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[First_Degree]

I did the penny fix (2 per ram chip) in October after getting the dreaded red ring of death. I also used some arctic silver on the cpu/gpu.  For the most part, the fix has been good, as i haven't had a rrod since.  But....

There are a handful of games that freeze pretty frequently after 5-15 minutes of play.  The weird thing is that there are some that i've played for hours and they've never frozen once:

The only three that seem to freeze that i know of are:
-Ace Combat--freezes EVERY time after about 5 minutes.
-Rock Band--freezes very often, usually after
-Madden 08--freezes almost every time, after 15-20 minutes

The thing is, I've played seemingly demanding games like COD4 for many hours straight and never had an error. Weird...


I was just wondering if anyone else has had similar issues, and if so what (if anything) has worked.

I'm thinking of trying Tortuga's die threading X-clamp fix/heat gun combination.

[Wilhelm_I]

QUOTE(First_Degree @ Feb 20 2008, 07:27 AM)

I did the penny fix (2 per ram chip) in October after getting the dreaded red ring of death. I also used some arctic silver on the cpu/gpu.  For the most part, the fix has been good, as i haven't had a rrod since.  But....

There are a handful of games that freeze pretty frequently after 5-15 minutes of play.  The weird thing is that there are some that i've played for hours and they've never frozen once:

The only three that seem to freeze that i know of are:
-Ace Combat--freezes EVERY time after about 5 minutes.
-Rock Band--freezes very often, usually after
-Madden 08--freezes almost every time, after 15-20 minutes

The thing is, I've played seemingly demanding games like COD4 for many hours straight and never had an error. Weird...
I was just wondering if anyone else has had similar issues, and if so what (if anything) has worked.

I'm thinking of trying Tortuga's die threading X-clamp fix/heat gun combination.

Sounds pretty weird, did you check the gamediscs for scratches?

[First_Degree]

Yep. I tried the originals and backups far these games, and they all had the exact same freezing issues.

[Flyin M0nk3y]

don't try the heatgun just yet...try to wiggle you gpu and cpu see if they feel pretty looose then it's your not getting enough connection on it and would have to do a x-clamp...i hope leaving 2 penny will work when you do the gpu and cpu fix...i had to use 3 pennys my xbox fans are running like crazy but my xbox never feels hot at all...

[First_Degree]

thanks for the tip, i'll try the x-clamp tonight without the heat gun

[First_Degree]

**UPDATE**

I have now attempted, in this order:

-replacing the x-clamp

-RBJtech's fan shroud mod

-pointing a house fan directly at both heatsinks with the unit open (so while a heat issue may have caused the problem, the unit doesn't appear to be overheating)

-reflowing with a heatgun

-overheating using the llama.com method

-swapping DVD drives


and.....every time i get the same results!  

The 360 turns on and appears to be operating properly (I haven't had a single rrod, since the initial one months ago), but....rock band freezes almost every song and ace combat freezes every time after a few minutes!  There might be more games that would have issues, but these two are the only ones I know of right now.

Yet in the last few days COD 4, DMC 4, NBA 2K8, NHL 08, The Orange Box, Halo 3, Mass Effect and more have all played perfectly without a single freeze.  What the hell...

Maybe it's a faulty GPU.  I really don't know.  I just don't understand why a small handful of games have issues, while a majority of games play fine.

I've never heard of anything like it, and I'm just about done screwing with it.  It sucks because I've been able to fix the rrod for everyone else i know who has had it, using an x-clamp fix/cooling upgrades.

All input is much appreciated.

[Wilhelm_I]

QUOTE(First_Degree @ Mar 2 2008, 11:08 PM)

**UPDATE**

I have now attempted, in this order:

-replacing the x-clamp

-RBJtech's fan shroud mod

-pointing a house fan directly at both heatsinks with the unit open (so while a heat issue may have caused the problem, the unit doesn't appear to be overheating)

-reflowing with a heatgun

-overheating using the llama.com method

-swapping DVD drives
and.....every time i get the same results!  

The 360 turns on and appears to be operating properly (I haven't had a single rrod, since the initial one months ago), but....rock band freezes almost every song and ace combat freezes every time after a few minutes!  There might be more games that would have issues, but these two are the only ones I know of right now.

Yet in the last few days COD 4, DMC 4, NBA 2K8, NHL 08, The Orange Box, Halo 3, Mass Effect and more have all played perfectly without a single freeze.  What the hell...

Maybe it's a faulty GPU.  I really don't know.  I just don't understand why a small handful of games have issues, while a majority of games play fine.

I've never heard of anything like it, and I'm just about done screwing with it.  It sucks because I've been able to fix the rrod for everyone else i know who has had it, using an x-clamp fix/cooling upgrades.

All input is much appreciated.

