Topic: Tutorial: Experimental 360 Rrod Fix With Your Oven! (Read 698 times)

Danny-boy · « **Reply #15 on:** January 10, 2009, 09:28:00 AM »

Surely this is just insane!! Surely!!

option350z · « **Reply #16 on:** January 10, 2009, 09:30:00 AM »

Great way of putting my xenon board to death. To me I rather buy a new console but this is a great way to see if you might be able to save your 360 when all hope else fails.

wyldstallions · « **Reply #17 on:** January 10, 2009, 10:40:00 AM »

It's probably the closest way to get a professional reflow at home without either buying or making a load of specialist equipment.

The problems with the heat gun are that unless you have an I.R thermostat handy or heat probe your not going to know the exact temperature you are giving any specific part of the board, so you may apply excessive heat on one spot while insufficient heat at another, without knowing if you are getting hot enough for long enough it may not reflow, plus you are only heating one side at a time so it can also make the board warp.

I based this on a whitepaper on a specifically designed xbox360 reflow station which heats the underside of the board to 160˚C and heats the chips to 230˚C for just a matter of 90 or so seconds. With a reflow station its equipped to not apply heat to the bits you dont want, but not having that its necessary to protect those parts, also we are heating the underside of the board higher, but this is not so big a problem.

You need to get it hot enough 230˚C to reflow but too hot 250˚C and its possible to damage the chips. It takes a bit longer in the oven as you have the heat up period. I did a number of test with bits of solder to time exactly how long they took to reflow.

But no if your a hamfisted impatient baboon then the best thing to do is send it off for repair.

Lugnut · « **Reply #18 on:** January 11, 2009, 12:10:00 AM »

I just did a second unit the same way as i listed earlier in this thread, remove all caps because they wont survive. remove heatsinks, and pads from underneath rams. take out the fans. take off the rol and because this unit has sync and eject buttons that are blue i had to remove those also as they will melt unlike the black buttons. there is one other thing i did different this time. On the first unit when i reflowed the whole board all the connectors with those spring tabs that push up against the casing caused the connectors to bend inwards when their solder reflowed. So i bent back all the tabs on this one so there was no contact with the casing. I then coiled up a piece of silver solder and put alittle flux paste between the gpu and cpu then put the solder on top of it ( i just use the paste so the solder will stay put when flowed). put it on toast ( thats the only setting on this oven that turns on all 4 elements). wait till the solder coil melts. Count 2 minutes. Open door real quick and check one of the big inductors to see if it reflowed. it was not. left it in for another minute and a half. checked again. the inductors had reflowed. Shut off the oven. check a few mosfets to make sure they're reflowed too, then closed door real quick but leaving it cracked open about 2 inches for 60 seconds so it wouldnt cool down too fast. Then opened the door fully and let it sit till it was room temperature. as5 and heatsinks put back on, plug in fan, fire it up with no caps just to see if it would boot and it did. Although its not good to do this but just for the hell of it i decided to see how far the system could go with no caps. It would go to the dash and load a game. ( used forza 2) but it would artifact real bad when i started a race and lock up. then sat at dash and noticed little artifacts here and there all over the screen. hmmm does this look familiar? makes me wonder if some of the box's that freeze and artifact alot actually have a cap problem and not a chip issue.

killamayne · « **Reply #19 on:** January 11, 2009, 12:17:00 AM »

QUOTE(Lugnut @ Jan 10 2009, 11:46 PM)

