Post by: christopher_sage on August 31, 2012, 01:37:00 AM
#1 tip to avoid Xbox red ring of death is to prevent Xbox overheating.
#2 never try to re-solder Xbox your own unless you are knowledgeable at it or you have a repair guide with you.
#3 Don't wrap the damaged Xbox 360 console with a bath towel, it will not do good to your Xbox.
Source: http://www.e74online.com/ just sharing to also contribute helpful information to Xbox lovers like me. Thank you!
Post by: christopher_sage on September 02, 2012, 11:19:00 PM
Thank you for the Xbox 360 repair tutorial I really appreciate what you did jimwross but unfortunately the images or what are not displaying it would be better if we have a picture of what your are mentioning in your steps so we can follow it. Also, as what I mentioned in my previous posts. Here are some key points to remember when fixing your Xbox 360. Keep these in mind so you will not do more damage to your precious console
#1 tip to avoid Xbox red ring of death is to prevent Xbox overheating.
#2 never try to re-solder Xbox your own unless you are knowledgeable at it or you have a repair guide with you.
#3 Don't wrap the damaged Xbox 360 console with a bath towel, it will not do good to your Xbox.
This post has been edited by christopher_sage: Sep 3 2012, 06:11 AM
Post by: xboxhaxorz on September 22, 2012, 04:58:00 AM
QUOTE(scientwist @ Jul 29 2012, 06:23 PM) 
I wouldn't suggest this but I figured what the heck. Stripped everything down cleaned chips under heat sink. I didn't have a heat gun or hairdryer so I used a hot butter knife that I bent the tip on. Just heated the knife on the stove and when it got hot placed it on chip and think I could actually hear it re-flow the solder. Plugged board back in and the thing booted up no more E74
Have one I fixed for a little bit with the xclamp fix and I might try this to see if I can bring it back to life. its way more dead though worth a try.
Wish I could have my Error420 nick
lol omg so your butter knife was at least 700 degrees then, im guessing you used welding gloves to hold it
solder melting makes no sound, unless your superman
Post by: Weirdjerz3y on October 13, 2012, 01:47:00 PM
QUOTE(rainmanx2 @ Oct 6 2012, 03:08 PM)
The images from the start of this thread are unavailable for me. Does amyne have images of what needed to be heated? I recently got the 74 error. Did the standard rrod fix and it worked for about an hour or so then the image got lines in it and now it's back to the e74. I don't mind using a heat gun but want to make sure i am using it in correct areas and for the correct amount of time. Any help would be great.
E74 Will most likely need a gpu replacement. Just send it in to one of the many pros on this site.
Post by: deilzfcjk on January 20, 2013, 01:42:00 AM
Either learn through a certified training center, and do it yourself. Or send it to a pro with lots of feedback. Just don't watch youtube and think you can learn something from it.
this is precise stuff. and shitty equipment and wrong types of chemicals mess it up. Especially if you have had it worked on before. It's just not worth it imho.
Post by: jimwross on April 06, 2008, 09:01:00 PM
After fixing hundreds of 360's now, I thought I'd post my little solution for the E74 problem.
----
What you need:
Stuff to open the 360
Basic X-Clamp replacement stuff (follow the other tutorials on how to do this)
Heat gun
Patience
----
Ok so here we go:
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2747.jpg)
My workspace
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2748.jpg)
The E74 Error on the current box
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2749.jpg)
Heres the box with the problems
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2750.jpg)
Case off, remove all of the screws, including the little black ones on the RF unit and for the x-clamps
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2751.jpg)
Unplug the SATA and DVD power cables, unplug the fans
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2753.jpg)
Now we have a good look at the chip cuasing all of the problems. Sits directly above the GPU. It's the video scaler chip aka ANA / HANA chip.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2755.jpg)
And another photo of it
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2757.jpg)
here's a view from the bottom
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2758.jpg)
And another view
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2759.jpg)
Close up of the ANA chip
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2760.jpg)
Here's my el-cheapo heat gun, you can pick up one in the paint section of lowes or home depot.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2762.jpg)
Heatgun box
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2763.jpg)
Remove the X-clamp from the GPU, take the bolts out of the heatsink
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2764.jpg)
I like the goo gone gel, it works wonders for taking off the stock heatsink goop. Just make sure to clean the area with rubbing alcohol afterward.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2765.jpg)
Clean the GPU off
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2766.jpg)
Clean the heatsink off
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2767.jpg)
Use the higher percentage rubbing alcohol
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2768.jpg)
Apply artic silver, do the standard X-Clamp fix.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2769.jpg)
Now the parts we need exposed (underneath the stock x-clamp) are accessible.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2770.jpg)
OK, so put your heatgun on a medium setting and start apply heat to the marked areas. KEEP THE GUN MOVING you don't want to burn the parts. This will cuase the solder joints to reball themselves (hopefully). Concentrate on the area linking the GPU and the ANA chip.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2771.jpg)
The motherboard is going to be HOT. Let it cool down. Put the fans and the fan shroud back in, and test it out.
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2772.jpg)
Woohoo!
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2773.jpg)
Nice.
Now if this doesn't work the first time, don't fret. Keep trying, you may need up the heat on your heat gun or give the board more exposure. After you get the 360 running,
keep the case off for a bit, play a few games and see what happens. Some 360's are worse off then others, and may require you to go through the steps again (if the E74 returns).
Post by: shah87 on April 07, 2008, 02:46:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on April 07, 2008, 03:58:00 AM
Do you know the solution on how to fix the E73 error?
This has to do with frying the ethernet chip, usually from people doing the stupid towel trick and overheating components that were not supposed to be hot. You could replace it.
Post by: brandogg on April 07, 2008, 08:02:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 07, 2008, 08:07:00 AM
At first I tried to take pressure on the ANA-chip with a stack of cents this didnt work for long so I heatgunned it and since then it works again...
However I must critisize something which just came to my mind, I guess doing the X-Clamp replacement and applying arctic silver before heatgunning it is a bad idea.
Well, why?
Arctic silver is only supposed to be used up to a maximum heat of 120°C which is easily reached if you want to soften the solder(to reflow it you need a 225°C I guess). I am not sure in which way it changes the way the thermal compound operates but I guess it will rather harm than do any good.
As you dont completely reflow anything the X-CLamp replacement should be quite OK but if you do actually really reach the melting point of the leadfree solder, the pressure will push the whole GPU onto the mainboard which would destroy the solder balls and flatten them-> The mainboard would be trash...
Apart from this the tutorial is very detailed and helpful, maybe you can edit this
Post by: brandogg on April 07, 2008, 08:10:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on April 07, 2008, 09:07:00 AM
My reasoning on this was the following:
1) The problem which seems apparent to me is that the connection between the GPU and the ANA chip comes undone cuasing the E74 error.
2) Just as with the X-Clamp fix, the connections themselves seem to appear unneath where the previous X-Clamp was
3) With the re-applied pressure of heatsink on the GPU being pressed down w/ the machine screws it would hopefully hold the parts in place WHILE its being re-heated.
I just have a feeling that its the actually more to do with the GPU's incomplete connection to the ANA chip that cuases the E74; I've noticed after people overheat the GPU or get the 3 RLOD the E74 becomes much more prevelent. In addition to this, I have a hard time buying that the ANA chip gets hot enough to break solder joints (thus proving the penny method is sort of inapplicable), leading me to believe the problem area is that of the connections UNDER where the previous x-clamp was.
I could be totaly off base, just some assumptions I made. Thanks for the input. Brandogg, any ideas on this? I havent had anybody else to bounce stuff off of.
This post has been edited by jimwross: Apr 7 2008, 04:15 PM
Post by: brandogg on April 07, 2008, 12:53:00 PM
Post by: [AD] on April 07, 2008, 05:10:00 PM
Post by: brandogg on April 07, 2008, 10:31:00 PM
Post by: pimpmaul69 on April 08, 2008, 01:05:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 08, 2008, 06:49:00 AM
QUOTE(pimpmaul69 @ Apr 8 2008, 09:41 AM) 
e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.
Well, you got lucky then, in my case it was definitely a pin of the ANA-chip which lost contact because pushing it onto the mainboard made the 360 boot...
When I moved my finger away the screen got weird artifacts over the whole screen and the color changed slightly
And I did not take it under enough pressure to make the GPU balls get contact again(nothing like the penn-fix or so) and I did the X-Clamp replacement like 2 month before which fixed it the first time.
So it might have been the GPU in the first place but it was definitely the ANA-chip when it failed the second time...
This post has been edited by Wilhelm_I: Apr 8 2008, 01:50 PM
Post by: jimwross on April 08, 2008, 09:18:00 AM
QUOTE(pimpmaul69 @ Apr 8 2008, 02:41 AM)
e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.
I think its been pretty well established that the E74 Error has to do with the connection between the ANA / HANA / failure of the Scaler Chip to the GPU
Post by: towerblocks on April 08, 2008, 09:40:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on April 08, 2008, 11:33:00 AM
Nice tutorial, Anyone know where to get a ANA chip heatsink from?
You'd have to figure out how to attach it too... but I don't think its the ANA chip thats really getting to hot, i'm fairly certain its from the GPU getting really hot and melting the connection between the two...
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 08, 2008, 01:07:00 PM
QUOTE(towerblocks @ Apr 8 2008, 06:16 PM)
Nice tutorial, Anyone know where to get a ANA chip heatsink from?
I used these they are perfect for the whole mainboard...
There are 8 in each pack.
I put one on each RAM block and one on the southbridge and combined 4 of them to "build" a bigger heatsink that perfectly covers the ana-chip
They are cheap and work very well.
I bought my copper heatsinks for 2.90€ which is approx 5 US$ aluminium costs a bit less
Here is the link http://www.thermalta...-C002526BGA.htm
Post by: [AD] on April 08, 2008, 05:00:00 PM
-=AD=-
Post by: jimwross on April 08, 2008, 07:15:00 PM
QUOTE
' date='Apr 8 2008, 06:36 PM' post='4253693']
Followed this tonight and it worked a treat
-=AD=-
Followed this tonight and it worked a treat
-=AD=-
Glad to hear it. When I initially tried to find info on how to fix the e74, there was little to nothing to go off of.
Post by: Boobers on April 09, 2008, 05:50:00 AM
You use the Heat Gun on the motherboard with the Heat Sinks ON??? or OFF???
B
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 09, 2008, 06:37:00 AM
QUOTE(Boobers @ Apr 9 2008, 02:26 PM)
Just to confirm one point.
You use the Heat Gun on the motherboard with the Heat Sinks ON??? or OFF???
B
OFF is better as the thermal compound cant be used for temperatures higher than 120°C and if you heat it up too much the pressure might flatten the solderballs below the GPU which would wreck it, on the pictures he had them ON though
Post by: Boobers on April 09, 2008, 07:15:00 AM
On another note, I am glad to see confirmed that using Goo Gone is a good thing.
One of the hardest part of doing the 3RROD fix (at least for me) was the finger-breaking cleaning of the old Heat Sink compound using alcohol.. I came across a little can of Goo Gone Extreme in my wife's cleaning cupboard. What took me almost 20 mins to do with alcohol, I can do in 2 mins with the Goo Gone. And the results are 20 times better..
My only concern was that the strong cleaner in the Goo Gone might harm the structure or the circuitry of the GPU and CPU. But I haven't seen any thing like that. Knock on wood..
Thanx again.
B
Post by: jimwross on April 09, 2008, 09:26:00 AM
QUOTE(Boobers @ Apr 9 2008, 08:51 AM)
Kewl. Thanx (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
On another note, I am glad to see confirmed that using Goo Gone is a good thing.
One of the hardest part of doing the 3RROD fix (at least for me) was the finger-breaking cleaning of the old Heat Sink compound using alcohol.. I came across a little can of Goo Gone Extreme in my wife's cleaning cupboard. What took me almost 20 mins to do with alcohol, I can do in 2 mins with the Goo Gone. And the results are 20 times better..
My only concern was that the strong cleaner in the Goo Gone might harm the structure or the circuitry of the GPU and CPU. But I haven't seen any thing like that. Knock on wood.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Thanx again.
B
Just clean the googone residue off w/ alcohol afterwards
Post by: Boobers on April 09, 2008, 11:58:00 AM
We must think alike..
I am sooo sorry for you.
B
Post by: wllazer17 on April 10, 2008, 09:36:00 PM
I was just wondering approximately what temperature the board must reach for this to work and what temperature would be TOO much? I have a heatgun but I think I might pick up an infrared thermometer for doing this. Thanks for any input
This post has been edited by wllazer17: Apr 11 2008, 04:42 AM
Post by: jimwross on April 11, 2008, 01:34:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Apr 10 2008, 11:12 PM)
Hi I am very interested in this method as I think it will solve my e74 error that has been troublesome to fix.
I was just wondering approximately what temperature the board must reach for this to work and what temperature would be TOO much? I have a heatgun but I think I might pick up an infrared thermometer for doing this. Thanks for any input
You just need the temp to get hot enough to melt the solder points, mine has two settings, both work, you just have to be careful to keep the gun moving so it doesnt burn the board / other parts.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 12, 2008, 02:26:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Apr 11 2008, 09:34 PM)
You just need the temp to get hot enough to melt the solder points, mine has two settings, both work, you just have to be careful to keep the gun moving so it doesnt burn the board / other parts.
I fixed my second 360 using this method it works very well
I started using my heatgun with the lowest step which is around 300°C to "warm" it up...
After like a minute I switched to 500°C and did this another 2-3 minutes
When you see the capacitors shaking you can decrease the temperature to 300°C and let it cool down for half an hour.
After it cooled down the solder of the area looked a bit different it had a yellow/golden shine
I did this twice once for the upper side and after cooling down the bottom...
360 works flawless, I will keep you updated
Post by: Rustmonkey on April 12, 2008, 03:00:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 12 2008, 03:02 AM)
I fixed my second 360 using this method it works very well
I started using my heatgun with the lowest step which is around 300°C to "warm" it up...
