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[dazhick]

Hi,

I had the 1 red ring (E74) issue with my console and therefore I used a heat gun to try to solve the problem (I followed the exellent tutorial on this forum) However...

When I now try to turn the Xbox 360 on all I get is a quick green light that stays on for about 2 seconds and a beep and then 3 red flashing lights. The fan also only works for one second and then cuts out. I left the Xbox on for a few minutes to see if the heat sinks would start to get hot unfortunately they didn’t. I’ve tried this procedure with and without the DVD drive and still the same things happen. It appears that I have done damage to something on the board when heating it up. Also, I’ve plugged just the power lead in (nothing else) and instead of getting the expected 4 red lights I still get the same things happen.

I followed the tutorial and heated the back of the board first on low setting for 1 minute then moved up to high power for a further 3 minutes. I then waited 45 minutes turned the board over and repeated the process. I concentrated the heat on the GPU and ANA / HANA chips moving the gun in circular motions so as to avoid over-heating. I also used thick aluminium foil to protect the parts on the board that do not require the excess heat.

What do you think it is that I’ve damaged on the mobo?

I really appreciate your co-operation with the above.

P.S All the leads work OK with another Xbox and therefore it must be something damaged on the mobo that is causing me the problem.

Regards

[dazhick]

ERROR CODE:

The arror code I get when I press the sync button and DVD eject button is: 0003, I hope this helps someone in trying to help me fix the Xbox mobo.

[Sic Of Life]

I didn't know that the 360 had an on board speaker. Are you sure you're hearing a beep?

[strawsy]

I just did the x-clamp fix and I too and hearing a beep. But I only did exactly what willhelms tutorial said to do.

[ausmods]

Hmm, a 'beep' noise suggests to me that a component is either faulty or a component is getting stressed fairly majorly... Thats usually what causes beep noises from components. Or it could be the fans that are getting a rather low frequency pwm signal going thru them...

Does the beep noise dissapear when the fans are disconnected?

Id say theres some kind of power problem happening there... But itd be a crap of a thing to diagnose, due to the 360 being so damn complex.

This post has been edited by ausmods: Mar 3 2009, 06:45 AM

[dazhick]

Hi,

The beep is quick and lasts for less than a second.

I've done a bit of research and the 0003 error code could mean i have in-sufficient power going through my mobo, possible problem with either a PSU, GPU or CPU. However, i find this hard to believe as i followed Willemium's tutorial to the letter.

Any more thoughts / info would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Sic Of Life]

Did you knock off any components when you were removing the x-clamps? Check around the x-clamp area and look for missing components. Also like ausmods said (you still need to finish that slim btw!) it could be the fans that are making the beep noise, which could only be caused by a short so check out the mobo for any shorts.

[MacK3]

i think the beep comes out from the dvd reader (aswell might be the hdd), try detaching them and startup your console without those if the beep still comes out.

for the error itself, i have no idea :/

[dazhick]

Hi (thanks for your help so far)

I have tried the Xbox with only the power lead plugged (no DVD drive, no fan, no other leads etc what so ever) and exactly the same thing happens;

1) Green centre light on the front of the console comes on for a split second.

2) Beep noise happens at the same time for a split second, the noise comes from where the power plug is connected to the motherboard.

3) The above is then followed by 3 red flashing lights.

4) There is no power going to the motherboard as none of the chips get hot. I have tried this with and without the heat sinks fitted above the GPU and CPU chips and exactly the same thing happens.

5) I know the power supply works Ok as I fired up another Xbox up using the same power lead and wall socket etc and that Xbox works fine.

6) I’ve checked the motherboard for any missing capacitors etc and everything seems to be where it should be

Does anyone have any suggestions? I.E would it be a good idea to re-flow the solder on the board using the heat gun again? Or is that just going to make matters worse?

P.S I’ve fixed quite a few Xbox consoles that suffer from the normal 3 red lights and the 1 red light E74 error message. But I’ve never come across a Motherboard with this very awkward problem.

I hope (with your help and assistance) I / we can find a solution, which I can then share with the rest of the Xbox community.

Cheers

[strawsy]

Lol hmm lucky me because my first attempt just did the same thing. I look around and found a bad component next to the cpu. Also I listened very carefully and the beep was coming from around the cpu somewhere? Try lossening all the screws on the cpu and gpu and just let them sit there and see what that does. I actually had mine going for about 10 seconds but it crapped out on me for good.

[dazhick]

I tried re-flowing the solder around the GPU and CPU chips; unfortunately I still have the same problem.

I hope someone has been fortunate to cure this type of problem and can advise myself and other Xbox members.

I can now only assume it is something shorting on the motherboard???

Thank you for your assistance.

[MarkieT]

I had a simular problem before (think it was code: 0001), but it turned out I'd put a little too much Thermal Paste on and it had possibly caused some sort of short, I then removed the Heatsinks again, cleaned and re-applied the paste, and hey presto, it started booting up again!!!

BTW I don't mean to teach your Nan how to suck eggs (as they say) but the best way to apply the Thermal Paste is to put around a Grain of Rice size speck and then apply it using you finger within a plastic bag, that way you just add a light pasting (excuse the pun) and then your ok to refit the Heatsinks.


Hope that helps.


Cheers


Mark.

This post has been edited by MarkieT: Mar 4 2009, 02:19 AM

[ryman663]

QUOTE(dazhick @ Mar 2 2009, 10:29 PM)

ERROR CODE:

The arror code I get when I press the sync button and DVD eject button is: 0003, I hope this helps someone in trying to help me fix the Xbox mobo.

error code 0003 means that there is a power problem could be the PSU could be the GPU/CPU, somehow the console isn't getting clean power from the power supply.