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[Mr.Chiaroscuro]

Just a warning: I would not use copper sinks or similars in substitute of the rubber, becuase they not only temperature conductive, but also electrical conductive. Since the space between the motherboard and the inner metalic shell is very thin (0.4 cm) and the inner shell itself is not plain, the pads can be eventually fell out of place, and in such case a lot more damage from electrical contact will be done than using rubber.

[RBJTech]

QUOTE(brywalker @ Mar 14 2007, 12:43 PM)

So we are looking at a 6mm gap? If I could obtain a 3mm block of copper and then add a 3mm thermal pad this would be fantastic. That way we are actually drawing the heat away with the copper and then using the thermal pad as a gap filler.

I have no way of measuring here. Is that gap accurate?

Funny how you, me and dokworm posted nearly identical info at the same time.

No I wasn't suggesting it's 6mm.  The gap filler pads on the new 360 are ~3mm, as the OP indicated these are a hardish gel type substance which compresses fairly easily - it has to, because it forms itself around the contours of the case shell.  So all we know really is the gap must be LESS than 3mm, or the pads would have no effect - significantly less then this and the pads are already pressing hard on the chips - so I would say the gap is 2mm.

If we use two pads - then the pressure will increase as you now have 6mm to crush into 2mm rather than 3mm  

The other thing to try of course is to just use the rubber pressing against a plain bit of PCB next to the RAM chips - if it has the same effect, then it's the mobo board flexing that's solving the issue - and has nothing to do with the RAM ...  

With regards to the temp of the chips - have a look here

Cooling ..

I did a big post including RAM cooling - believe me - they get hot !  (why do you think MS have now included thermal pads on the underboard RAM ?)

PS - Got a 3ROL from ebay through the post this morning - poor thing, it's going to be my project for the next couple of weeks .. I'll be sure to try this though ..

[Mr.Chiaroscuro]

QUOTE(RBJTech @ Mar 14 2007, 11:41 AM)

No I wasn't suggesting it's 6mm.  The gap filler pads on the new 360 are ~3mm, as the OP indicated these are a hardish gel type substance which compresses fairly easily - it has to, because it forms itself around the contours of the case shell.  So all we know really is the gap must be LESS than 3mm, or the pads would have no effect - significantly less then this and the pads are already pressing hard on the chips - so I would say the gap is 2mm.

If we use two pads - then the pressure will increase as you now have 6mm to crush into 2mm rather than 3mm  

The other thing to try of course is to just use the rubber pressing against a plain bit of PCB next to the RAM chips - if it has the same effect, then it's the mobo board flexing that's solving the issue - and has nothing to do with the RAM ...  

With regards to the temp of the chips - have a look here

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=580504

I did a big post including RAM cooling - believe me - they get hot !  (why do you think MS have now included thermal pads on the underboard RAM ?)

PS - Got a 3ROL from ebay through the post this morning - poor thing, it's going to be my project for the next couple of weeks .. I'll be sure to try this though ..

The gap varies because of the X in the botton of the case. 0.4 cm is bigger than the gap, but it is necessary to mold the material this size otherwise it will not provide the necessary pressure.

Regarding applying the pressure directly over the motherboard, I do not think it will work. The problem is related to the memories (my be because of the motherboarding flexing when it get hot, but it is located in the memories). If you try to use pads smaller than the memory size it would work as well, the pressure must be on the edges of the memory, I have tried those different configurations.

QUOTE(RBJTech @ Mar 14 2007, 11:41 AM)

I did a big post including RAM cooling - believe me - they get hot !  (why do you think MS have now included thermal pads on the underboard RAM ?)

I am not sure but my guess MS include the thermal pads more to keep the memories in their places than to try to cool them down. If they want to memories to stay cooler they would not include memories bellow the same sinker that dissipates the heat from the GPU.

[mattygabe]

Forgive me if this has already been suggested, but perhaps we use a half-and-half solution to this fixture - half (2cm) of rubber, and then half (2cm) of copper. Maybe this is trivial, but I figured it'd be worth a shot.

[Mr.Chiaroscuro]

QUOTE(mattygabe @ Mar 14 2007, 01:24 PM)

Forgive me if this has already been suggested, but perhaps we use a half-and-half solution to this fixture - half (2cm) of rubber, and then half (2cm) of copper. Maybe this is trivial, but I figured it'd be worth a shot.