After like a minute I switched to 500°C and did this another 2-3 minutes
When you see the capacitors shaking you can decrease the temperature to 300°C and let it cool down for half an hour.
After it cooled down the solder of the area looked a bit different it had a yellow/golden shine
I did this twice once for the upper side and after cooling down the bottom...
360 works flawless, I will keep you updated
Wow, if your solder turned yellow, you probabley heated it too much - solder will still conduct in this state, but it is inhibitted somewhat... just my two cents...
On a side note, I just performed this fix today after figuring out some of it on my own... wish the SEARCH function of this forum would work decently...
But thanks for the write up on the tutorial!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 12, 2008, 03:15:00 PM
QUOTE(Rustmonkey @ Apr 12 2008, 11:36 PM)
Wow, if your solder turned yellow, you probabley heated it too much - solder will still conduct in this state, but it is inhibitted somewhat... just my two cents...
On a side note, I just performed this fix today after figuring out some of it on my own... wish the SEARCH function of this forum would work decently...
But thanks for the write up on the tutorial!I just wanted to make sure that everything was liquified.
However it is quite hard to figure it out as you dont really see it when it does, the only sign is that the capacitors either start smoking or that the capacitor shakes when you move the heatgun.
This xbox was a quite hopeless one anyway so I didnt really have anymore I could do besides the oven trick but now it is working and will hopefully never die again
Post by: Boobers on April 12, 2008, 03:58:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 12 2008, 05:02 AM)
I fixed my second 360 using this method it works very well
I started using my heatgun with the lowest step which is around 300°C to "warm" it up...
After like a minute I switched to 500°C and did this another 2-3 minutes
When you see the capacitors shaking you can decrease the temperature to 300°C and let it cool down for half an hour.
After it cooled down the solder of the area looked a bit different it had a yellow/golden shine
I did this twice once for the upper side and after cooling down the bottom...
360 works flawless, I will keep you updated
The caps started "shaking"???
That's my biggest issue with the Heat Gun.. I never know how much is enough. I am always worried about frying something, so I am pretty sure I use it too little..
What I have done is to use my heat gun (WAGNER Model #0283015 one setting ON) about an inch or so off the MB, using circular motions and concentrating on the selected area of the MB (NIC area for E-73, Ana/GPU for E-74, etc etc)..
But it has never fixed the problem..
So, you say I should look for the caps to start "shaking".. Could you give me a bit more detail??
Thanx
B
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 12, 2008, 06:22:00 PM
QUOTE(Boobers @ Apr 13 2008, 12:34 AM)
The caps started "shaking"???
That's my biggest issue with the Heat Gun.. I never know how much is enough. I am always worried about frying something, so I am pretty sure I use it too little..
What I have done is to use my heat gun (WAGNER Model #0283015 one setting ON) about an inch or so off the MB, using circular motions and concentrating on the selected area of the MB (NIC area for E-73, Ana/GPU for E-74, etc etc)..
But it has never fixed the problem..
So, you say I should look for the caps to start "shaking".. Could you give me a bit more detail??
Thanx
B
I used the heatgun in the same way as you but I warmed it up with the first setting and switched then to the second(500°C)
Well when the solder melted the capacitor is kind of swimming in the solder and as you are moving the heatgun around the whole time it kind of vibrates and slowly moves a bit because of the airflow.
You can compare it to a ripple of water when you blow at it...
You gotta stop then because otherwise it might move too far and then you will have to put it back in place...
it really takes a while so be patient and keep watching the bigger capacitors...
I guess I overdid it though because the color of the solder changed so be careful.
When I get my next E74 I will record a video...
The area depends as well putting pressure on the ana-chip fixed my first 360 so I concentrated on the ana-chip which fixed it.
This one was different though nothing brought it back to life so I heatgunned the area from the whole anachip over to the GPU from both sides.
After that it worked finally
Post by: Rustmonkey on April 12, 2008, 07:08:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 12 2008, 06:58 PM)
I used the heatgun in the same way as you but I warmed it up with the first setting and switched then to the second(500°C)
Well when the solder melted the capacitor is kind of swimming in the solder and as you are moving the heatgun around the whole time it kind of vibrates and slowly moves a bit because of the airflow.
You can compare it to a ripple of water when you blow at it...
You gotta stop then because otherwise it might move too far and then you will have to put it back in place...
it really takes a while so be patient and keep watching the bigger capacitors...
I guess I overdid it though because the color of the solder changed so be careful.
When I get my next E74 I will record a video...
The area depends as well putting pressure on the ana-chip fixed my first 360 so I concentrated on the ana-chip which fixed it.
This one was different though nothing brought it back to life so I heatgunned the area from the whole anachip over to the GPU from both sides.
After that it worked finally
That's essentially what I did - I heated the ANA chip and both side of the GPU, using circular motions about an inch or two off the board. I used alot higher setting than you guys did however - my heat gun goes anywhere from 300 - 1350C - I switched mine to the 1200 setting and only hit my board with it for about 1 minute total time between both sides of the GPU and the ANA chip - make sure to KEEP THE GUN moving or else stuff will fry - I never waited to 'see' the solder melt, I just assumed it would and that 1 minute at that high of a setting would be more than enough.
My settings may have been overkill, but you want solder to only be heated for a small amount of time or the discoloration will occur, so I pretty much just guaranteed that I could bring it up to melting temp very quickly.
...again, just my two cents.
Good luck everyone!
Post by: brandogg on April 12, 2008, 10:50:00 PM
Post by: Rustmonkey on April 13, 2008, 10:29:00 AM
QUOTE(brandogg @ Apr 12 2008, 11:26 PM)
1350C?! That's insane! That kind of heat would destroy just about anything in it's path. Anyway, make sure you cover all the capacitors, eject/sync buttons, fan header, etc, with several layers of aluminum foil.
Yeah that sounds outrageous doesn't it? I was in a hurry typing yesterday - I meant 1350F (which I believe is something like 732C or somethin like that). If it was 1350C the gun would more than likely melt in my hand and cause me to spontaneously combust
So the 1200F setting is about 648C.Sorry for the typo
Post by: wllazer17 on April 13, 2008, 01:13:00 PM
It already had the xclamp mod that I did to it... So took off the heatsink of the gpu and tin foiled around everything except the blue area in jimwross' picture below:
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2769.jpg)
He had an old heat gun that only had low or high setting so I told him use low.
He heated in circular motions around the blue but focused most of the time on the red square, all for a total of 3 mins. Hooked it back up after an hour and it works! Did not need to heat the top.
Thanks everyone I think this is the best fix for E74 errors!!! Hairdryer on ana chip is only temp fix
If I did it I would have taken pictures but I only told how to do it over the phone so I don't have any, sorry. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
This post has been edited by wllazer17: Apr 13 2008, 08:28 PM
Post by: ghettoc401 on April 13, 2008, 02:54:00 PM
Post by: jimwross on April 13, 2008, 07:44:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Apr 13 2008, 02:49 PM)
I told my brother how to do this over the phone to fix his xbox.
It already had the xclamp mod that I did to it... So took off the heatsink of the gpu and tin foiled around everything except the blue area in jimwross' picture below:
(IMG:http://www.mplsgaming.com/tutorials/360/e74/CIMG2769.jpg)
He had an old heat gun that only had low or high setting so I told him use low.
He heated in circular motions around the blue but focused most of the time on the red square, all for a total of 3 mins. Hooked it back up after an hour and it works! Did not need to heat the top.
Thanks everyone I think this is the best fix for E74 errors!!! Hairdryer on ana chip is only temp fix
If I did it I would have taken pictures but I only told how to do it over the phone so I don't have any, sorry. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
Great man, I'm glad to hear it worked out for you! It is so frusterating that theres no other information out there on how to fix this problem :-)
Post by: brandogg on April 13, 2008, 08:38:00 PM
Post by: ghettoc401 on April 13, 2008, 10:37:00 PM
QUOTE(brandogg @ Apr 13 2008, 10:14 PM)
The heat gun permanently (Okay it's been about 3 months so far) fixed my 0020...
I have that error code and I cant seem to get rid of it with the x-clamp or the penny fix. How did you go about using your heat gun on your 0020 360?
Post by: jimwross on April 14, 2008, 03:01:00 AM
QUOTE(ghettoc401 @ Apr 14 2008, 12:13 AM)
I have that error code and I cant seem to get rid of it with the x-clamp or the penny fix. How did you go about using your heat gun on your 0020 360?
Use the same process outlined above.
Post by: xolejh on April 14, 2008, 05:39:00 PM
Post by: ghettoc401 on April 14, 2008, 06:53:00 PM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Apr 14 2008, 04:01 AM)
Use the same process outlined above.
Thanks bro
Post by: rickr7772 on April 14, 2008, 11:16:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 14, 2008, 11:50:00 PM
QUOTE(xolejh @ Apr 15 2008, 02:15 AM)
Hello everybody. A few days ago I was playing and everything looked...not fuzzy, but choppy...not sure how to describe it. A day after that I got the E74 error, and my next few tries turning it on kept turning up the E74 error. Then, something else happened, it would start up like normal, but with a blank screen. After about 30 seconds, the fan would get louder, and louder, and louder, until the xbox over heated and the fan shut off(which doesn't make sense really...that should be when the fan gets louder) and then the only thing to do was turn it off and google the problem. Would this possibly fix that? or should I get a new AV cable or something? SHould I try the RROD fix?(already done it once before a few months ago actually)
The chips dont have good contact with the chip dies, this can be cause by too many/few washers and too much/not enough thermal compound(size of a rice grain is perfect)
as the fans get louder it will for sure be the cpu heatsink as the cpu regulated the fanspeed.
If this doesnt fix the overheating issue you will have to do the same procedure for the GPU heatsink.
The E74 is a pretty weird error it might happen that you keep turning your 360 on and off and after like ten tries it boots up but the screen is covered by artifacts and the colors change until the screen is nearly black...
It can be caused by a faulty av-cable according to the faq but if you can see the E74 error message on the screen your av-cable will be fine.
So it will either be a pin of the scaler chip that has lost contact or a broken trace between the gpu and the ana-chip.
Just follow this tutorial it will fix it but make sure that you remove the gpu heatsink and the termal compound before doing that and that you isolate the capacitors in the area as they will blow at this high temperature.
Post by: Boobers on April 15, 2008, 07:09:00 AM
Basically I am looking at two choices now...
Take a totally fracked up MB and use the Heat Gun on it until it melts or catches fire or whatever. This will show me exactly how much heat the MB can take. I know that paper burns at 451f (thanx to Ray Bradbury..
)Another, less destructive option, is to pick up a Infrared Thermometer and get the chips/MB up to the required temp.. If I go this option, what would the desired temp be?? I also see reasonably priced Infrared Thermometers that measure up to 1000f. Would that be sufficient??
Thanx
B
Post by: jimwross on April 15, 2008, 07:26:00 AM
QUOTE(xolejh @ Apr 14 2008, 07:15 PM)
Hello everybody. A few days ago I was playing and everything looked...not fuzzy, but choppy...not sure how to describe it. A day after that I got the E74 error, and my next few tries turning it on kept turning up the E74 error. Then, something else happened, it would start up like normal, but with a blank screen. After about 30 seconds, the fan would get louder, and louder, and louder, until the xbox over heated and the fan shut off(which doesn't make sense really...that should be when the fan gets louder) and then the only thing to do was turn it off and google the problem. Would this possibly fix that? or should I get a new AV cable or something? SHould I try the RROD fix?(already done it once before a few months ago actually)
If you have replaced the X-Clamps try loosening the screws. The way I always trouble shoot this problem is the following:
1) Take the motherboard out of the metal case
2) Hook up the DVD drive and the RF / Power button board
3) Turn it on
If it doesnt give you the 2 Red Lights / Fans speeding up and turning off, then you know has something to do with loosening / tightening / mis-allignment of your x-clamp fix.
SO when you re-assemble the box, try putting the board back in to the metal case and leaving out the two middle LONG screws that attach the top plastic piece. For whatever reason this seems to help if you get a stubborn 360 that keeps doing the 2 red light thing.
Hope this helps.
QUOTE(Boobers @ Apr 15 2008, 08:45 AM)
I still can't seem to get this right..
Basically I am looking at two choices now...
Take a totally fracked up MB and use the Heat Gun on it until it melts or catches fire or whatever. This will show me exactly how much heat the MB can take. I know that paper burns at 451f (thanx to Ray Bradbury..
)Another, less destructive option, is to pick up a Infrared Thermometer and get the chips/MB up to the required temp.. If I go this option, what would the desired temp be?? I also see reasonably priced Infrared Thermometers that measure up to 1000f. Would that be sufficient??
Thanx
B
Hey.
You will start to notice slight colorization on the solder points (goldish color), thats how I tell when its good to go. The board can take quite a bit as long as you don't get it close to the stuff that can melt / be destoryed (capacitors and plastic pieces), you really don't have to be over-cautious with it.
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 15 2008, 01:26 AM)
The chips dont have good contact with the chip dies, this can be cause by too many/few washers and too much/not enough thermal compound(size of a rice grain is perfect)
as the fans get louder it will for sure be the cpu heatsink as the cpu regulated the fanspeed.
If this doesnt fix the overheating issue you will have to do the same procedure for the GPU heatsink.
The E74 is a pretty weird error it might happen that you keep turning your 360 on and off and after like ten tries it boots up but the screen is covered by artifacts and the colors change until the screen is nearly black...
It can be caused by a faulty av-cable according to the faq but if you can see the E74 error message on the screen your av-cable will be fine.
So it will either be a pin of the scaler chip that has lost contact or a broken trace between the gpu and the ana-chip.
Just follow this tutorial it will fix it but make sure that you remove the gpu heatsink and the termal compound before doing that and that you isolate the capacitors in the area as they will blow at this high temperature.
Agreed. I wish i could edit my original post and change the heatsink thing around.