What about the thermal compound, did you apply any?
Did you clean the dies of the chips until you could see your own reflection?
And if you did, did you apply the correct amount(size of a rice grain) of the thermal compound?
Too much or not enough thermal compound can lead to these issues...
The fact that only some games dont work is a bit weird though...

[HotKnife420]

I've come across a 360 recently that seems to be plagued by the same problem. I've only played Gears of War & Tetris on it. Gears of War doesn't freeze at all, but Tetris freezes when I start a new game, unless I don't have the hard drive connected... hard drive/PSU/etc don't seem to have issues on any other systems.

[thili55]

Yup I could not for the life of me find a way to fix this either. I believe its a faulty GPU. They came to me as 0102's and after heatgun and xclamp they booted right up. But proceeded to freeze randomly. I continued to try hitting them harder with the heatgun, overheating by loosening the gpu heatsink, all kinds of shit. Never made any progress. So I got rid of them.

[First_Degree]

Wilhelm_I: I thoroughly cleaned the chips with ArctiClean and evenly spread a grain of rice sized bit of Arctic Silver 5 on them.

I think I've come to the same conclusion as thili55.  It seems likely to be a faulty GPU.  I don't know why else some games would work perfectly and others barely at all!

Maybe it's something a professional reball could fix, but i really don't know and don't feel like wasting the time/money to find out.


Thanks guys for all the input.  Unfortunately it looks pretty hopeless, and it might be best to just get rid of it...


I know it's been said over an over, but it still amazes me how even Microsoft could release such an unreliable piece of equipment with SO many major issues!  
Has there ever been a faultier consumer product?

[SonicPower]

QUOTE(First_Degree @ Mar 5 2008, 12:30 AM)

Wilhelm_I: I thoroughly cleaned the chips with ArctiClean and evenly spread a grain of rice sized bit of Arctic Silver 5 on them.

I think I've come to the same conclusion as thili55.  It seems likely to be a faulty GPU.  I don't know why else some games would work perfectly and others barely at all!

Maybe it's something a professional reball could fix, but i really don't know and don't feel like wasting the time/money to find out.
Thanks guys for all the input.  Unfortunately it looks pretty hopeless, and it might be best to just get rid of it...
I know it's been said over an over, but it still amazes me how even Microsoft could release such an unreliable piece of equipment with SO many major issues!  
Has there ever been a faultier consumer product?

They got their issues fixed now, so if you buy a Falcon based model, you won't have any more 3rol problems.

[xCAUSALITYx]

Hi,

You still have the same problem, what error code did you have in the beginning?

The reason i'm saying this is cos just before a console goes to RROD it freezes intermittently, sometimes without you even seeing it - What your attempts to repair it have done is make the issue more visable.

However on a good note, you are starting to make the issue go away as you are able to play upto 20 mins at a time, basically this means that from a cold start everything is fine, but as the console warms up everything on the mainboard expands, hence components moving from where there seated to give you freezing or stuttering (Dry joints).

What the pennies or cents do is apply pressure to the locations you placed them, what I suggest is to get a bit more pressure on them - Add some more thickness to the pennies or cents and experiment with the tightness of the chassis screws that hold the x-clamps in place.

Even though the x-clamp mods are only a temporary fix, you could always try the suggestions I have posted on another thread: My Other Posts On This Subject..!

Good Luck with whatever you choose to follow...!  

Cheers

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE(xCAUSALITYx @ Mar 5 2008, 12:48 PM)

The reason i'm saying this is cos just before a console goes to RROD it freezes intermittently, sometimes without you even seeing it - What your attempts to repair it have done is make the issue more visable.

However on a good note, you are starting to make the issue go away as you are able to play upto 20 mins at a time, basically this means that from a cold start everything is fine, but as the console warms up everything on the mainboard expands, hence components moving from where there seated to give you freezing or stuttering (Dry joints).

 In my case, I've got a game that freezes at the same point, every time (Tetris Evolution. Start a new game, after the countdown the game freezes. If you don't have a hdd attached, it doesn't seem to be a problem). I can play gears of war longer than I can stand to at a time (no issues). Whether the console has just been turned on, or been on for hours, it will still freeze upon starting a game of Tetris Evolution (hdd attached).

 I know the DVD drive is a bit less than perfect on this console (I rebuilt one that was in bad shape); is it possible that all my Tetris (and possibly other games I don't have) freezes are caused by a failing DVD drive?

This post has been edited by HotKnife420: Mar 5 2008, 09:34 PM

[veekay]

I've noticed Rockband and American Idol - Encore cause my box to freeze and then RROD on reboot.  If I unplug the instruments from the USB ports then it works fine.  I'm not sure if it is an issue with USB or what, but it can run for 6+ hours playing other games without an issue.