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[SonicPower]

I asked this earlier, but I don't have a cookie sheet (live in a college dormitory).

Does this stuff smoke enough to set off the fire alarm?

That would be bad news bears if that happened.

[SonicPower]

Ok, so I baked my 360 with a cooking sheet.  No foil or any additives.  Just the 360 motherboard.

5 minutes @ 400.

7 minutes @ 450.

It's working much better now, but now after 20 minutes, the 360 freezes.

I've done the fan shroud mod, so should I try rebaking it again?

[luminous]

[quote name='SonicPower' snip[/quote]

[SonicPower]

Since I don't expect you to know my post history...

(1)  I did the X-clamp fix which lasted me an year.
(2)  Penny stacks of 1, 2, or 3 don't do anything, or give me 0022 errors.
(3) The thermal paste I use is MX-2, which is superior than AS-5 since it doesn't degrade and lasts about 8 years.

So, I'm going to rebake this again for 10 minutes @ 450.

[chickenmon]

Hmm well my first bake did fail on me and I got the rrod again after a couple of days.  So i baked again this time at 450 for 10 min again covered all caps and plastic in foil and baked upside down on a cookie sheet.  I havent seen any swelling of the caps nor melting of the plastic so I think the wrapping everything in foil is working.   After my second bake everything still looks good.  And the 360 worked first time out.  Its been on for the past 36 hours and been heavily used and no lockups no fast spin up of the fans etc everything seems normal.

[cheezwiz789]

I just baked at 400 for 5 minutes and 450 for 10 minutes

capacitors and plastic parts covered in foil.


I still get the 0022 error.  

oh well...

[chickenmon]

Yeah I left the heaksink on and baked it upside down heatsinks facing down on a cookie sheet.  Have you done the xclamp replacment yet?  Ive got mine torqued down pretty tight and I leave the heatsinks on when I bake. 450 for 10 min is what I did the second time and I have been playing it all day without any lockups or problems.     One side note is I dont have any screws holding the board to the chasis so its kind of floating in there so theres no extra stress or warping around the xclamps.

[SonicPower]

QUOTE(chickenmon @ Apr 26 2008, 09:20 PM)

Yeah I left the heaksink on and baked it upside down heatsinks facing down on a cookie sheet.  Have you done the xclamp replacment yet?  Ive got mine torqued down pretty tight and I leave the heatsinks on when I bake. 450 for 10 min is what I did the second time and I have been playing it all day without any lockups or problems.     One side note is I dont have any screws holding the board to the chasis so its kind of floating in there so theres no extra stress or warping around the xclamps.

Sigh.

I have done the X-Clamp replacements as of one year ago.  I wrote this on the last page.

This will be my third bake.  My second bake actually made the problem worse.  Went from 20 minutes to play time to 3.

[Skinleech]

Well, my 1st baked xbox finally died last night too - 6.5 months of infrequent play is pretty good going.  I'l try and bake it again and see how it goes.

Both boxes I've fixed have had the RBJTech V3 X-clamps replacement, with AS5 on the GPU/CPU.  They've both been put on tinfoil, then onto the baking sheet, right side up.

I'll post back results as and hwn I have them.  I'd only had GTA4 on for 10 mins before it threw in the towel!

[mk500]

Quick update on my baked 360's:

My original one lasted for 4.5 months perfectly. Not a single lockup or anything during that time. Then it suddenly locked up and shortly went back to RROD. Note that the day this happened was an exceptionally hot day (probably 75 in my gaming room vs normal 65), and I was playing Halo 3. Today I baked it the second time, and it seems to be working perfectly again. I modified my procedure a little bit this time:

1) strip down to ONLY motherboard, then mount heatsyncs with bolts directly to the motherboard (make sure you have to correct washer count so that you aren't warping the board
2) wrapped aluminum foil around all the large capacitors on the board, as those were the ones that had leaked goo the last time (this worked really well to prevent the goo/damage. Thanks for that idea)
3) Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place motherboard on foil (right side up). It will be sitting on the 8 screws for the heatsyncs. There should be 4 washers on the underside of each, so this keeps it a bit off the foil.
4) preheat oven to 455
5) insert everything into oven for 10 minutes
6) remove and cool for 20 minutes
7) test everything on workbench, if all is well...
remove heatsyncs and re-install everything in case, used ArctiClean process and applied AS5 thermal compound this time

Tonight I played a few hours of Halo 3 and GTA IV without any lockups or problems at all. I am a VERY happy camper again.