Oh well
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 15, 2008, 07:26:00 AM
QUOTE(Boobers @ Apr 15 2008, 03:45 PM)
I still can't seem to get this right..
Basically I am looking at two choices now...
Take a totally fracked up MB and use the Heat Gun on it until it melts or catches fire or whatever. This will show me exactly how much heat the MB can take. I know that paper burns at 451f (thanx to Ray Bradbury..
)Another, less destructive option, is to pick up a Infrared Thermometer and get the chips/MB up to the required temp.. If I go this option, what would the desired temp be?? I also see reasonably priced Infrared Thermometers that measure up to 1000f. Would that be sufficient??
Thanx
B
The desired temp is a little bit higher than the melting point of the leadfree solder that they used which is 217-218°C(422.6-424.4°F)
Some more info can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder
Post by: Boobers on April 15, 2008, 08:03:00 AM
B
Post by: fragabyte on April 15, 2008, 05:53:00 PM
I started to notice problems while playing a game rental, fairly scratch tbh and was getting Unplayable Disc errors, I would have to open and close the tray a coupel of times, on each gaming session for it to boot. The following day when I was playing I had weird squares and couloured stuff pop in on my screen, it locked up I reset it and have had the E74 message displayed ever since.
It is highly unlikely to be the AV cable, I have both a VGA and Component cable and have tried them both with the same result.
I've been recommended to checkout the X-Clamp and airgun fix (will a larger hairdryer do the trick btw?), but just wanted to outline the issues before the problem appeared, just in case there is something else worth considering...
I mentioned this problem on a nother, though not so technical forum and was recommended to replace the DVD drive as it was believed to be casuing the E74 message. Someone else promptly jumped in and claimed that was not possible and recommended me to here.
If I can get it back up and running before the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, I'll be well chuffed. I have no experience with this sort of thing though.
Post by: wllazer17 on April 15, 2008, 08:28:00 PM
QUOTE(fragabyte @ Apr 15 2008, 08:29 PM)
I had weird squares and couloured stuff pop in on my screen, it locked up I reset it and have had the E74 message displayed ever since.
I had those weird squares and lines then e74 after reset... and heating the ana chip with a hairdryer only fixed my xbox for 1 day. Hairdryers have a safety cut off switch at 140F (60C). This only expands the solder to allow play for a day or so until it cools back where it was. You need to reflow the solder using this guide (remove the gpu heatsink) using a heat gun. As has been stated before, the lead free solder melts at 423F (217C). I only had to heat gun the bottom side. Please follow the first post by jimwross but remove the gpu heatsink before heat gun.
Post by: fragabyte on April 15, 2008, 10:06:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Apr 16 2008, 04:04 AM)
I had those weird squares and lines then e74 after reset... and heating the ana chip with a hairdryer only fixed my xbox for 1 day. Hairdryers have a safety cut off switch at 140F (60C). This only expands the solder to allow play for a day or so until it cools back where it was. You need to reflow the solder using this guide (remove the gpu heatsink) using a heat gun. As has been stated before, the lead free solder melts at 423F (217C). I only had to heat gun the bottom side. Please follow the first post by jimwross but remove the gpu heatsink before heat gun.
Yeah, that all sounds rather too much for me. I'll read it over and try and familiarise myself with the process though.
If it is the scaler chip, which can be determind by applying pressure to the chip then booting, and if it works at that point, then this confirms it is the scaler chip. Is it not just possible to somehow keep that pressure on the chip at all times once the case has been put back together, or is it really necessary to gut out everything and get a heatgun going?
I am thinking of putting the 360 back in its original white casing, and sending it off to MS and hopefully they just replace it without question for me. I suppose worst case scenario is that they send the console back to me not fixed if they notice the warranty seal has been broken. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)
The whole reliability fiasco has really gotten me on a downer though, this is my 4th console, and I always wanted a black one to match my gear. I hanged on for ages and after 12 months of owning it I decided to replace the case, some 5 months later I get this problem.
Post by: brandogg on April 15, 2008, 10:31:00 PM
Please only attempt the heat gun fix, if you've A. got nothing to lose, and B. watch some videos and take your time. It can work if it's done right, but if done wrong it can absolutely destroy your board.
Post by: fragabyte on April 16, 2008, 09:45:00 AM
QUOTE(brandogg @ Apr 16 2008, 06:07 AM)
Don't mention fraudulent warranty repairs, and don't attempt them either. You made the choices and threw your warranty out the window.
Please only attempt the heat gun fix, if you've A. got nothing to lose, and B. watch some videos and take your time. It can work if it's done right, but if done wrong it can absolutely destroy your board.
Yes, I'm going to have to try it out by the looks of it. I'll have a look and see if I can find a heat gun to order online now, hopefully they're not too expensive.
In regards to your warranty statement, I can understand such things should not be discussed on the forums. My point or more frustration is waiting for well over a year to try and make sure the console would not fail, after that I then persued the case replacement. So I'm sure at the very least you can understand my frustration. I should have just gone with the tacky black faceplate, shouldn't I lol
I'll post back soon, first of all I'll try adding pressure to that scaler chip mentioned and see if it boots, then post back here once I've had chance to try it out.
Post by: brandogg on April 16, 2008, 10:12:00 PM
Post by: ishtar on April 18, 2008, 04:30:00 AM
Post by: Rustmonkey on April 18, 2008, 07:54:00 AM
Post by: brandogg on April 18, 2008, 03:36:00 PM
Post by: xolejh on April 18, 2008, 08:16:00 PM
Post by: ishtar on April 19, 2008, 04:49:00 AM
QUOTE(ishtar @ Apr 18 2008, 12:06 PM)
Hum thats odd because i read where it flows at 161 degrees instead of 130 sum i had 3 rrod and did the whole deal with x clamp it would work a day or so , so last weekend i figured what the heck so i took everything of and set my oven to 200 degrees set the m/b on foil set it in a cookie sheet covered it with the other half of foil and left it in the oven for thirty minuites or so i figured the foil enclosure would give even heating took it out let it cool down replaced the screw washer combo only using a lock washer for the cpu gpu side only used the screws to secure thr top cover left the m/b chassis screws off and its been working ever since thats been a week already thats the longest i ever got it to work
QUOTE(brandogg @ Apr 18 2008, 11:12 PM)
Don't ever bake your system again. That low of heat won't reflow the solder, but it will overheat just about everything in the system - also, if it were to get hot enough, you'd probably end up with foil stuck to the bottom of your motherboard.
You may be right but i think your wrong when your using a heat gun thats a hell of a lot hotter than a 200 degree oven the only components that may be affected are the caps and their more than likely solid so if you haven't tried it yet explain to me why it been running for over a week already maybe a fluke? i don't know but if it works for two or three months till the new one comes out i'm still ahead everything else lasted only a day if that and thats only an hour i've been playing for three or more hours
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 19, 2008, 08:57:00 AM
QUOTE(ishtar @ Apr 19 2008, 01:25 PM)
You may be right but i think your wrong when your using a heat gun thats a hell of a lot hotter than a 200 degree oven the only components that may be affected are the caps and their more than likely solid so if you haven't tried it yet explain to me why it been running for over a week already maybe a fluke? i don't know but if it works for two or three months till the new one comes out i'm still ahead everything else lasted only a day if that and thats only an hour i've been playing for three or more hours
You need to heat the solder up to more than 219°C to reflow it.
you only heated it up to a max of 200°C which only softens the solder a bit.Your 360 might be fine now but it will more likely get rod again than an xbox which was reflowed.
The oven trick should only be used as a last resort and if you choose to do it you should at least do it right...
With the heatgun you can direct the heat right at the area which is assumed to be causing the issue which might not always be as efficent as the oven trick but at least you dont have to bother that much about blowing some of the larger capacitors.
When you see smoke coming from one of the capacitors you can just move the heatgun away and replace the component but when it starts smoking in the oven it will already be too late.
Post by: ishtar on April 19, 2008, 11:38:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 19 2008, 04:33 PM)
You need to heat the solder up to more than 219°C to reflow it.
you only heated it up to a max of 200°C which only softens the solder a bit.Your 360 might be fine now but it will more likely get rod again than an xbox which was reflowed.
The oven trick should only be used as a last resort and if you choose to do it you should at least do it right...
With the heatgun you can direct the heat right at the area which is assumed to be causing the issue which might not always be as efficent as the oven trick but at least you dont have to bother that much about blowing some of the larger capacitors.
When you see smoke coming from one of the capacitors you can just move the heatgun away and replace the component but when it starts smoking in the oven it will already be too late.
Maybe so but you should know that if the oven is set at 200 it could have been higher my guess it could have went to 250 i never checked temp all i know it was higher than 200 the purpose of the foil enclosure was to hopefully increase even heating of all joints across the m/b also i want to add the heat exhaust is a lot cooler than before ie not as hot it used to blow out hot air now more warm than hot
Post by: jimwross on April 19, 2008, 12:42:00 PM
QUOTE(xolejh @ Apr 18 2008, 09:52 PM)
re doing the x clamp fix didn't solve the instant over heating problem, should I still heat the back of the ana thing anyway?
Instant re-heating doesnt have to do with the ANA chip. Loosen up your machine screws a bit see if that helps.
QUOTE(ishtar @ Apr 19 2008, 01:14 PM)
Maybe so but you should know that if the oven is set at 200 it could have been higher my guess it could have went to 250 i never checked temp all i know it was higher than 200 the purpose of the foil enclosure was to hopefully increase even heating of all joints across the m/b also i want to add the heat exhaust is a lot cooler than before ie not as hot it used to blow out hot air now more warm than hot
Argh, the oven concept is not good, you heating up things that arent' supposed to get hot.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 19, 2008, 01:54:00 PM
QUOTE(ishtar @ Apr 19 2008, 08:14 PM)
Maybe so but you should know that if the oven is set at 200 it could have been higher my guess it could have went to 250 i never checked temp all i know it was higher than 200 the purpose of the foil enclosure was to hopefully increase even heating of all joints across the m/b also i want to add the heat exhaust is a lot cooler than before ie not as hot it used to blow out hot air now more warm than hot
well
did you put it into the oven with the heatsink installed?
If so you can be pretty happy that your 360 is working at all as it would have pressed your gpu onto the mainboard if it actually would have reached the melting point...
The fact that the exhaust air is not hot but warm is that you completely fried the thermal compound which doesnt conduct heat properly anymore(max temp 120°C)
If you didnt have the heatsink installed while baking it in the oven you must have done something wrong during the installation of the heatsink as the heat isnt transfered properly to the heatsink.
The cooler the heatsink is the hotter is the chip below....
The foil was actually a good idea as it isolates the components from the direct heat so this might have prevented components from getting too hot. Though this was not your intention
I also doubt that the oven gets up to 250°C when it is set to a 200°C
Check your solder for a golden glance if you see a golden glance you made it to reflow it...
Post by: Faluke on April 19, 2008, 02:40:00 PM
Post by: brandogg on April 19, 2008, 03:12:00 PM
Post by: ishtar on April 20, 2008, 06:16:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 19 2008, 09:30 PM)
well
did you put it into the oven with the heatsink installed?
If so you can be pretty happy that your 360 is working at all as it would have pressed your gpu onto the mainboard if it actually would have reached the melting point...
The fact that the exhaust air is not hot but warm is that you completely fried the thermal compound which doesnt conduct heat properly anymore(max temp 120°C)
If you didnt have the heatsink installed while baking it in the oven you must have done something wrong during the installation of the heatsink as the heat isnt transfered properly to the heatsink.
The cooler the heatsink is the hotter is the chip below....
The foil was actually a good idea as it isolates the components from the direct heat so this might have prevented components from getting too hot. Though this was not your intention
I also doubt that the oven gets up to 250°C when it is set to a 200°C
Check your solder for a golden glance if you see a golden glance you made it to reflow it...
no i didn't i removed everything from it though i might have done well to leave it attached to the metal chassis seeing that the m/b layer thickness is shit then after it cooled down take it off and attache heatsinks and then reattach to chassis If it was the thickness of a real m/b i doubt anyone would have problems the m/b is so warped it pathetic i never reattached to chassis only top cover attach and snapped together
Post by: blahdah on April 20, 2008, 02:58:00 PM
What i did was try to simulate a reflow oven ( i had to use alot foil to protect the caps)
any way just to get you started i didn't get the E74 error fixed but i didn't damage the board anymore i think either
when the board surface reached about 200C i started a one minute timer and then turned off the oven and starting cooling the board about 3-4C/s
anywas i think i got close to what a reflow graph looks like but i didn;t fix the E74 i think i didn't fix it becasue my E74 lies with the ANA chip i insulated the ana chip from heat when i was doing this
So i have two thinks try and ""reflow"" and HOPE i don;t damage anythink this time aroudn again with out insulating the ANA chip or the south bridge
OR SWAP the ANA chip
which one do u guys think i should do
OHH the board still give E74 or ht i can do is place the heatsink on top it not screw it down just place on top and heat the board to around 180C that non melting point for unlead solder but it will get every think loose enough to touch back i think
ANY ideas
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 20, 2008, 04:04:00 PM
QUOTE(blahdah @ Apr 20 2008, 10:58 PM)
Well my E74 UMM i used an electrial oven and a Ktype thermalcouple to measure the temperature on the board surface
What i did was try to simulate a reflow oven ( i had to use alot foil to protect the caps)
any way just to get you started i didn't get the E74 error fixed but i didn't damage the board anymore i think either
when the board surface reached about 200C i started a one minute timer and then turned off the oven and starting cooling the board about 3-4C/s
anywas i think i got close to what a reflow graph looks like but i didn;t fix the E74 i think i didn't fix it becasue my E74 lies with the ANA chip i insulated the ana chip from heat when i was doing this
So i have two thinks try and ""reflow"" and HOPE i don;t damage anythink this time aroudn again with out insulating the ANA chip or the south bridge
OR SWAP the ANA chip
which one do u guys think i should do
OHH the board still give E74 or ht i can do is place the heatsink on top it not screw it down just place on top and heat the board to around 180C that non melting point for unlead solder but it will get every think loose enough to touch back i think
ANY ideas
When you do it the next time heat it up to 230°C this is 10°C more than necessary to melt the solder and should definitely work...
make sure you isolate everything except the area from the whole gpu to the whole ana-chip.