I believe you mean 0.2 cm each. I still think the best would be to make a 0.4 cm pad with a thermal material that can be mold as a squared pad.

[Xandegui77]

QUOTE(RBJTech @ Mar 14 2007, 11:41 AM)

With regards to the temp of the chips - have a look here

Cooling ..

I did a big post including RAM cooling - believe me - they get hot !  (why do you think MS have now included thermal pads on the underboard RAM ?)

PS - Got a 3ROL from ebay through the post this morning - poor thing, it's going to be my project for the next couple of weeks .. I'll be sure to try this though ..

RBJTech, I looked very rapidly your post and that's the right way to do. What I suspected, that the memoris were the hottest parts in the console. 68ºC, wow!

I have a question about this photo:

You installed the elastomers of the back of the motherboar, over the memories, between the memories and the GPU heatsink. How much that lower the temperature over these memories?
That's what I always wanted to do, transfer the the temperature from the memories to the GPU heatsink. Was that sucessfull to cool the memories?

[Mr.Chiaroscuro]

QUOTE(Xandegui77 @ Mar 14 2007, 01:55 PM)

RBJTech, I looked very rapidly your post and that's the right way to do. What I suspected, that the memoris were the hottest parts in the console. 68ºC, wow!

I have a question about this photo:

You installed the elastomers of the back of the motherboar, over the memories, between the memories and the GPU heatsink. How much that lower the temperature over these memories?
That's what I always wanted to do, transfer the the temperature from the memories to the GPU heatsink. Was that sucessfull to cool the memories?

Quick question: this way it is not possible to also transfer GPU heat to the memories? I always tought it was not a good idea to share a sink, but in the 360 the bigger GPU sink is just to incrise the dissipation area for the GPU nothing to do with the memories (otherwise the 2 lower memories should have been covered too). The sink does not touch the memories.

[Chancer]

My comment.
You stated you were not trying to spam the other forum here then the url is mentioned every other post you make in this thread. If you feel the need to mention the url of the forum/site again I may feel the need to shut this thread. Please do not jeopardise the discussion over it.
The title is misleading slightly as it implies this is a cure for 3 red lights. Long term I don't think it will be.. but time will tell.

[brywalker]

QUOTE(Mr.Chiaroscuro @ Mar 14 2007, 06:22 PM)

Quick question: this way it is not possible to also transfer GPU heat to the memories? I always tought it was not a good idea to share a sink, but in the 360 the bigger GPU sink is just to incrise the dissipation area for the GPU nothing to do with the memories (otherwise the 2 lower memories should have been covered too). The sink does not touch the memories.

No the thermal transfer won't work that way. The sink will never be hotter than the memory. Therefore the heat will transfer from the memory to the aluminum which is constantly dissipating the heat. The sink will be hotter, the exhaust will be hotter, but the die and memory will run cooler.

[Mr.Chiaroscuro]

QUOTE(Chancer @ Mar 14 2007, 02:37 PM)

My comment.
You stated you were not trying to spam the other forum here then the url is mentioned every other post you make in this thread. If you feel the need to mention the url of the forum/site again I may feel the need to shut this thread. Please do not jeopardise the discussion over it.
The title is misleading slightly as it implies this is a cure for 3 red lights. Long term I don't think it will be.. but time will tell.

Chancer they are not trying to make spam, they are trying to give credit to the OP of the mod, myself, who posted in that forums. I was going to proper post the idea here, translated to English, but some of the friends over that board got excited and post before me. I stated in my original post that is it a possible solution for the 3RLs (not the second coming) and I would like to share it with the members, determine how often it works and them share it to everyone who may have interested on it.

Of course to post a link to a foreign country forum that requires registration (in a different language) looks like a spam. For that I must apologize in behalf of that posters (and I never understand why that forum requires registration to see the posts anyway).

Keep in mind that any mention to the original poster (me, aka Chiaroscuro on Brazilian boards, MrChiaroscuro in Live and Mr.Chiaroscuro here) or the original forums where this solution was described (portalxbox and UOL, two big sites in Brazil) SHOULD NOT TO BE TAKEN AS SPAM. If you do not want to go there (and why you should? It is on Portuguese) you can ask me any question here, since I activated this account. Please do not ban or close this thread because of this, they are just trying to assure the credit is given to the right person.

