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[iateshaggy]

unless u invent a new way of fixing 360's, what ever method u use will fail.  we like to call it "the xclamp break," the xclamps were never actually broken.  that is just another myth.

[shambles1980]

what you need to understand about the clamp fixes is that they work by adding more pressure to the chip pushing it down on the solder balls to reconnect them to the board..
thats why many people do not like them because they also tend to bend the board and cause more damage.

the alternative is to reflow the solder balls by using a rework station. This works by heating the solder balls up to a point where they are hot enough to be maluable but not so hot that they liquify and runtogether causing shorts.

reflowing is better because the balls then solder back in to possition like they are ment to be and not just held in place by pressure..

I know that there are many methods of attempting to reflow without the correct tools. As you mentioned one of them would be to have the CPU cooled whilst not cooling the gpu. but this never really gets to the temperatures needed to properly reflow the solderballs.
A diferent method is to use a heat gun for stripping paint. I really dont like that method. Its way too random and heatguns are just to hot they can cause damage to the chips. or make the solder flow together to make a 0020 error. they can even burn out the tiny little traces under the chips and that would be nxt to impossible to repair.

The best way to fix a rrod xbox is to reball it..
This means heating up the chips till they can be extracted off the board without damaging the traces underneath them, then you remove all the exsess solder thats on the chip and the board. and you get a little template and some flux, then use solder balls or a solder paste and fill the holes in the template with whatever medium your using. heat them up so they solder in place, and then you place the chip back on the board and heat it up so board and chip are connected together again this time using leaded solder, which is what microsoft should have done to start it..

So back to the xclamps.
if you reflow the board properly then you should re use the original xclamps they arent as bad as people want to say. or if you re ball the board again use the original xclamps..
i like arctic cooling mx-2 thermal paste as a medium it has no electrical conductivity so its a bit safer than others, and it works really well,

If you insist on using a xclamp replacment get the real deal not one of those nasty ebay kits. And dont use a heat gun on it no matter what you see on you tube or the internet.
personaly i have no issues with well installed correctly spaced replacment kits. But those nasty things you get on ebay should be avoided.

[xboxhaxorz]

i am glad you have done research on our own, and yes the x clamp FIX is the most suggested however it is the most incorrect method used as a FIX

please view this for research purposes

the error code you have can be 2 things the gpu or the ram chips

i always start with the gpu remove it and replace if it doesnt go away i start removing ram chips until it does then when it goes away i know it was that ram chip and i replace it

90% of the time though its the gpu