Remove the heatsink and thermal compound from the chip, as it will otherwise press the gpu onto the board which will flatten the solderballs...
heating it up to less than 219°C will only fix it temporarily when it gets hot enough you got the same error again...
Maybe you should invest some money into a heatgun this will only heat up the area that you want to heat up
Swapping the ana-chip is not an option either as I dont think that the chip itself is fried
This post has been edited by Wilhelm_I: Apr 20 2008, 11:05 PM
Post by: Smiling Cat on April 24, 2008, 01:10:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Apr 8 2008, 08:18 AM)
I think its been pretty well established that the E74 Error has to do with the connection between the ANA / HANA / failure of the Scaler Chip to the GPU
Yeah I think your dead on. After I got my replacement arcade I have been working with my old system. I knew from the start it was most likely the scalar chip, or the connection between them.
When I pulled it apart and looked how the fan cowling directed hot GPU air directly over the chip and the traces between them.
Explained to me why covering the exhaust for a bit while playing would reverse the discoloration which was the first symptom. When I removed the block and the fans spun up and quickly cooled the board the discoloration came right back. Also explained why I didn't see any symptoms of an overheated GPU, or damaged GPU ram which almost always show up as geometry artifacts and not a specific discoloration.
I made sure the GPU was seated and put better, as well of a lot less thermal compound on just the GPU heat sink.
Last thing was I grabbed a blow dryer and pre-heated the bridge between them just to see if it was the problem and I got it working fine until I threw the fan cowling back on and it cooled down. I have a heat gun, but I am reluctant about how much heat, how long, and how to orient the main board while I do it. Start small and work my way up I guess.
Post by: mackemsrule on April 24, 2008, 06:01:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 24, 2008, 07:48:00 AM
QUOTE(mackemsrule @ Apr 24 2008, 02:01 PM)
My 360 boots up with no picture i know its not the cable i ruled that out, there's just no video the sound works fine but there's no red lights on the front will heating the chips up cure my problem. thanx in advance
I cant promise anything but I guess it is the scaler-chip in your case as well...
I got an xbox that sometimes got E74 and when I kept turning it on and off it started up without the 1RLOD every once in a while(like 5-10 tries usually)
However this no video issue could also be the gpu...
So just put pressure on the ana-chip while booting or try what the other dude found out(nice investigation by the way)
If it boots then it is the connection of the ana-chip to the gpu...
Otherwise it might rather be GPU related then you will have to do the x-clamp fix penny fix or what so ever there are several fixes for this ceratain error(imo the X-Clamp replacement is the best besides a reflow though)
Post by: jimwross on April 27, 2008, 09:18:00 AM
QUOTE(mackemsrule @ Apr 24 2008, 07:01 AM)
My 360 boots up with no picture i know its not the cable i ruled that out, there's just no video the sound works fine but there's no red lights on the front will heating the chips up cure my problem. thanx in advance
I've been able to fix almost all of the 360's with this problem with the method outlined above.
Post by: nannou on April 27, 2008, 03:42:00 PM
i have the no video problem also with no 3rrod i tried the x-clamp fix and nothing it only works for about 5 to 10 minutes if i let it overheat, so i guess its some solder that is ruined, i've applied pressure on the mentioned chip and it doesn't give me image, so it must be the gpu am i right? it never gave me the e74 error by the way, just lost the reds and after a reset i had sound but blank screen.
thanks in advance
This post has been edited by nannou: Apr 27 2008, 10:59 PM
Post by: gotskunk on April 28, 2008, 02:41:00 PM
Now I havent ruled out using a different A/V cable beacuse I havent had a chance to get another one to try. The first fix I used omn my system was the x-clamp and It would only work for about a week or a few days at a time. After reading this thread I used the heat gun and it wasn't til after I used this method that I started having the audio problems.
I am wondering what component I may have heated too much and if anyone else has had this kind of problem
Thanks
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 28, 2008, 03:23:00 PM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ Apr 28 2008, 10:41 PM)
I had the E74 1022 problem and fixed it with the x-clamp and heat gun trick. But now I have created a new problem and a rather annoying one. Now the xbox bots up fine and no video problems but now the audio is out of whack. basically I am getting a buzzing noise kinda like the buzzing sound of an out of frequency radio station. The buzzing is only affected by bright colors. The brighter the colors on the screen the louder the noise gets. Just an example when playing COD4, if a flashbang blows up in my face the sound is very loud and in contrast if the screen is black you can barely hear it.
Now I havent ruled out using a different A/V cable beacuse I havent had a chance to get another one to try. The first fix I used omn my system was the x-clamp and It would only work for about a week or a few days at a time. After reading this thread I used the heat gun and it wasn't til after I used this method that I started having the audio problems.
I am wondering what component I may have heated too much and if anyone else has had this kind of problem
Thanks
Hmm thats quite weird looks like anything still wrong.
Must be the scaler chip though as I dont see what else would cause anything depending on the brightness...
I just bought another fucked up E74 360 ...
Post by: wllazer17 on April 28, 2008, 03:34:00 PM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ Apr 28 2008, 04:41 PM)
I had the E74 1022 problem and fixed it with the x-clamp and heat gun trick. But now I have created a new problem and a rather annoying one.
Are you sure it's not that TV?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 28, 2008, 03:38:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Apr 29 2008, 12:10 AM)
Are you sure it's not that TV?
This is possible as well but I guess he would have noticed it unless he only uses it to play his 360
Post by: CSamp022 on April 29, 2008, 09:23:00 AM
I have been getting alot of this lately, and I have already performed the xclamp mod for a RROD I got like 3 months ago. Also getting occasional freezing on top of these graphical lockups. Is this my solution? If so i'll try and use this method if I can get a confirmation. Thanks boss!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 29, 2008, 10:07:00 AM
QUOTE(CSamp022 @ Apr 29 2008, 05:23 PM)
I have been getting alot of this lately, and I have already performed the xclamp mod for a RROD I got like 3 months ago. Also getting occasional freezing on top of these graphical lockups. Is this my solution? If so i'll try and use this method if I can get a confirmation. Thanks boss!
What are we supposed to see on this picture?
It is just a white screen.
please describe it a bit better.
Post by: CSamp022 on April 29, 2008, 10:46:00 AM
It's actually a white screen with black bars. I get this a lot right in the middle of a game, the game will lock up and the screen will show this. I know this tutorial doesn't specify this but I followed a link in another thread and this was suppose to be a solution to this problem. I dunno how else to describe it then saying graphical lockdown and freezing...
Post by: Wilhelm_I on April 29, 2008, 10:19:00 AM
QUOTE(CSamp022 @ Apr 29 2008, 06:46 PM)
It's actually a white screen with black bars. I get this a lot right in the middle of a game, the game will lock up and the screen will show this. I know this tutorial doesn't specify this but I followed a link in another thread and this was suppose to be a solution to this problem. I dunno how else to describe it then saying graphical lockdown and freezing...
It's actually a white screen with black bars. I get this a lot right in the middle of a game, the game will lock up and the screen will show this. I know this tutorial doesn't specify this but I followed a link in another thread and this was suppose to be a solution to this problem. I dunno how else to describe it then saying graphical lockdown and freezing...
Sounds like it is scaler-chip related then, I used to have a fucked up display cable in my notebook every second pixel on the screen was black after replacing it it was gone.
So yes you are at the right place this will fix it.
Post by: CSamp022 on April 29, 2008, 10:56:00 AM
Gotta love having a heat gun. Dropped 200$ on one for hockey stick purposes, and 3 years later I finally find a second use for it!
Post by: CSamp022 on April 29, 2008, 12:33:00 PM
Should I try again? Maybe put a bit more heat? I was heating it for about 2 minutes total for both sides on the non highest heat setting.
EDIT: Also, should I redo my thermal paste?
This post has been edited by CSamp022: Apr 29 2008, 07:34 PM
Post by: CSamp022 on April 29, 2008, 01:30:00 PM
I took out the heat sync again, blasted it with high heat for a solid minute and a half (both sides). I cleaned off my gpu and reapplied thermal paste to it. Booted up fine as usual, but I got another lock up and got that screen again. I don't think this is the fix for it, unless I'm doing something wrong...
Any ideas?
Post by: jimwross on May 01, 2008, 08:45:00 AM
QUOTE(CSamp022 @ Apr 29 2008, 02:30 PM)
Sorry for my third post but I can't edit my previous ones.
I took out the heat sync again, blasted it with high heat for a solid minute and a half (both sides). I cleaned off my gpu and reapplied thermal paste to it. Booted up fine as usual, but I got another lock up and got that screen again. I don't think this is the fix for it, unless I'm doing something wrong...
Any ideas?
Heat the the GPU, the connections between the GPU and the ANA chip, the RAM chips, blast em till they turn color (goldish yellowish). Make sure to remove the heat sink first, let everything cool before touching it (or reapplying the paste), and make sure you have those little rubber feet that MS puts on the bottom of the ram chips too...
Post by: gotskunk on May 01, 2008, 09:30:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 28 2008, 05:59 PM)
Hmm thats quite weird looks like anything still wrong.
Must be the scaler chip though as I dont see what else would cause anything depending on the brightness...
I just bought another fucked up E74 360 ...
Yeah nevermind. I'm a dumbass. I had the the one of the hd cables in the red slot instead of the normal component cable. Everything's plugged in correctly now and it works great. So X-clamp and heat gun did the trick for my E74.
Thanks for the great info everyone
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 02, 2008, 02:48:00 AM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ May 2 2008, 06:06 AM)
Yeah nevermind. I'm a dumbass. I had the the one of the hd cables in the red slot instead of the normal component cable. Everything's plugged in correctly now and it works great. So X-clamp and heat gun did the trick for my E74.
Thanks for the great info everyone
LOL
Youve found another fix for this error!
Nice one...
Post by: jimwross on May 03, 2008, 02:16:00 AM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ May 1 2008, 11:06 PM)
Yeah nevermind. I'm a dumbass. I had the the one of the hd cables in the red slot instead of the normal component cable. Everything's plugged in correctly now and it works great. So X-clamp and heat gun did the trick for my E74.
Thanks for the great info everyone
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I hate it when I sit there trying to figure wtf is wrong with a box, and its something stupid like that...
Atleast its fixed now
Post by: Venom05 on May 07, 2008, 06:34:00 AM
just followed the tut en brought the 360 back to life. for 2 minutes, after that red dots came in the screen. turned it of and on and the e74 was back.
do only thing i did different was that i screwed the heatsinks tight a shown on the piture. then used the heatgun. the get the screws out and did the x-clamp fix by drilling holes in the bottom of the steel plate and put my screws through that, could that have anything to do with that or should i just re do the mobo with the heatgun? the console is coming back this saturday and want to fix this damn thing now
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 07, 2008, 06:27:00 AM
QUOTE(Venom05 @ May 7 2008, 02:34 PM)
quick question.
just followed the tut en brought the 360 back to life. for 2 minutes, after that red dots came in the screen. turned it of and on and the e74 was back.
do only thing i did different was that i screwed the heatsinks tight a shown on the piture. then used the heatgun. the get the screws out and did the x-clamp fix by drilling holes in the bottom of the steel plate and put my screws through that, could that have anything to do with that or should i just re do the mobo with the heatgun? the console is coming back this saturday and want to fix this damn thing now
This indicates that the GPU looses the connection to the ana-chip when it gets hot.
Are you sure that you reflowed the solder?
If you did the solder should have a golden/yellowish glance otherwise you only reconnected the broken trace temporarily by heating it up.
The RBJTech method might have influenced the result as well maybe it flexed the board a tiny bit or so.
Post by: wllazer17 on May 07, 2008, 08:00:00 AM
This post has been edited by wllazer17: May 7 2008, 03:02 PM
Post by: jimwross on May 07, 2008, 11:38:00 PM
As stated before the solder points turn a goldish yellowish color.
Post by: sp1kez on May 12, 2008, 01:02:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 12, 2008, 05:14:00 PM
QUOTE(sp1kez @ May 12 2008, 09:38 PM)
I just fixed my e74 with this method but I used a hair dryer instead of a heat gun (cheap)
LOL
Get a heatgun it will be back soon...
Post by: qweewqaz on May 13, 2008, 05:57:00 PM
Post by: Venom05 on May 14, 2008, 06:52:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 14, 2008, 11:04:00 AM
I am not going to explain it a third time so just go back a few pages...
Post by: jimwross on May 14, 2008, 02:51:00 PM
Post by: crosseye on May 14, 2008, 03:51:00 PM
Stupid luck.
Post by: tenaciousd on May 17, 2008, 01:59:00 PM
I had to turn it off as I had visitors, and now Ive gone back, and Im E74ing again.
Bummed out, because the Hairdryer isnt working, which is lame.
I dunno what to do now, until I can get a HeatGun from me Grandma's.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 17, 2008, 06:59:00 PM
QUOTE(tenaciousd @ May 17 2008, 09:59 PM)
I had 2 days straight of hard gaming on COD4 and Top Spin 2 yesterday and Thursday. Used a Hairdryer on the Chip, but then the lines and dots came back this morning.
I had to turn it off as I had visitors, and now Ive gone back, and Im E74ing again.
Bummed out, because the Hairdryer isnt working, which is lame.
I dunno what to do now, until I can get a HeatGun from me Grandma's.
There is pretty much nothing that you can do without a heatgun, the hairdryer will only reconnect it temporarily...
And yes the no video+ no sound error can be fixed with this method, however it can also be caused by a cold solder joint below the GPU so try the X-Clamp fix first before hitting your board with the heatgun...