I just did a second unit the same way as i listed earlier in this thread, remove all caps because they wont survive. remove heatsinks, and pads from underneath rams. take out the fans. take off the rol and because this unit has sync and eject buttons that are blue i had to remove those also as they will melt unlike the black buttons. there is one other thing i did different this time. On the first unit when i reflowed the whole board all the connectors with those spring tabs that push up against the casing caused the connectors to bend inwards when their solder reflowed. So i bent back all the tabs on this one so there was no contact with the casing. I then coiled up a piece of silver solder and put alittle flux paste between the gpu and cpu then put the solder on top of it ( i just use the paste so the solder will stay put when flowed). put it on toast ( thats the only setting on this oven that turns on all 4 elements). wait till the solder coil melts. Count 2 minutes. Open door real quick and check one of the big inductors to see if it reflowed. it was not. left it in for another minute and a half. checked again. the inductors had reflowed. Shut off the oven. check a few mosfets to make sure they're reflowed too, then closed door real quick but leaving it cracked open about 2 inches for 60 seconds so it wouldnt cool down too fast. Then opened the door fully and let it sit till it was room temperature. as5 and heatsinks put back on, plug in fan, fire it up with no caps just to see if it would boot and it did. Although its not good to do this but just for the hell of it i decided to see how far the system could go with no caps. It would go to the dash and load a game. ( used forza 2) but it would artifact real bad when i started a race and lock up. then sat at dash and noticed little artifacts here and there all over the screen. hmmm does this look familiar? makes me wonder if some of the box's that freeze and artifact alot actually have a cap problem and not a chip issue.

gpu error. caps have nothing to do with artifacting. i would do wilhelm's method of using credit card bits on the gpu giving it a even sit on the GPU

Lugnut · « **Reply #20 on:** January 11, 2009, 01:34:00 AM »

Well the caps had to have everything to do with it because the system is perfectly fine after reinstalling them, I guess thats what the filter caps are there for. i was just curious to see how far it got without them, i was suprised it was able to get up to the point of about 2 or 3 seconds into a race before major artifacting then crash, and at the dash it had very light artifacting, had to pay real close attention to see it. i was just being stupid with it, I'll never do that again as im sure it cant be good for the system at all. Once i put all the caps back in it was perfectly fine though. Hopefully the complete board reflow took care of the 0102. First unit i did is still going but im going to give that unit to an xbox 360 killer, heck i think he even has one of them club rrod tshirts you see on ebay lol.

with all the attempts i have made at rrod fix's, none of them last. xclamp, heatgun etc etc, and probably the whole board reflow probably wont last either maybe the first unit was just a fluke.

On another note, im going to try to buy an lcd thermometer, im not sure exactly what im looking for but by looking around it seems like i should get a k type probe thermometer , which should be able to handle the temps then i will put it board level. Im just not sure if it should be covered so theres no direct shot to any of the elements that might cause it to read higher than it should.

This post has been edited by Lugnut: Jan 11 2009, 09:41 AM

xbox360dude · « **Reply #21 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:44:00 AM »

is it safe to use the MICROWAVE oven??

KingSyze · « **Reply #22 on:** January 12, 2009, 09:42:00 AM »

QUOTE(xbox360dude @ Jan 12 2009, 04:20 PM)

is it safe to use the MICROWAVE oven??

No. Microwaves work on mositure contained in the stuff your cooking. not to mention the amount of metal that you are putting in the microwave.....hope you have home fire insurance.

angusbeef · « **Reply #23 on:** January 12, 2009, 12:29:00 PM »

QUOTE(Lugnut @ Jan 11 2009, 08:46 AM)

Open door real quick and check one of the big inductors to see if it reflowed. it was not. left it in for another minute and a half. checked again. the inductors had reflowed. Shut off the oven. check a few mosfets to make sure they're reflowed too,

Hey Lugnut, how are you checking to see if the inductors and mosfets are relowed? Just peaking in and looking for liquid solder? Or are you physically doing something?

Thanks

Lugnut · « **Reply #24 on:** January 12, 2009, 05:51:00 PM »

I cut a piece of coat hanger to about 15 inches long and straightened it. When i go to check to see if the standup inductor has reflowed i crack the door open like half an inch and slide the coat hanger in there. I push on one of the inductors very lightly so i dont disturb anything else on the board. If it rolls from side to side when i touch it then i know the solder on it has reflowed.

adrenaline_X · « **Reply #25 on:** January 12, 2009, 08:38:00 PM »

I should mention that just because your solder is melting that you placed inbetween the GPU and CPU doesn't mean you gpu has reflowed

Are you using the exact same solder that is used on the xbox? I read up in wikipedia a year ago and there are a couple of different compositions for lead free solder.

