my box did not have the 3rod. instead it output no video, but there was sound. after several weeks of searching the internet for the appropriate fix, i settled on the twelve cent fix. i am only moderately tech savvy, so some of the other mods seemed rather out of my skill set. dis-assembling the console was easy, there are videos on youtube that show how. my box seemed to have been put together sometime in early 2005, as indicated by date stamps on components. the ram chips on my console had some thermal padding on them, suggesting that microsoft is aware of their design flaw. i used those sticky pads to secure the pennies instead of hot glue, and thus used only two pennies wrapped in electrical tape (due to the thickness of the sticky pad). upon reassembly i had video, but only briefly. then the console went into fault, displaying two red lights (top and bottom left). this indicated the gpu was overheating. so i went to office depot and bought some thermal compound. i opened the box for a second time, accessed the gpu and cleaned off the old thermal compound. or, rather i scraped it off as best i could with a precision screwdriver. i did not use any solvent, nor did i remove all the old thermal paste, but i did get a majority of it. i then applied a liberal coating of the new stuff, following the instructions on the packaging. re-reassembly, and another test. now i'm back to where i started. audio, no video. F*#%!!! but i try one more thing. the old towel trick. apparently the thermal compound needed to be heated to be activated or something b/c after about ten minutes the console reset and when i started it, viola - picture. i kept expecting it to last for only several minutes before fragging out, but i rocked assassin's creed for like three hours without a problem. thank god for the internet, and microsoft can eat a fat turd. they wanted $140 to fix this prob., & i did it for $10. hope it continues to work.
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Topic: The 3 Penny Fix (the Twelve Cent Fix) (Read 3678 times)