Post by: _Wicked_ on May 18, 2008, 03:03:00 AM
I did this and it got rid of the flashing red ring.. but now I'm stuck at the purple screen of update failed
Hopefully I can get it working soon!!
Ive already tried the methods in the purple screen of death thread with no luck
Post by: crosseye on May 18, 2008, 07:13:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ May 17 2008, 08:35 PM)
There is pretty much nothing that you can do without a heatgun, the hairdryer will only reconnect it temporarily...
And yes the no video+ no sound error can be fixed with this method, however it can also be caused by a cold solder joint below the GPU so try the X-Clamp fix first before hitting your board with the heatgun...
Thanks Wilhelm. I thought not having sound might be some other problem as I've only seen no video, but still good sound.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 18, 2008, 08:35:00 AM
QUOTE(crosseye @ May 18 2008, 03:49 PM)
Thanks Wilhelm. I thought not having sound might be some other problem as I've only seen no video, but still good sound.
The traces for the sound are also between the GPU and anachip so it is pretty much the same thing...
If there is no video but sound it will more likely be a GPU problem though.
Post by: rikz112 on May 18, 2008, 01:16:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 18, 2008, 02:13:00 PM
QUOTE(rikz112 @ May 18 2008, 09:52 PM)
i have a 0002 after performing the x clamp on both cpu n gpu...when i switch it on the fans spin for 2-3 seconds and then gone and the drive dnt eject either? if i use the heatgun method or the oven method will this solve my problem anyone?
It might you have to reflow the ethernet chip.
Use the heatgun it is better because you only heat up what you want to reflow(the ethernet chip) and not everything.
Both methods are risky if you dont know what you are doing but the oven trick is way more risky...
*EDIT*
It rather sounds like a Southbridge issue actually because the drive doesnt eject either so concentrate on the area around the Southbridge.
Post by: rikz112 on May 18, 2008, 05:36:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 18, 2008, 11:54:00 PM
The silver one labeled XSB is the Southbridge
Post by: bonzof.pl on May 19, 2008, 01:47:00 AM
E74 ha ha
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 19, 2008, 07:50:00 AM
QUOTE(bonzof.pl @ May 19 2008, 10:23 AM)
This one might actually even work if it is GPU related...
There is one that is even funnier. A dude tips the ana-chip with his finger and after that it works again, like a magician
Post by: jimwross on May 19, 2008, 07:52:00 AM
QUOTE(_Wicked_ @ May 18 2008, 04:39 AM) 
Thanks for the tut!
I did this and it got rid of the flashing red ring.. but now I'm stuck at the purple screen of update failed
Hopefully I can get it working soon!!
Ive already tried the methods in the purple screen of death thread with no luck
Did you try holding the wireless sync button and the power button while the 360 turned on...?
Post by: wllazer17 on May 19, 2008, 11:09:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 19, 2008, 11:46:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ May 20 2008, 07:45 AM)
I had a console with e74 and I heat gunned the bottom only and it didn't fix it so I heatgunned the top (around the gpu and ana chip with tin foil around everything else) and now I am getting error 0102. What did I do???
You fixed the E74, looks like your GPU still has a cold jolder joint somewhere.
This error can be fixed with the X-Clamp replacement.
After that you should be fine
Post by: wllazer17 on May 20, 2008, 05:56:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 20, 2008, 06:24:00 AM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ May 20 2008, 02:32 PM)
I have tried the xclamp.. too tight and I get 0020 so I loosen them a little and I get 0102. Is it possible that there is a cold solder joint somewhere else on the motherboard other than the gpu with this error? Thanks wilhelm
Hmmm 0020 is a bit problematic, a lot of people assume that the 360 shows it when the GPU/CPU doesnt get clean power due to a missing/loose capacitor. However it might also be the case that you got a cold solder joint, then you tighten the screws and it bridges another solderball and shows 0020. However you might also have fixed the 0102 and the cause for the 0020 is not a bridged solder joint, so make sure that all the capacitors on top of GPU and CPU are okay and check the the big caps for cold solder joints.
Here is a picture http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=650203
If the last 2 things arent the cause you will have to get your GPU reballed...
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 20, 2008, 07:30:00 PM
2. Test the console on a different TV with the Same cables running at the same resolution...DID THIS, DIDNT WORK EITHER...
3. Test a different Xbox 360 on the same TV with the Same cables...DID THIS, THE OTHER 360 WORKED PERFECT WITH THE SAME CABLES...
I tried the steps suggested in the "Sticky", and these are my answers...
Summary of what i've done: Bought broken 360, had 2 red lights (overheating)...upon opening the xbox, one of the 2 fans arent working (reason for overheating)...while i had it open, i did the clamp fix on both CPU and GPU, put back together (partially, enough to work and plug in)...i had unplugged the black dvd cable from the motherboard by mistake, when i started the 360, i got error code on screen of E 64 (dvd error)...found and plugged it back in...now when i start it, i get all green lights, but i get NO audio, NO video, and just a black screen on the TV...
any suggestions as to why it will thro up a code error ( E 64 ) and everything is visible on the TV, but after i plug in the DVD rom, i get nothing on the TV...please help, i know you guys have seen this before..
Thanks in advance
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 20, 2008, 11:59:00 PM
QUOTE(Mr. Happy @ May 21 2008, 04:06 AM)
1. Test the console on the same TV at the same resolution using different AV cables ...DID THIS, DIDNT WORK...
2. Test the console on a different TV with the Same cables running at the same resolution...DID THIS, DIDNT WORK EITHER...
3. Test a different Xbox 360 on the same TV with the Same cables...DID THIS, THE OTHER 360 WORKED PERFECT WITH THE SAME CABLES...
I tried the steps suggested in the "Sticky", and these are my answers...
Summary of what i've done: Bought broken 360, had 2 red lights (overheating)...upon opening the xbox, one of the 2 fans arent working (reason for overheating)...while i had it open, i did the clamp fix on both CPU and GPU, put back together (partially, enough to work and plug in)...i had unplugged the black dvd cable from the motherboard by mistake, when i started the 360, i got error code on screen of E 64 (dvd error)...found and plugged it back in...now when i start it, i get all green lights, but i get NO audio, NO video, and just a black screen on the TV...
any suggestions as to why it will thro up a code error ( E 64 ) and everything is visible on the TV, but after i plug in the DVD rom, i get nothing on the TV...please help, i know you guys have seen this before..
Thanks in advance
Will be a problem with the GPU-ANA-chip connection. When you plugin the dvd-drive E64 goes away and usually the ROD should show up now in some cases like yours it doesnt.
The errormessage always shows up no matter if the GPU is fucked up or not.
So go for the X-Clamp replacement and if this doesnt work try this fix.
Post by: lightning2000 on May 21, 2008, 12:50:00 PM
I got my E74 error last night very very annoying, I had my first xbox for 13 months and got E74 MS wouldnt replace so i bought a new one. Now 13 months later I get another E74. MS can suck it.
I want to fix this error ive had my 360 in pieces already, i'm waiting for my x-clamp fix to come and some Arctic MX-2 thermal paste as well. Ive been reading this thread a while now and the only thing im missing is a heat gun. I don't really want to buy one but im assuming there is no other way of doing this? I was going to try my extremely hot hairdrier but I doubt it will melt solder. Any advise?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 21, 2008, 03:59:00 PM
QUOTE(lightning2000 @ May 21 2008, 09:26 PM)
New to the forums but not new to the site. Hi everyone.
I got my E74 error last night very very annoying, I had my first xbox for 13 months and got E74 MS wouldnt replace so i bought a new one. Now 13 months later I get another E74. MS can suck it.
I want to fix this error ive had my 360 in pieces already, i'm waiting for my x-clamp fix to come and some Arctic MX-2 thermal paste as well. Ive been reading this thread a while now and the only thing im missing is a heat gun. I don't really want to buy one but im assuming there is no other way of doing this? I was going to try my extremely hot hairdrier but I doubt it will melt solder. Any advise?
Do the X-Clamp replacement and if this doesnt fix it go buy a heatgun...
Post by: lightning2000 on May 21, 2008, 06:07:00 PM
I have one other question though. Reading the guide on x-clamp-fix.com it says "bake" your 360 by powering on with no fans for 2.30 mins. Is this a good idea or could it fry my xbox?
Post by: meduquaine1 on May 21, 2008, 06:56:00 PM
I wanted to let you know that I have found a cheap heat gun that works.
On harborfreight.com I found it for 9.95 plus 6.99 for shipping.
it has to settings, around 500 degrees on low, and ~1120 degrees on high.
hope this helps newbies like me... I did this fix today along with tortuga's x-clamp fix, and have been playing games for 8 hours straight.
Xbox 360 recovered for $27 including shipping.
thanks alot
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 22, 2008, 03:17:00 AM
QUOTE(lightning2000 @ May 22 2008, 02:43 AM)
Thanks, ill wait for the stuff to vome then before i spend money on a heatgun.
I have one other question though. Reading the guide on x-clamp-fix.com it says "bake" your 360 by powering on with no fans for 2.30 mins. Is this a good idea or could it fry my xbox?
The baking pretty much doesnt damage anything I had an xbox that i actually tested with the toweltrick which is known to be damaging internal components by overheating.
I closed all airvents and overheated it like 50(stopped counting after 37) times (I let it cool down each time for an hour or so).
The thingy just wont die and is still going strong in my opinion the "overheating your xbox will kill it" sentence is just not true...
It might do that but then it is just coincidence.
If you just plug out the fans it will only overheat the GPU and CPU so this is the safest way to do it...
Just by the way the 360 was a bad flash one and I didnt have the key, the seal was broken and I didnt intend to send it back to Microsoft for repair. Just in case someone turns up and accuses me for warranty fraud...
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 22, 2008, 05:48:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ May 21 2008, 01:35 AM)
Will be a problem with the GPU-ANA-chip connection. When you plugin the dvd-drive E64 goes away and usually the ROD should show up now in some cases like yours it doesnt.
The errormessage always shows up no matter if the GPU is fucked up or not.
So go for the X-Clamp replacement and if this doesnt work try this fix.
OKay, i have done the x-clamp on cpu and gpu...and i have blasted the back of the gpu to the ana chip twice now with a heat gun, and i still get nothing...maybe i am not getting it hot enough??? When i turn it on, i still get all green lights, but i get no audio/video...
on the x-clamp fix, i used the bolt that goes through the metal housing from the bottom and i have 3 steel/zinc washers plus 1 nylon (where it touches the mobo)...then on the top of the mobo, i have 1 nylon (where it touches the mobo) and one steel/zinc washer where it touches the heat sinks...do i have too many washers or what??
any ideas???
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 22, 2008, 06:47:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on May 22, 2008, 08:28:00 AM
QUOTE(lightning2000 @ May 21 2008, 07:43 PM)
Thanks, ill wait for the stuff to vome then before i spend money on a heatgun.
I have one other question though. Reading the guide on x-clamp-fix.com it says "bake" your 360 by powering on with no fans for 2.30 mins. Is this a good idea or could it fry my xbox?
This isn't going to get it hot enough / or the right area to fix no video / e74 errors.
QUOTE(Mr. Happy @ May 22 2008, 07:24 AM)
OKay, i have done the x-clamp on cpu and gpu...and i have blasted the back of the gpu to the ana chip twice now with a heat gun, and i still get nothing...maybe i am not getting it hot enough??? When i turn it on, i still get all green lights, but i get no audio/video...
on the x-clamp fix, i used the bolt that goes through the metal housing from the bottom and i have 3 steel/zinc washers plus 1 nylon (where it touches the mobo)...then on the top of the mobo, i have 1 nylon (where it touches the mobo) and one steel/zinc washer where it touches the heat sinks...do i have too many washers or what??
any ideas???
Um... is the heatsink even touching the die of the chip? I suppose it is cuase your not overheating.
Anyway, take the heat sink off, heatgun the GPU and connection to ANA chip as noted in the tutorial, re-apply your thermal paste and stick the heatsink back on.
You really only need 1 nylon and 1 metal washer on each side...
Post by: Migrant on May 22, 2008, 08:30:00 AM
From what I can see the hot air pencil is designed for resolder work and is a lot more accurate than just using a normal gun.
The cheapest I have found is one on eBay for about £46.00
Cheers
Post by: jimwross on May 22, 2008, 08:32:00 AM
QUOTE(Mr. Happy @ May 22 2008, 08:23 AM)
also, this may be a stupid question...but how far to i have to put the 360 back together before i test it??? I am leaving the casing off of it, but i have the mobo inside the steal case with the dvd and fans all hooked back up...is there a little switch or button somewhere that has to be pushed (by the outter casing) that allows it to work or am i just shooting in the dark???
Push the metal button in the middle of the 4 LED's that light up (on the RF Unit) when you turn your 360 on.
QUOTE(Migrant @ May 22 2008, 10:06 AM)
Rather than getting a normal heatgun I am looking at a hot air pencil. Has anyone had any experience of using these rather than a hot air gun.
From what I can see the hot air pencil is designed for resolder work and is a lot more accurate than just using a normal gun.
The cheapest I have found is one on eBay for about £46.00
Cheers
Seems quite a bit more expenive then a heatgun, but as long as it gets hot enough, it should work fine.
Most people will only have to do this once, and only use it for ~1 minute so its prob not worth spending a ton of money on... atleast IMO
Post by: Migrant on May 22, 2008, 08:45:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on May 22, 2008, 03:08:00 PM
QUOTE(Migrant @ May 22 2008, 10:21 AM)
Cheers Jim. I have repaired about 15 360's so far and god knows how many PSP and DS's but have never had to venture into solder re-work before. Seeing as I will be doing it for someone else I want to make sure that the heat is directed where it should be and no-where else. We had a hot week last week which brought in one two red light and an E74. Both had the CPU heatsink totaly blocked with dust so a good clean and reseating the heatsinks with new paste was done. Two red lights was fixed (Hardly and room for any air to flow due to the amount of dust and fluff) but I need to heat the E74. A trip into town tomorrow may find me a cheaper hot air pencil but if not I'll get on on-line. Cheers for replying.
