TUTORIAL: Rubber Pads Mod - Possible solution for 3RLs error code 0102This tutorial describes a method to avoid the Xbox 360 3RLs with error code 0102, which causes freezes, artefacts and graphical errors.
First a disclaimer: follow these instructions at your risk and will. Only open your console if you are familiar with eletronic equipments such assembling PCs, etc. It is really easy to perform, but mistakes can be done and I do not assume any responsabilities for your acts.
Now some general thoughts about the 3RLs and my experience with them. last October my console started to freeze. First not very often, later on it started to get really bad, freezing after a few minutes of gameplay and finally giving me the fatal 3RL. When it froozes, the screen was just like paused, without any artefacts or graphical errors. The console sometimes frooze in the middle of a sound, like a beep. I could not return to the dash, I could not turn the console off using the controller. I could remove the disk from the drive, but the screeen was still frozen. Turning the console off and on again just frooze it again. At time same time by brother's console start to show problems too, freezing as well, but with weird graphical error and artefacts. Since none of our consoles have any kind of guarantee I start to look for a solution. First I tried the hot air gun method, trying to resold the CPU/GPU and NorhtBridge. Note that I was using a professional hot gun desk and I am fully capable of doing this job (doing it with all care, very quickly around the chips edge). Here I may note that I could not perform such trick in the memories ifselves, because they are BGA mounted in the board very close to small components (manly declouping capacitors) that will just fell down from the board before the memory could be repaired by the hot air flow. I tried it several times with limite success. The console worked again, but only for a few days. But that gave me an indication that it was not a fault in the CPU/GPU itselves, since the problem is random (a chip that stop to work stop to work period). So it should be really a problem in the BGA cold dry sold. Since I already performed the hot gun over the CPU and GPU my attention was pointed to the memories. I noticed that when manipulating the motherboard, if I put a small pressure over the memories that lies in the botton of the motherboard the console started to work again for a limited time. Then I came to my conclusion, which I explain bellow:
Why I believe the 3RLs errors are related to the memories beneath the motherboard: the GPU and CPU warms a lot. They get really hot. The cold BGA solder used in the memories are very sensitive to high temperatures and specially to the great range of difference of temperature when the console is warming up/cooling down (the motherboard may be flexing a little). The temperature and the flexing can crack the solder joints, or at least weaker them. Combined with the fact that four of the memory chips are placed in the inferior side of the motherboard, against the gravity force, this could lead to small displacements in the joints, a bad contact that is reported as the 3RLs in the memory test of the boot sequence of the 360. This bad contact can cause a range of different errors (mainly 0102) due to the fact that the memory is shared between CPU and GPU. Depending which of the memory chip is presenting the problem, a different memory address is affected and different symptons can arise. Please note that I am not blaming only the gravity in this situation (after all it is not a strong force) but also the process of the flexing the motherboard when the warms up/cools dowm (that also affects badly the memory joints in the inferior side of the motherboard).
It was necessary something that keep the memory chips firmly in place, very tightly with the motherboard. I tried different "foots" or pads for the memories, and came out with this solution. The main idea is to introduce a small (enphasys on small) pressure over the memory chips that are mounted in the inferior side of the motherboard, to keep them as much tight with the motherboard as possible, preventing some contact errors. Do not bend your motherboard. Rubber (cutted from normal plastic eraser) was choosed because it is a cheap non-thermal conductive material and easy to mold. You can use any material which can be mold and cut, as long as it does not deform over time with temperature and applies a soft pressure over the chips. In my experience it does not work if the pressure is not applied in the edge of the memories, so the pad must cover its boarders. Cuts must be perfect because if you use one too "high" the others will loose contact between the memories and the shell. It does not work if you put pressure directly in the motherboard, it must be over the memories, the problem is memory joint related. The memories on the 360 I opened up run very cold, they do not warm up (only a little). The GPU and CPU in other hand, get really hot. For that reason I do not think it will be a problem to put rubber foots/pads on it. The clue used is from the stick type, very little, just to keep the pads attached to the memories when putting the motherboard back in the inner shell (you can use silicone as well).
