Just tryed it but i didn't work for me

[amalz90]

so we have to use the x clamp thingy back....crap

[snes_83]

QUOTE(Textbook @ Feb 27 2007, 10:47 AM)

The instructions are fine, people just don't know how to put words into images I suppose.

The clips use leverage to hold the heatsinks down.  The center of the clip pushes against the motherboard, forcing the "ends" of the clips to pull on the heatsink.  If you put something thick under the center part of these clips, you're increasing the leverage, increasing the pull or torque on the ends of the clips, pulling the heatsink more than it normally would.

I had the 3 red light + the 0102 secondary error..... So I took a cd case and cut 4 small squares the same size as the dents in the case underneath the x clamp.

I put 2 squares of plastic underneath each x clamp, and it works perfectly!!!!

I tried the xecuter RROD (red ring of death) fix kit before doing this, and the red ring came back an hour later. The xecuter kit puts 4 small pieces of rubber on top of 4 chips ON ONE SIDE of ONE of the x clamps. I think this makes the pressure uneven.

Anyway, this method worked GREAT for me!!!! THANKS!!!!!!!