You may also want to look in to heatguns w/ attachable nozzles; I've seen them at several stores here that allow you to direct the airflow in a very constrained area (for electronic work).
Anyway, good luck!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 22, 2008, 03:22:00 PM
The mainboard, the RF board, the PSU and the AV-cable.
Leave it out of the case then you dont have to disassemble it if it is not working...
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 22, 2008, 04:44:00 PM
QUOTE(jimwross @ May 22 2008, 10:04 AM)
This isn't going to get it hot enough / or the right area to fix no video / e74 errors.
Um... is the heatsink even touching the die of the chip? I suppose it is cuase your not overheating.
Anyway, take the heat sink off, heatgun the GPU and connection to ANA chip as noted in the tutorial, re-apply your thermal paste and stick the heatsink back on.
You really only need 1 nylon and 1 metal washer on each side...
yes the heatsink is touching the die, because the arcticsilver is all spread out when i take the heatsinks off so that i can flip it over and heat gun the back of the mobo...
and the reason i have 3 on the bottom is because my bolts go all the way through the bottom of the metal casing and not just from the bottom of the mobo...i drilled out the holes on the bottom of the case so that i could run the bolts up from the bottom of the case...
im going to heat gun the stupid thing again tonight, i think im going to leave it on extra long this time because i cant see anything beading up when i heat gunned it the first 2 times...
i will keep you guys updated...
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 23, 2008, 06:47:00 AM
another success story!!!
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 23, 2008, 08:22:00 PM
Post by: brandogg on May 23, 2008, 11:05:00 PM
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 24, 2008, 01:38:00 AM
heres another question tho'...my cables only work on regular tv with this 360, everytime i put it on the component cables on the back of the tv, i dont get any sound or video (and i did change the switch on the a/v cable itself)...why would i not get an HD output???
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 24, 2008, 04:38:00 AM
QUOTE(Mr. Happy @ May 24 2008, 10:14 AM)
well, i wired the 2 positive wires together and put them on the same hole...and i just got through playing COD4 for 4 hours and it ran great...
heres another question tho'...my cables only work on regular tv with this 360, everytime i put it on the component cables on the back of the tv, i dont get any sound or video (and i did change the switch on the a/v cable itself)...why would i not get an HD output???
It is either a broken trace to the ANA-chip/from the ana-chip to the connector or a broken cable...
Post by: Mr. Happy on May 24, 2008, 09:47:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ May 24 2008, 06:14 AM)
It is either a broken trace to the ANA-chip/from the ana-chip to the connector or a broken cable...
that may be the reason i kept getting no audio/video everytime i put it back together after the x-clamp fix...you may want to add that to your list of things to check (if you havent already)...i know it says something about trying a new cable, using a different tv, and using a differnt 360...but we need to add (try switching the cable to tv and hook it up thru RCA jacks "red,yellow,white")...just my $.02 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 24, 2008, 07:31:00 PM
QUOTE(Mr. Happy @ May 24 2008, 05:47 PM)
that may be the reason i kept getting no audio/video everytime i put it back together after the x-clamp fix...you may want to add that to your list of things to check (if you havent already)...i know it says something about trying a new cable, using a different tv, and using a differnt 360...but we need to add (try switching the cable to tv and hook it up thru RCA jacks "red,yellow,white")...just my $.02
Im not a moderator...
It is about time that they update the secondary errorcode guide especially for error 0022 but aint gonna happen...
Post by: crosseye on May 24, 2008, 07:40:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ May 24 2008, 09:07 PM)
Im not a moderator...
It is about time that they update the secondary errorcode guide especially for error 0022 but aint gonna happen...
I've actually got a box here that's throwing the 0022 error now. I've tried everything and even when I get rid of the RROD, it just freezes about 10 minutes into any gaming or just in the dash. Got any suggestions?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 24, 2008, 07:49:00 PM
QUOTE(crosseye @ May 25 2008, 04:16 AM)
I've actually got a box here that's throwing the 0022 error now. I've tried everything and even when I get rid of the RROD, it just freezes about 10 minutes into any gaming or just in the dash. Got any suggestions?
Well first just to clear this up, 0022 is a GPU related error that is closely connected to this one(E74 aka 1022)
I could permanently fix two 360 that showed it by heatgunning the area shown here from the top and bottom side of the mainboard.
Afterwards I applied the X-Clamps replacement(lawdawg's). Only doing the x-clamp replacement+overheating only fixed it temporarily.
If you ask me 0022 is an E74+ a broken/cold solder joint under the GPU
Check out my tutorial to isolate the caps properly before heatgunning it from the top side(back side doesnt need isolation)
http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=651407
Wait at least 45 minutes after heatgunning the back then turn it around isolate everything and do the top.
Wait 45 mins again and then apply the X-Clamp replacement(dont tighten the bolt to the maximum, you dont want to flex the mainboard too much). After that it should be fixed...
Post by: jonnymix on May 26, 2008, 01:34:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Apr 13 2008, 01:58 AM)
I used the heatgun in the same way as you but I warmed it up with the first setting and switched then to the second(500°C)
Well when the solder melted the capacitor is kind of swimming in the solder and as you are moving the heatgun around the whole time it kind of vibrates and slowly moves a bit because of the airflow.
You can compare it to a ripple of water when you blow at it...
You gotta stop then because otherwise it might move too far and then you will have to put it back in place...
it really takes a while so be patient and keep watching the bigger capacitors...
I guess I overdid it though because the color of the solder changed so be careful.
When I get my next E74 I will record a video...
The area depends as well putting pressure on the ana-chip fixed my first 360 so I concentrated on the ana-chip which fixed it.
This one was different though nothing brought it back to life so I heatgunned the area from the whole anachip over to the GPU from both sides.
After that it worked finally
Post by: owchar on May 28, 2008, 10:41:00 PM
Post by: owchar on May 29, 2008, 04:15:00 AM
THANK YOU
Post by: Onimu on May 31, 2008, 02:56:00 AM
Don't you guys think did i create too much pressure to GPU? I don't i have overheat, becuase it was working find and I turned it on less then 5min. Maybe i have damage something while I remove the Xclamp?
I don' have heat gun, i have overheat GPU twice and don't seems to work. Any other thought?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on May 31, 2008, 04:58:00 AM
QUOTE(Onimu @ May 31 2008, 11:32 AM)
A friend ask to fix his xbox360 just has Software upgrade problem, which i posted here for help. Turn out, I create more problem and Get E 74 by remove the Xclamp out and banned it to create more back pressure.
Don't you guys think did i create too much pressure to GPU? I don't i have overheat, becuase it was working find and I turned it on less then 5min. Maybe i have damage something while I remove the Xclamp?
I don' have heat gun, i have overheat GPU twice and don't seems to work. Any other thought?
Buying a heatgun is the only way to fix this one if the X-Clamp replacement didnt work...
You have to reflow the solder between GPU and anachip.
The oventrick may work as well but you will risk fucking it up completely when you bake it in the oven, a heatgun is much safer...
If you decide to put it in the oven isolate it properly so that you dont damage the other components
Read this one... http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=651407
Post by: jimwross on June 02, 2008, 01:06:00 PM
QUOTE(owchar @ May 29 2008, 05:51 AM)
i just heat gunned it waited 40 min then set it up and it worked
THANK YOU
Glad to hear it worked for you :-)
Post by: tenaciousd on June 03, 2008, 09:38:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 03, 2008, 10:19:00 AM
QUOTE(tenaciousd @ Jun 3 2008, 06:14 PM)
Why is it that my 360 will Temp work with a Hair Dryer when I blast the Chip on the TOP of the Mobo? I dont do the bottom...
NO a hairdryer doesnt get hot enough.
If you would have read properly you would have found this answer the question has been asked at least 4 times already
Post by: tenaciousd on June 03, 2008, 10:58:00 AM
I bought a cheap heat gun today, anyroad, that apparently goes to 340 Cel.
Ive tried once already, and it has improved the quality on the Game (You can see dots and lines etc) but not cured it 100%.
It might not be getting hot enough, so might have to take it back and get a more powerful one.
Post by: bosnia_9 on June 03, 2008, 11:16:00 AM
Post by: tenaciousd on June 03, 2008, 02:57:00 PM
It says up to 340 degrees C, which, as in the Broadband market "Up to" is never the same as "is."
Ive heated the thing, but no smoking has occurred.
I even expected the solder to kind of look like it was melting, but it did nothing.
Looks like Im taking it back to get a better one.
Funny, because its a Wagner too. :S Although its a hand one, not an actual gun.
Post by: snakker on June 06, 2008, 01:07:00 AM
My 360 failed on me about 5 months ago with 3-RRoD (1012 error). However, I managed to easily fix it with the penny trick, and no X-clamp fix. However, about a week ago I get an 1-RRoD (E74 error). This is the ONLY forum on the net that actually contained any useful info on the problem (thanks guys !)
Not owning a heat gun at the moment and missing my xbox too much, I decided to try the hairdryer trick. Did a 10 min heat, tried to start - still E74 error.
Did a proper 35 min heat with the hairdryer, and voila !! The green lights came on and it's been smooth sailing since then. Fired her up for a session of Rock Band and there were no glitches, freezes, etc. Hope this fix holds - else I'll HAVE to get a heat gun (yes, I know the general feeling is it won't last without heatgun..but there's always hope)
Anyway, just wanted to say THANK YOU
Post by: tenaciousd on June 06, 2008, 07:23:00 AM
Problem is, I buggered it more than it was previous.
One of the little Black Boxes fell off and the Yellowy-Orange boxes started to move, because the solder was soft.
I tried it without the black box (I managed to save the other ones) and no Video.
I thought "Crap".
I soldered to two joints back together, because the black thing was too small to fiddle with, and it worked...
After about 30 Mins on Forza 2, the Dots and Lines came back, so now Im back to square one, after doing everything right.
Im not messing with it anymore, because if anymore of them little boxes move, Im not sure that Ill be able to fix it.
The only other thing I can think of doing, is heating the AHA chip from the top, as I have been doing with the Hairdryer, with the Heatgun for a few seconds, and that would be the final thing.
I must stress, I have got rid of the E74 error screen. its just the dots and lines that are there now.
The 360 starts up perfectly.
Post by: jimwross on June 06, 2008, 08:26:00 AM
QUOTE(snakker @ Jun 6 2008, 02:43 AM)
Just wanna give feedback on my story:
My 360 failed on me about 5 months ago with 3-RRoD (1012 error). However, I managed to easily fix it with the penny trick, and no X-clamp fix. However, about a week ago I get an 1-RRoD (E74 error). This is the ONLY forum on the net that actually contained any useful info on the problem (thanks guys !)
Not owning a heat gun at the moment and missing my xbox too much, I decided to try the hairdryer trick. Did a 10 min heat, tried to start - still E74 error.
Did a proper 35 min heat with the hairdryer, and voila !! The green lights came on and it's been smooth sailing since then. Fired her up for a session of Rock Band and there were no glitches, freezes, etc. Hope this fix holds - else I'll HAVE to get a heat gun (yes, I know the general feeling is it won't last without heatgun..but there's always hope)
Anyway, just wanted to say THANK YOU
Glad it worked, it sucks that nobody else would post useful info about E74 errors...
QUOTE(tenaciousd @ Jun 6 2008, 08:59 AM)
Well, I did what was said.
Problem is, I buggered it more than it was previous.
One of the little Black Boxes fell off and the Yellowy-Orange boxes started to move, because the solder was soft.
I tried it without the black box (I managed to save the other ones) and no Video.
I thought "Crap".
I soldered to two joints back together, because the black thing was too small to fiddle with, and it worked...
After about 30 Mins on Forza 2, the Dots and Lines came back, so now Im back to square one, after doing everything right.
Im not messing with it anymore, because if anymore of them little boxes move, Im not sure that Ill be able to fix it.
The only other thing I can think of doing, is heating the AHA chip from the top, as I have been doing with the Hairdryer, with the Heatgun for a few seconds, and that would be the final thing.
I must stress, I have got rid of the E74 error screen. its just the dots and lines that are there now.
The 360 starts up perfectly.
Damn dude how long did you heat that thing up for? You're supposed to keep the nozzle moving and heat the ana and gpu for like a minute or a min and a half max....
There is a very limited space that I outlined in the pictures that you should concentrate on....
Post by: slim673 on June 06, 2008, 10:18:00 AM
And of course, thanks for this nice tut.
Post by: brandogg on June 06, 2008, 04:40:00 PM
Post by: slim673 on June 07, 2008, 03:28:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on June 09, 2008, 08:28:00 AM
QUOTE(brandogg @ Jun 6 2008, 06:16 PM)
It has to be done on both sides. The board under the GPU needs to be about as hot as the GPU itself.
I usually just heat it from the bottom, then give it a go...
Post by: Milkster on June 09, 2008, 01:01:00 PM
I'm fixing a mate's xbox and we had it working again after the RJBTechs original x-clamp removal fix and the overheating without the fans for a few mins fix. But it only lasted about a month before losing video again (starts with green and purple colours then the video drops). Because overheating it for a couple of mins without the fans on temporarily fixes it i'm guessing a heat gun is in order. I know it's not quite the same as the e74 error though as i've had that before and that gave me black lines / white squares so am wondering if it could be something else. Are there any other tests i can do to rule things out. Overheating is the only thing that has worked so far...
Post by: Milkster on June 09, 2008, 01:13:00 PM
Post by: jimwross on June 09, 2008, 09:56:00 PM
QUOTE(Milkster @ Jun 9 2008, 02:49 PM)
also just wanted to add when i did get it running again, GPU heat affected it in that it didn't last long without the fan shroud/mods, when i opened it up and blasted it with a deskfan over the GPU it would run fine for several hours but even still the graphics degraded back to nothing after a few cycles.
Yes, the heatgun should work for you.