As others have noted, make sure you have done the X-Clamp replacement and 12v fan mod in addition to this fix, or it will likely not stick. You need to keep the board mounted steady (the x-clamps warp the board) and you need to keep it as cool as possible (12v mod does this). I run my 12v mod at about 9v via a regular PC fan controller. This keeps the sound from being crazy, but cools MUCH better than stock. I also changed from using a wire soldered onto the motherboard to pulling 12v from the DVD cable. This is a much easier and more solid connection.

Note: I bought a second dead 360 to try the bake on. With that unit I didn't have as good of luck. The bake immediately fixed the RROD, and I can use the menus and watch videos perfectly. However, as soon as I start any game with some graphics going on, it locks up with no errors whatsoever. My guess is that this unit has some real damage to the GPU or memory. However, I will try to bake it a second time for good measure. Otherwise I guess I will end up selling it for parts (Samsung drive).

[Skinleech]

My second bake has ressurected my console too.  I baked it on a tray, with the metal case & x-clamps still on.  I covered the capacitors in foil too.

The fans were loud, but got a couple of hour long sessions on GTA done.  Let's see how long it lasts now...

[chickenmon]

I dont think there is any magic to this 360 resurection.  Im on my third bake now and this time I did 500F for about 9 min.  Ive not removed the heatsinks for each bake they have always been on since I did the xclamp mod and as far as washers goes I didnt really pay attention the goal is to make the heatsink flush with the cpu and gpu and not short out the small sm components around them.  The 12v mod in my mind is useless as you can tell when the 360 overheats as the fans rev up like a jet engine.  Mine never rev that high unless the heatsink is improperly mounted.  I think all the small details really just hinder people from trying this and every machine is going to be different.  I Know Ive done 3 bakes in about a month each time getting more agressive with temps and timing and each time it seems to last longer then the prior.  I would say the heatgun is probably the most effective and safe but I dont have one and dont feel like buying one so I choose the oven method.  Im sure this is very damaging  to the 360 but its on its last legs and untill it gives up the ghost completly I will continue to bake it as needed.  And i always wrap all caps and all conectors and anything plastic in foil before I bake and no melted buttons or blow caps.

[mk500]

QUOTE(chickenmon @ May 2 2008, 09:41 PM)

I dont think there is any magic to this 360 resurection...The 12v mod in my mind is useless as you can tell when the 360 overheats as the fans rev up like a jet engine...I think all the small details really just hinder people from trying this and every machine is going to be different....I would say the heatgun is probably the most effective and safe but I dont have one and dont feel like buying one so I choose the oven method...Im sure this is very damaging  to the 360 but its on its last legs and untill it gives up the ghost completly...

No offense please, but I have to respectfully disagree with the above comments. The original defect we are fixing has to do with connections breaking due to temperature fluctuations, which cause the board to warp slightly and break connections. By keeping a steady, cool temperature; the 360 is likely to remain reliable far longer. The 12v fan mod is the easiest and cheapest way to do this (as it only really requires cutting/splicing a couple wires. As proof of this, I would submit my first bake: Totally bad board which I had tried every other fix on. Bake+12v cooling gave me 4.5 months of regular use with zero lockups. It seems from your posts, unless I'm missing something, that you are only getting a few days from each bake. This may be from inadequate cooling.

As far as the heatgun, the problem with this approach is that you have to be extremely precise on two counts:
1) managing the temperature of the gun on your target area (very hard when blowing air around)
2) properly targeting the problem area (do we even know which ball sockets are broken?)
The bake method uses a steady temperature across the whole board, so you are sure to be hitting the problem spots. Also, everyone has an oven :-)

While I agree that the bake method should only be tried as a "last resort", I think it has the potential of being a pretty good fix. Since there are likely many thousands of us out there with "last resorts" machines, we need a solution. If we can perfect this method to maximize solder re-flow and minimize damage to other components (e.g. aluminum foil shielding)-- this is likely the very best fix for RROD available at this time (short of having a commercial company re-ball the chips; which is prohibitively expensive).