QUOTE(brywalker @ Mar 14 2007, 02:38 PM)

No the thermal transfer won't work that way. The sink will never be hotter than the memory. Therefore the heat will transfer from the memory to the aluminum which is constantly dissipating the heat. The sink will be hotter, the exhaust will be hotter, but the die and memory will run cooler.

That makes sense, however you are assuming that the GPU and memories are running in similar temperatures.

Of course GPU T > Sink T, transfer Ok.

if GPU T >>> memories T, the Sink may get hotter than the memory itselves, but always Sink T < GPU T.

To be sure we have to measure exactly the running temperature of the GPU and memories without any mod.

[Xandegui77]

QUOTE(Chancer @ Mar 14 2007, 02:37 PM)

My comment.
You stated you were not trying to spam the other forum here then the url is mentioned every other post you make in this thread. If you feel the need to mention the url of the forum/site again I may feel the need to shut this thread. Please do not jeopardise the discussion over it.
The title is misleading slightly as it implies this is a cure for 3 red lights. Long term I don't think it will be.. but time will tell.

Mr. Moderator, it was not our intention to spam other forum here. We wanted just to post who made this mod in the first place, just it!
I don't know all the rules to post here and I don't know how to give the credits for who did the job in the first place. I just wanna give the credits.
I don't think that there is need to shut this thread just know that everybody is posting comments.

I don't have access to edit my posts, you do. Can we just edit the replies and erase the link for the other forum?

Can you edit the title and put "Another cheap way to fix 3RL"? and remove the links to the other forum.

Why will we spam other forum here if our forum is all in brazilian portuguese that is not yours native language?

Let's try another way to fix the misunderstandings.

[Xandegui77]

QUOTE(Mr.Chiaroscuro @ Mar 14 2007, 02:52 PM)

That makes sense, however you are assuming that the GPU and memories are running in similar temperatures.
Of course GPU T > Sink T, transfer Ok.
if GPU T >>> memories T, the Sink may get hotter than the memory itselves, but always Sink T < GPU T.
To be sure we have to measure exactly the running temperature of the GPU and memories without any mod.

Chiaoscuro, it's hard to believe but the memories are the hottest component of 360.
If you look a link that posted here, there will be a temperature mod with a lot of measures and the memories are the hottest.

Thinking that, I don't know why the GPU heatsink don't touch the memories to cool them.

[mattygabe]

QUOTE(Mr.Chiaroscuro @ Mar 14 2007, 11:39 AM)

I believe you mean 0.2 cm each. I still think the best would be to make a 0.4 cm pad with a thermal material that can be mold as a squared pad.

Ah, correct.  Brainfart on my part.  I knew it was millimeters but somehow typed centimeters.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking since centimeters would definitely be easier to work with.

QUOTE(Chancer @ Mar 14 2007)

The title is misleading slightly as it implies this is a cure for 3 red lights. Long term I don't think it will be.. but time will tell.

What evidence do you have that this isn't a long-term fix?  I'm not badgering you, I'm simply thinking that you most likely have in mind something that I don't.  I too fear that this isn't the long-term solution, but as of right now I see nothing that can really lead me to believe this.  This doesn't mean, however, that I can't be shown something in the future which does persuade me one way or the other.

Just trying to really sort through this myself and find a workable fix.  I really have no input to this process, other than the questions I'm asking of all of you that have the answers.

Edit: Also, where would one find these "thermal pads" or "thermal material" that you're talking about?  Is it a readily available thing that I can get at a RadioShack, for example?  Or is it specially made for computer manufacturers?  Can anyone give me an example of a type of thermal material that would be suitable to replace the rubber in this method?

[brywalker]

QUOTE(Mr.Chiaroscuro @ Mar 14 2007, 06:52 PM)

That makes sense, however you are assuming that the GPU and memories are running in similar temperatures.

Of course GPU T > Sink T, transfer Ok.

if GPU T >>> memories T, the Sink may get hotter than the memory itselves, but always Sink T < GPU T.

To be sure we have to measure exactly the running temperature of the GPU and memories without any mod.

I agree with your thinking, however what happens is that the heat that is being pulled off the heatsink is always moving. Even if the sink got hotter than the memory, the "convection" would keep it being pulled to the sink as opposed to the memory.

[spinr34]

i must say, interesting idea. anyone have a picture of the "pads" that MS put on the newer 360's? i almost want to open my new one to check but don't want to void another warranty.