Post by: Onimu on June 10, 2008, 06:28:00 PM
Post by: jimwross on June 10, 2008, 06:36:00 PM
QUOTE(Onimu @ Jun 10 2008, 08:04 PM)
jimwross, How long are most your E74 boards last after good heat gun fixed? Can you fix my E74 board if I send the board to your? I get two E74 board here.
I sent you a PM
Post by: deadrising2day on June 16, 2008, 12:25:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 16, 2008, 12:34:00 PM
QUOTE(deadrising2day @ Jun 16 2008, 09:01 PM)
I've used the heatgun method but the problem still occurs every so often. It makes sense though. Even when you fix it , the problem would still come back because the system still gets just as hot as when it first caused the problem, right?
Nope
The system gets a max temp of like 90°C to reflow the solder you need 218°C+ you could have figured this out yourself by browsing through the topic...
Post by: deadrising2day on June 16, 2008, 12:46:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 16 2008, 03:10 PM)
Nope
The system gets a max temp of like 90°C to reflow the solder you need 218°C+ you could have figured this out yourself by browsing through the topic...
If the system gets a max temp of 90, then how/why does this problem happen in the first place. Just wondering. I don't know if i'm wording it right. When someone first encounters the problem, there system is obviously hot enough to cause the problem. So when it's fixed, what's to stop the system from getting hot enough to cause it again?
Post by: brandogg on June 16, 2008, 12:59:00 PM
Post by: deadrising2day on June 16, 2008, 01:03:00 PM
QUOTE(brandogg @ Jun 16 2008, 03:35 PM)
Because the cheap lead-free solder cracks when the motherboard flexes. It doesn't flow, it breaks.
I know that much, but after it's reflowed/fixed using a heat gun, won't it eventually crack again?
Post by: wllazer17 on June 16, 2008, 05:39:00 PM
Post by: deadrising2day on June 16, 2008, 07:06:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Jun 16 2008, 08:15 PM)
I have an e74 xbox here that no matter how much I heat it with my heat gun it still gives e74. I haven't tried heating the top yet because I'm afraid of blowing a capacitor. Does heating the top side do anything?
Did you try the Xclamp fix?
Post by: wllazer17 on June 16, 2008, 07:20:00 PM
QUOTE(deadrising2day @ Jun 16 2008, 09:42 PM)
Did you try the Xclamp fix?
Yes and it doesn't do anything =(
Post by: brandogg on June 16, 2008, 09:39:00 PM
Post by: HackerSupreme on June 16, 2008, 09:52:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Jun 16 2008, 09:56 PM)
Yes and it doesn't do anything =(
Yea you should try heatgunning the GPU. There is a tut by Willhelm I think on how to do it properly without blowing a cap.
Post by: haris2887 on June 16, 2008, 11:16:00 PM
If u get e74 the only lasting fix it to do the xclamp fix first then use this tutorial to heatgun..
if u don't. stop the motherboard from flexing the problem will return...
Post by: jimwross on June 17, 2008, 12:55:00 AM
QUOTE(haris2887 @ Jun 17 2008, 12:52 AM)
ok..
If u get e74 the only lasting fix it to do the xclamp fix first then use this tutorial to heatgun..
if u don't. stop the motherboard from flexing the problem will return...
Correct.
Except heatgun it first, then do the X-Clamp. :-)
Post by: beetlemaniac on June 17, 2008, 02:04:00 AM
He previously sent it to a modshop to get it fixed. I presume they did an x-clamp fix. After some time it stopped working again, with E74.
I'd like to hear opinions about whether it's worth buying or not. I also don't have a heat gun which i would have to buy if i want to fix it up. Thank you!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 17, 2008, 05:54:00 AM
QUOTE(beetlemaniac @ Jun 17 2008, 10:40 AM)
Hi guys, I'm thinking of buying a E74 off someone who is selling it for approx $110 including 2 wireless controllers and a game and the bundled accessories.
He previously sent it to a modshop to get it fixed. I presume they did an x-clamp fix. After some time it stopped working again, with E74.
I'd like to hear opinions about whether it's worth buying or not. I also don't have a heat gun which i would have to buy if i want to fix it up. Thank you!
If you are willed to buy a heatgun as well go for it.
If you dont have one you wont be able to fix it anymore since the X Clamp replacement stopped working and it needs a reflow...
Post by: beetlemaniac on June 17, 2008, 06:53:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 17 2008, 08:30 PM)
If you are willed to buy a heatgun as well go for it.
If you dont have one you wont be able to fix it anymore since the X Clamp replacement stopped working and it needs a reflow...
I found a hardware store which sold a 550C heat gun with 2 heat levels plus a torx screwdriver set for $34. Seems like a good deal. Do I also need some thermal paste? Or could I just remove the heatsinks, reflow and put them back again?
Post by: deadrising2day on June 17, 2008, 08:05:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Jun 17 2008, 03:31 AM)
Correct.
Except heatgun it first, then do the X-Clamp. :-)
I did the xclamp fix, but instead of drilling through the case, i attached the screws straight fom the motherboard. Could that be causing any flexing still? I also did the fan shroud mod, got the whisper max fan, and added a small fan on the side of the case.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 17, 2008, 09:01:00 AM
I also got a heatgun that reaches max 500°C it should be alright...
Yes you need thermal compound otherwise your 360 will overheat quickly...
@deadrising2day
It depends on the size of the screws if the heads are higher than 3mm it wont properly fit in the case.
You will notice that you have to screw it down with the silver screws, dont do that because this is flexing it.
If this is the case you will have to drill holes through the case so that the heads of the screws fit through, I always had to do that because I got some really crappy cylindric screws.
Post by: deadrising2day on June 17, 2008, 01:00:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 17 2008, 11:37 AM)
@beetlemaniac
I also got a heatgun that reaches max 500°C it should be alright...
Yes you need thermal compound otherwise your 360 will overheat quickly...
@deadrising2day
It depends on the size of the screws if the heads are higher than 3mm it wont properly fit in the case.
You will notice that you have to screw it down with the silver screws, dont do that because this is flexing it.
If this is the case you will have to drill holes through the case so that the heads of the screws fit through, I always had to do that because I got some really crappy cylindric screws.
I think I'll try that next. That could be the problem because when I screw the mobo into the case, it's usually hard to push it down all the way into the bottom of the case. I think because the screws are hitting the middle of the case.
Post by: beetlemaniac on June 17, 2008, 07:27:00 PM
Post by: haris2887 on June 18, 2008, 01:04:00 AM
i noticed that when you just attach the screws to the motherboard the 4 corners flex up towards the HS (4 corners with the bolts on GPU side)..while it may still work it is not recommended..
now we dont want that...
i did my xbox360 xclamp 2 years ago and it is still going strong..
i have done over 130 x clamp fixes what that method with 1000% success rate.
i always say
"do it once, do it right'
hope it helps...
Post by: Smiling Cat on June 19, 2008, 07:58:00 PM
I got my system working perfectly fine after that for 2 and a half months. Playing through all of GTAIV, Halo3 split screen all the way through, along with Rainbow Six Vegas 2 all the way through in split screen. So it was definitely getting a work out in terms of prolonged use and thermal cycles.
Then summer arrived and after playing around 5 hours on Vegas Terrorists hunts the discoloration where the hue is off on one of the primary colors came back, and eventually no more video. Pulled it apart and sparingly used a heat gun to get the scalar chip and bridge hot to the touch. That brought it back long enough for me to test it by playing through the first couple COD4 levels or about an hour of game play on the more taxing levels, on a 1024x768 LCD I use when I have to pull it apart and test it. Everything seemed to be in working order.
Put it back together and hooked up it back up to the HD display through component at 1080p, and within minutes of loading up the Bad Company Demo to test it had the discoloration return. After taking it apart again and testing the small LCD screen the discoloration was still there. Tried again with the heat gun sparingly and can't get any video signal. Back to where I was 3 months ago. All green lights and sound through the analog and optical.
Through all of this the only RROD I have gotten was the error code 0102 main system component error, after I had taken the heat sinks off and put them back on to make sure the thermal paste was right and to verify the compression of the nylon washers I used in the clamp replacement. A short run with the fan on the CPU heat sink while the GPU heated up and a cool down has always corrected this without it returning.
So in conclusion as far as things have gone for me the culprit has to be scalar chip and not the GPU. I am going to have to prepare the board with insulation, so that I can bring the heat gun up to some real temperatures without worrying about the most vulnerable components like any of the capacitors.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 20, 2008, 12:32:00 AM
This time do it properly with the heatsinks off though if you dont want to to reball the GPU
Post by: deadrising2day on June 20, 2008, 12:41:00 PM
Post by: snakker on June 23, 2008, 01:25:00 AM
QUOTE(snakker @ Jun 6 2008, 09:43 AM)
Just wanna give feedback on my story:
My 360 failed on me about 5 months ago with 3-RRoD (1012 error). However, I managed to easily fix it with the penny trick, and no X-clamp fix. However, about a week ago I get an 1-RRoD (E74 error). This is the ONLY forum on the net that actually contained any useful info on the problem (thanks guys !)
Not owning a heat gun at the moment and missing my xbox too much, I decided to try the hairdryer trick. Did a 10 min heat, tried to start - still E74 error.
Did a proper 35 min heat with the hairdryer, and voila !! The green lights came on and it's been smooth sailing since then. Fired her up for a session of Rock Band and there were no glitches, freezes, etc. Hope this fix holds - else I'll HAVE to get a heat gun (yes, I know the general feeling is it won't last without heatgun..but there's always hope)
Anyway, just wanted to say THANK YOU
Ok, as expected this hairdrier fix lasted approx one week before I got the E74 error again. Got hold of a heatgun and blasted it for 2-3 min. Fixed the problem for a while, had to do it a few times. A problem that I started seeing is that no matter how slightly I screw in ANY of the small black screws, I get 3 flashing light error (I think there is some insulation problem with screws on motherboard ?). Not a big problem, as I can do without them for now. The second problem I'm seeing is that the fans spin up loud right from start-up, indicating overheating - so I've been playing around with various configurations of screws and torques so resolve this. I think the repeated reheats caused melting of the plastic spacer underneat GPU clamp (no X-clamp mod done), which is affecting the amount of pressure exerted on the GPU ??
Then last night, coming back after a weekend away, I got another E74 error - this time I gave it a proper 5 min heat with the heatgun (kept nozzle moving over the video & scalar connections. Then one of the transistors (I think..) on the scalar area just popped off !! I think this was caused by a gas bubble in the soldering which rapidly expanded and caused the soldering to pop. With my wife's help, we managed to place the transistor back and reflow connection by heatgun. Maybe this will now be the end of my E74 errors ? I've booted it last night, spent about 3 hours in MCE interface (no glitches or freezes observed) - also booted a game this morning and I could not see any errors. Only thing at this stage is that the fans are still abnormally loud.
What do you guys reckon - could this single transistor have been the source of all my problems, and what do you think about the gas bubble theory ?
Regards,
Will
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 23, 2008, 03:04:00 AM
You just fixed it because you reflowed it properly the first time, the whole process always takes me around 4 minutes...
Another idea for you mate, replace the X Clamps next time then it wont fail again after a few months:
The board is still flexing and so it is not really a surprise that your fix didnt last long...
Post by: jimwross on June 23, 2008, 09:03:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 23 2008, 04:40 AM)
Dont think that the transistor was the source of the problem...
You just fixed it because you reflowed it properly the first time, the whole process always takes me around 4 minutes...
Another idea for you mate, replace the X Clamps next time then it wont fail again after a few months:
The board is still flexing and so it is not really a surprise that your fix didnt last long...
I agree... replacing the X-Clamps since you already have the board out is super easy, just be careful removing them (remove the X-Clamp from the sides without the traces below).
Post by: wllazer17 on June 23, 2008, 05:10:00 PM
Post by: Smiling Cat on June 23, 2008, 05:19:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 20 2008, 12:08 AM)
discoloration is usually an issue with the ANA-GPU connection so you will have to heatgun it again..
This time do it properly with the heatsinks off though if you dont want to to reball the GPU
Yeah I will give it a go again with the GPU heat sink off. I have spent around an hour inspecting the the connection between them with a magnifying glass. Looking for anything wrong. Couldn't see anything so I guess I will bust out the heat gun and work on it.
Post by: jimwross on June 23, 2008, 11:11:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Jun 23 2008, 06:46 PM)
I still have this 360 that no matter how much i heat with a heatgun the bottom of the board and the top of the gpu it still shows e74 and I don't know what to do?
Your ANA / HANA chip could actually be bad...
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 24, 2008, 12:00:00 AM
QUOTE(Smiling Cat @ Jun 24 2008, 01:55 AM)
Yeah I will give it a go again with the GPU heat sink off. I have spent around an hour inspecting the the connection between them with a magnifying glass. Looking for anything wrong. Couldn't see anything so I guess I will bust out the heat gun and work on it.
Congrats you also might have fucked it up because you didnt remove the heatsink...
Just reported it hopefully a moderator will edit the first post now...
Post by: beetlemaniac on June 24, 2008, 05:03:00 AM
Thanks a lot guys! Especially jim & Wilhelm.
Post by: Smiling Cat on June 24, 2008, 05:33:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 23 2008, 11:36 PM)
Congrats you also might have fucked it up because you didnt remove the heatsink...
Just reported it hopefully a moderator will edit the first post now...
Thing is still fine. Getting a boot, but no video.
Post by: beetlemaniac on June 24, 2008, 05:48:00 AM
$135 for a complete 360 set plus a heat gun... awesome! Without this little tutorial right here I'd still be saving money for a brand new box. Thanks guys!