So far I have put about 10 hours of play time on my second bake, and the machine has functioned perfectly. I am throwing the hardest games at it: Halo 3, GTA IV, Forza 2, etc.

I strongly believe the only reason I needed a second bake after 4.5 months was the one day I played in a room with unusually hot ambient temps. It's too much of a coincidence that it died that day. I think that if we could come up with an even better cooling solution (larger heatsyncs, water cooling, or whatever) plus the bake, we may have something that could give us fixes that could last a year or more. I plan on continuing to play with this method in my free time with 360s that others have "tried everything else on". We'll see where it goes.

[chickenmon]

QUOTE(mk500 @ May 4 2008, 02:23 AM)

No offense please, but I have to respectfully disagree with the above comments. The original defect we are fixing has to do with connections breaking due to temperature fluctuations, which cause the board to warp slightly and break connections. By keeping a steady, cool temperature; the 360 is likely to remain reliable far longer. The 12v fan mod is the easiest and cheapest way to do this (as it only really requires cutting/splicing a couple wires. As proof of this, I would submit my first bake: Totally bad board which I had tried every other fix on. Bake+12v cooling gave me 4.5 months of regular use with zero lockups. It seems from your posts, unless I'm missing something, that you are only getting a few days from each bake. This may be from inadequate cooling.

As far as the heatgun, the problem with this approach is that you have to be extremely precise on two counts:
1) managing the temperature of the gun on your target area (very hard when blowing air around)
2) properly targeting the problem area (do we even know which ball sockets are broken?)
The bake method uses a steady temperature across the whole board, so you are sure to be hitting the problem spots. Also, everyone has an oven :-)

While I agree that the bake method should only be tried as a "last resort", I think it has the potential of being a pretty good fix. Since there are likely many thousands of us out there with "last resorts" machines, we need a solution. If we can perfect this method to maximize solder re-flow and minimize damage to other components (e.g. aluminum foil shielding)-- this is likely the very best fix for RROD available at this time (short of having a commercial company re-ball the chips; which is prohibitively expensive).

So far I have put about 10 hours of play time on my second bake, and the machine has functioned perfectly. I am throwing the hardest games at it: Halo 3, GTA IV, Forza 2, etc.

I strongly believe the only reason I needed a second bake after 4.5 months was the one day I played in a room with unusually hot ambient temps. It's too much of a coincidence that it died that day. I think that if we could come up with an even better cooling solution (larger heatsyncs, water cooling, or whatever) plus the bake, we may have something that could give us fixes that could last a year or more. I plan on continuing to play with this method in my free time with 360s that others have "tried everything else on". We'll see where it goes.

No offense taken but the 360 gpu or cpu has internal temp diodes that will regulate the 360 fan.  If they get to hot it will rev up the fan speed to cool. Its as simple as that.  A properly mounted heatsink should never allow the temps to get high enough to trigger the fans in 12volt mode. As long as ambient temp is not to high.

[mk500]

QUOTE(chickenmon @ May 3 2008, 07:53 PM)

No offense taken but the 360 gpu or cpu has internal temp diodes that will regulate the 360 fan.  If they get to hot it will rev up the fan speed to cool. Its as simple as that.  A properly mounted heatsink should never allow the temps to get high enough to trigger the fans in 12volt mode. As long as ambient temp is not to high.

If the temp diode says "we need maximum cooling", it will put out the full 5v to the fans, right? My fans are running at about 8-9v all the time. With fans, voltage = speed. This is over 50% faster than the maximum speed they would run stock. The end result is that the heatsyncs are always just warm to the touch. With stock, even at max speed the heatsyncs are quite hot when the system is being pushed.

The flaw in the design is that Microsoft figured it was OK to run the CPU/GPU a bit hot, as they can handle it (it's within spec, I'm sure). They didn't take into account what that heating/cooling would do to the poorly designed board/solder joints.