The newest batch of the 360 console already came with four small thermal pads over those memories. Prove that MS is aware of the problem and trying to solve it. However I found out that they are too softly and over time cannot sustain the motherboard/memories any longer, and the 3RLs came anyway. I already fixed some consoles that originally came with those thermal pads using the rubber pads.
Ok, let's start. You will need to open your Xbox 360 first. I have made a tutorial for that also, but it is still in Portuguese and I do not see a reason to translate it, since there is plenty of tutorials in English in the net. You do not need to remove the heatsinks.
Remove the motherboard from the inner shell and turn it upside down. Around the GPU you will find four memory chips, 2 at the side of the GPU, 2 in front of it. Those are the memories you will have to make pads for support.
You will need for this mod just a normal plastic rubber, a small knive to cut it and some plastic adhesive or glue.
With a small knive cut four little slices from the eraser, with aproximatly 0.4 cm. The best rubber type to use it the one that is kind of plastic (sorry I do not know the exactly term for it in English) not pure rubber, which is too soft. It has to be firm. After cutting the slices, make them of the same size of the memory chips (a little bit larger). Make two of the pads a little higher than the other twos (like 0.4 for the memories at the side of the GPU and 0.3/0.35 for the memories in front of it).
The cutted pads:
Use very little gum (dry one, the one that comes in sticks) only to place the pads over the memories when you place the motherboard back in the inner shell. Only a little. You can use other types of adhesives.
Put back the motherboad in the shell, taking care that the pads do not fall down or be displaced. You will notice that the motherboard may be a little 'higher" than usual inside the shell, by looking at the sync botton in the front of the shell, that may be a little (again, very little) displaced from the hole in the shell.
Now plug the front daughterboard back in place, but do not fix its screws yet. Turn the inner shell upside down, keeping the motherboard fixed in place. Start to screw back the CPU and GPU screws (do not press them too much). Put back the small silver screws that fixes the motherboard to the shell, but distribute the pression by screwing first 2 of the 3 in front of the motherboard, the 2 in the back, later the 2 on each side and finally the remaining one in the front of the motherboard. Now the motherboard must be perfectly alligned inside the shell and the pressure must be over the memories.
Turn upside up again the shell, screw the daughterboard, plug the fans in the motherboard and put back the plastic fan shroud. Plug back the SATA DVD drive. Now we can start the first test.
Turn on the Xbox 360. On most cases the problem (3RLs or freezing) is still there. You should keep the console on for a few minutes the first time after the mod, even if it display errors (just this first try) because I have seem cases (mostly of them) that it does not work immediatly. The warming up of the motherboard is important in this first step. It could be because it bends the motherboard to the right position and the pads them keep it in that position, but I believe it is because somehow it pushes the memories joints to the right position. It is not like melting the joint, but the heat provided by the motherboard together to the pressure applied to the weak joints somehow works. I repeat: the pressure must be exactly over the edges of the memories, specially the ones at the side of the GPU.
After 5 or 10 minutes the process is over. You can turn off the console. Now the 3RLs and freezing are gone and the console should start immediatly everytime. I do recommend to you to keep the console open for a few tries, because you may have to adjust the position and high of the pads. A displaced or too high pad will lead to the back of the 3RLs. After you feel confortable with the modification, you can finished to close the console.
Ok, it sounds funny but it works. More than 40 consoles have been fixes in a few hours around here. I do no claim to fully understand why it works (flexing of the motherboard or weaken memories joints), but it really works. You can easly test it and if it works, start spreeding the news. The only thing I request is that the credit of this mod is given to the right person.
Chiaroscuro (aka Marcelo in real live)
Xbox Live Gamertag: MrChiaroscuro
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