Also, the solder balls under the gpu will melt at a much higher temperature now because of the massive heat applied to the gpu due to a lack of cooling.

I like your method as well, but it is very time consuming.. Simply covering up the rest of the board and insulating it is enough.

Very interesting to hear the the lack of caps made it artifact! Make sense as caps hold electricity like a battery, so it smooths out the power source.

I do have a toaster oven, but it will not fit the board.. If I have to bake this xenon board again i will take more pictures of my setup

It's super easy and i thought my xenon was toast anyhow... got a few more months out of it so far.. I have a couple more hours on COD4 on it.. gonna hit it up again tonight!

I'm now looking at getting dead ps3s to see what I can do with them!

DO NOT PUT YOUR BOARD IN THE MICROWAVE! IT WILL SPARK AND KILL YOUR MICROWAVE AND PERHAPS START A FIRE!

Lugnut · « **Reply #26 on:** January 12, 2009, 09:29:00 PM »

Solder i use between gpu and cpu is silver bearing solder, it is only to tell me to get ready and start checking the lead free soldered stuff. I have a couple test boards that i ruined to try to find roughly what temps these gpu's were reflowing and it kept coming up between 2 and 3 minutes after the silver bearing solder melted and before the inductors reflowed. It's not perfect. I read somewhere that microsoft says no more than 3 reflows of the chips. So you want to try to get it right the first time, because every successive rebake is destroying the chips.

I have also taken the solder from these gpu's and reflowed the solder on their own. I know i have heard all this stuff about the solder annealing and causing higher flow temp etc, But on the two i dissected and tested, the solder of both reflowed just before reaching 450F, somewhere around 230 to 232c.

This post has been edited by Lugnut: Jan 13 2009, 05:36 AM

Lugnut · « **Reply #27 on:** January 21, 2009, 08:27:00 PM »

ok it only took a week for the "xbox killer" to take out the first unit i fixed with my previously listed reflow method. It's dead again with 0102, I can heat the gpu to get it to start working again. I'm really starting to think alot of system errors maybe internal to the gpu. Hence why you heat it and it starts working again. Sure the solder balls expand, but so does everything else. I hate to say it but it looks like once a system is 3rrod, unless its something other than the GPU, It will forever rrod again. I have a system that has no dvd key. I have already pulled the GPU, and reballed it with a reballing station, ( pain in my freakin azz to do) but i managed to get it. In the next few days I'll try to get the gpu off this system that has just rrod'd again and see if i can repair it with the other gpu.

Note: the xbox killer all he plays is cod5, and i know that game is rough on 360's, The other person that was using the system, mainly used it for games like rockband 2 etc and never had a problem. I just wonder how much longer the system would of lasted playing less graphically intense games.

The second system i fixed with the toaster reflow is still running. And i keep running forza 2 on it everyday ( i just hire drivers to do endurance races) So far its running fine after almost 1 week. This system however has a reverse fan flow. the rear fans pull air in over the heatsinks, then there is two additional fans inside the case that blow the air out of the cases side/bottom vent.

Sic Of Life · « **Reply #28 on:** January 21, 2009, 08:46:00 PM »

Is the 360 any quieter with the fans blowing air in? I was thinking of doing this to my 360 after I get a Jasper, but I don't know if it makes it any quieter. And how cool does it keep the 360?

Lugnut · « **Reply #29 on:** January 21, 2009, 09:19:00 PM »

actually, as a whole i think it heats up the 360 inside the case more. But it is definetly keeping the heatsinks cooler. I just judge it by how hot the underside of the 360 is, You know where ms has the heat transfer pads on the rams. Definetly not as warm. Im not sure exactly about aerodynamics maybe someone else knows better, but pushing air causes it to compress and i think it handles heat transfer better off the fins of the h/s. Rather than pulling air which causes low pressure. Everyones worried about putting a bunch of hot air inside the case. Besides the ram chips and maybe the southbridge, I dont think we have to worry too much about anything else heating up alittle bit. As long as there's fans to draw it out of the case too.

Author Topic: Tutorial: Experimental 360 Rrod Fix With Your Oven! (Read 698 times)