Post by: snakker on June 24, 2008, 05:50:00 AM
QUOTE(snakker @ Jun 23 2008, 10:01 AM)
Ok, as expected this hairdrier fix lasted approx one week before I got the E74 error again. Got hold of a heatgun and blasted it for 2-3 min. Fixed the problem for a while, had to do it a few times. A problem that I started seeing is that no matter how slightly I screw in ANY of the small black screws, I get 3 flashing light error (I think there is some insulation problem with screws on motherboard ?). Not a big problem, as I can do without them for now. The second problem I'm seeing is that the fans spin up loud right from start-up, indicating overheating - so I've been playing around with various configurations of screws and torques so resolve this. I think the repeated reheats caused melting of the plastic spacer underneat GPU clamp (no X-clamp mod done), which is affecting the amount of pressure exerted on the GPU ??
Then last night, coming back after a weekend away, I got another E74 error - this time I gave it a proper 5 min heat with the heatgun (kept nozzle moving over the video & scalar connections. Then one of the transistors (I think..) on the scalar area just popped off !! I think this was caused by a gas bubble in the soldering which rapidly expanded and caused the soldering to pop. With my wife's help, we managed to place the transistor back and reflow connection by heatgun. Maybe this will now be the end of my E74 errors ? I've booted it last night, spent about 3 hours in MCE interface (no glitches or freezes observed) - also booted a game this morning and I could not see any errors. Only thing at this stage is that the fans are still abnormally loud.
What do you guys reckon - could this single transistor have been the source of all my problems, and what do you think about the gas bubble theory ?
Regards,
Will
As Wilhelm predicted, the resoldering of the transistor didn't last long - too little soldering available on mobo to get good connection, so I pulled out the old soldering iron and placed a good measure of soldering on the two joints, then properly resoldered the transistor to the board. Startup showed no obvious errors, but overheating was still occurring. Now - first off: I'm NOT stubborn. I WANT to follow the expert advice offered here, however I don't have access to a drill and any decent washers at this time, so I opted NOT to do the full x-clamp replacement right away...
What I noticed was that over the course of repeated reheats of mobo (with heatgun), the plastic spacer between x-clamp and mobo had actually partially melted, causing it to flatten. I reckoned this may have decreased the pressure exerted by the heatsink on the gpu, causing bad contact and consequently weak transfer of heat. Therefore, I removed the x-clamp and replaced the plastic spacer with some double sided tape to induce some more pressure. I also put on a dab of Arctic Silver 5 for good measure. While slotting back the original x-clamp, I could feel additional tension in the clamp, which meant the idea was good. Well, I fired her up and it seems to be working !! No E74, 3-RRoD or overheating problems so far. In fact, the xbox seems far quieter that ever before (must be the AS5). Ran it through a few demo loops of Nascar 09 last night and did not seem to give any problems - I'll put it through some heavy use tonight and report back - thanks !
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 24, 2008, 06:17:00 AM
QUOTE(snakker @ Jun 24 2008, 02:26 PM)
As Wilhelm predicted, the resoldering of the transistor didn't last long - too little soldering available on mobo to get good connection, so I pulled out the old soldering iron and placed a good measure of soldering on the two joints, then properly resoldered the transistor to the board. Startup showed no obvious errors, but overheating was still occurring. Now - first off: I'm NOT stubborn. I WANT to follow the expert advice offered here, however I don't have access to a drill and any decent washers at this time, so I opted NOT to do the full x-clamp replacement right away...
What I noticed was that over the course of repeated reheats of mobo (with heatgun), the plastic spacer between x-clamp and mobo had actually partially melted, causing it to flatten. I reckoned this may have decreased the pressure exerted by the heatsink on the gpu, causing bad contact and consequently weak transfer of heat. Therefore, I removed the x-clamp and replaced the plastic spacer with some double sided tape to induce some more pressure. I also put on a dab of Arctic Silver 5 for good measure. While slotting back the original x-clamp, I could feel additional tension in the clamp, which meant the idea was good. Well, I fired her up and it seems to be working !! No E74, 3-RRoD or overheating problems so far. In fact, the xbox seems far quieter that ever before (must be the AS5). Ran it through a few demo loops of Nascar 09 last night and did not seem to give any problems - I'll put it through some heavy use tonight and report back - thanks !
I am afraid you didnt read it properly either you are lucky that your 360 is still working at all if you had reflowed the solder the pressure would have flattened the solderballs and almost irreversibly damaged the mainboard.
As I said it is about time that one of the moderators edits the first page of the thread or more people will do that.
Post by: snakker on June 24, 2008, 08:08:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 24 2008, 02:53 PM)
I am afraid you didnt read it properly either you are lucky that your 360 is still working at all if you had reflowed the solder the pressure would have flattened the solderballs and almost irreversibly damaged the mainboard.
As I said it is about time that one of the moderators edits the first page of the thread or more people will do that.
Agreed. I think I just got lucky; didn't focus my heating on the GPU though, but rather on the scalar chip area. Hopefully, I won't be doing any more heatgunning soon.
Post by: jimwross on June 24, 2008, 11:13:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jun 24 2008, 01:36 AM)
Congrats you also might have fucked it up because you didnt remove the heatsink...
Just reported it hopefully a moderator will edit the first post now...
I wish I could edit it...
Post by: keine on June 25, 2008, 02:17:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 25, 2008, 11:03:00 AM
QUOTE(keine @ Jun 25 2008, 10:53 AM)
So, I have a no video 360. This last time the video got all discolored. Restarted and no video. I've done the MKIII. I've used a heat gun multiple times, prolly going on 6 times. I focus primarily on the ana/gpu, usually strictly on the bottom then put back on the MKIII. The xbox 360 always comes back after the heating, but it never lasts. Usually lasts for about a month then the no video/discoloration comes back. How do I make it last? Is it the fact that my mobo is still bending or that the box is getting to hot, or some of both? Thanks. I've tried the air shroud mod, and that didn't hold either. I've found that heating the ana/gpu strictly on the bottom of the board always fixes it (6 times now), but the problem always comes back.
The fact that the mainboard i still bending will pretty much be the main reason so just leave it very loose after heatgunning it and only tighten it so much that it doesnt bend...
Also heatgun it from both sides and use my tutorial to isolate the other components because otherwise the capacitors will pop...
Post by: Onimu on June 29, 2008, 04:47:00 AM
Post by: halltopia on June 30, 2008, 04:38:00 AM
I read this -and related topics- about seven hundred times before trying this. Wanted to get it right.
So far so good. I just had to say a big ... 'Thank You'.
E74 sucks. I want a shirt that says that.
Again thanks.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on June 30, 2008, 08:52:00 AM
QUOTE(Onimu @ Jun 29 2008, 01:23 PM)
Alright, first page shows heatgun on bottom of board under ANA and GPU chip area, but most ppls post heatgun on top of board on ANA and GPU work too. Where exactly do I heatgun to? I was heatgun both E74 board last night on top of both board on ANA and GPU chip area. One work and another don't. I'll try to heat bottom of board tomorrow and see if it work.
I always do from both sides
For the top use this tutorial: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=651407
Then wait 45 minutes to let it cool down.
After that do the bottom using this tutorial.
Let it cool down another 45 minutes.
Do the X Clamp fix but dont tighten the screws as much as possible just as much as necessary since you dont want it to bend because then it will break again sooner or later.
Post by: snmp on June 30, 2008, 08:05:00 PM
14 pages.
heh
i just read them all, being a forum operator myself i know all about reading the entire post no matter how long.
that being said, i just had my first e74 error the other night. well actually, my buddy did while i was at work. playing ninja gaiden for like 18 hrs straight.....heh
anyways i came to a huge dilema, infact i was very irritated about it. i have a rework station and i constantly remove and upgrade chips on various devices so i know all about the powers of the mighty heat gun! but upon reaching the metal casing to the remove the motherboard i noticed that one of the torx screws was stripped. how the hell does that happen, box has never been opened warranty sticker was still valid till i opened it up last night. since i couldnt devise another means of removing the metal casing, i finally lost my temper, said a few $%#@'s at m$ and broke out the old dremel. afterwards the mobo removed easily, i think some double sided tape should help with pressure on the cpu/gpu but im not certain. so im about to try out this heat gun method and see how that goes. also, in my experience with soldering, balls or ie pearls are not a good thing with solder. why does everyone keep saying reball?? solder flows, when it balls theres entirely too much. lol, but maybe im just misunderstanding the lingo. feel free to flame.... heh
ill post back my results with heat gun method. oh and thanks to everyone who pioneered this before!!
Post by: snmp on June 30, 2008, 09:27:00 PM
just for reference, some have said about discoloration, to look for it. this is also a no no with soldering. your solder is much like thermal compound, it has a rating. and it can only be reheated so many times before it will start causing a cold joint. 420C worked just fine. Thats about 890F. 1" from the pcb, in a slow motion(it doesnt have to be circles, just as long as you arent baking the same area more than about a sec). more than a sec p/sq in and components may become damaged. Also i used c clamps to hold the pcb in place, i know everyone will not have rotating ones, so just do what you can, but be sure the board is never perpendicular to the ground, as the smaller components will fall off from the loose solder. so be careful when rotating. other than that, this technique does work, just be careful. Thanks to all who posted in this thread, and thanks to xbox scene for indexing this great info, ill make an error code link back to this thread in the xbox section of my modem site.
Post by: jimwross on July 06, 2008, 11:49:00 PM
QUOTE(snmp @ Jun 30 2008, 11:03 PM)
ok, that worked!!
just for reference, some have said about discoloration, to look for it. this is also a no no with soldering. your solder is much like thermal compound, it has a rating. and it can only be reheated so many times before it will start causing a cold joint. 420C worked just fine. Thats about 890F. 1" from the pcb, in a slow motion(it doesnt have to be circles, just as long as you arent baking the same area more than about a sec). more than a sec p/sq in and components may become damaged. Also i used c clamps to hold the pcb in place, i know everyone will not have rotating ones, so just do what you can, but be sure the board is never perpendicular to the ground, as the smaller components will fall off from the loose solder. so be careful when rotating. other than that, this technique does work, just be careful. Thanks to all who posted in this thread, and thanks to xbox scene for indexing this great info, ill make an error code link back to this thread in the xbox section of my modem site.
glad to hear it worked
Post by: gotskunk on July 09, 2008, 08:08:00 PM
anyway after heat gunning for a third time and lettign cool for several hours i get the 2 left lights indicating that the system is overheating. With normal overheating you can only turn the xbox off by unplugging it but with this I can shut the system down from the power button.
I am all out of ideas now and am thinking of just putting it on ebay and getting a 360 arcade system but was wondering if there is anything else I can do to try to bring it back to life once again. Was considering the heat gun again but I just dont know if I may have fried something thisa last timew around and just have a dead xbox.
thanks all.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on July 09, 2008, 09:17:00 PM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ Jul 10 2008, 04:44 AM)
hey everyone. I posted a few months ago about my e74 1022 error code. after heat gunning the first time it worked for a few weeks then the same codes popped up. did the heat gun again and had it working for 2 months but the error came back. I had done the x-clamp fix, installed heatsinks on all exposed chips and bought a new talismoon whisper max case fan hoping it wouldn do this again.
anyway after heat gunning for a third time and lettign cool for several hours i get the 2 left lights indicating that the system is overheating. With normal overheating you can only turn the xbox off by unplugging it but with this I can shut the system down from the power button.
I am all out of ideas now and am thinking of just putting it on ebay and getting a 360 arcade system but was wondering if there is anything else I can do to try to bring it back to life once again. Was considering the heat gun again but I just dont know if I may have fried something thisa last timew around and just have a dead xbox.
thanks all.
Replacing thermal compound/Cleaning chip dies/heatsinks maybe?
Just a guess^^
Post by: jimwross on July 10, 2008, 09:42:00 AM
QUOTE(gotskunk @ Jul 9 2008, 09:44 PM)
hey everyone. I posted a few months ago about my e74 1022 error code. after heat gunning the first time it worked for a few weeks then the same codes popped up. did the heat gun again and had it working for 2 months but the error came back. I had done the x-clamp fix, installed heatsinks on all exposed chips and bought a new talismoon whisper max case fan hoping it wouldn do this again.
anyway after heat gunning for a third time and lettign cool for several hours i get the 2 left lights indicating that the system is overheating. With normal overheating you can only turn the xbox off by unplugging it but with this I can shut the system down from the power button.
I am all out of ideas now and am thinking of just putting it on ebay and getting a 360 arcade system but was wondering if there is anything else I can do to try to bring it back to life once again. Was considering the heat gun again but I just dont know if I may have fried something thisa last timew around and just have a dead xbox.
thanks all.
Make sure all of your washers are even size so that the heatsink sits 100% flush against the die of the GPU. Also, check to ensure that you have a THIN layer of heatsink compound, not gobs of it; and finally mess around with the tightness of the bolts.
I find that 99% of the time the 2 red lights that come on soon after startup indicate that a washer is an wierd size or something...
Post by: Pepper 139 on July 11, 2008, 01:29:00 PM
just curious before i attempt since i did the x-clamp replacement and have taken it apart so many times that i think i've actually stripped out the bolts on the other heatsink.
thanks
Post by: jimwross on July 24, 2008, 02:58:00 PM
QUOTE(Pepper 139 @ Jul 11 2008, 03:05 PM)
maybe i missed it somewhere since i only read the first 5 pages but is it essential to take off both heatsinks or just gpu one? the pic only shows the gpu one off.
just curious before i attempt since i did the x-clamp replacement and have taken it apart so many times that i think i've actually stripped out the bolts on the other heatsink.
thanks
You can just take the GPU heatsink off, I know alot of people do the CPU one as well when performing the X-Clamp Replacement, but if the problem only stems from the GPU side (which is the case in E74 / No Video) you can replace the GPU heatsink and then replace the CPU later if you need to
Post by: sandeep_kailey on July 24, 2008, 06:17:00 PM
thanks in advance
Post by: jimwross on July 24, 2008, 08:34:00 PM
QUOTE(sandeep_kailey @ Jul 24 2008, 07:53 PM)
Do you know how to fix code 0110. another thing your RAM's have double sided tap on them . mine does not could that be a problem.
thanks in advance
Those are just thermal pads... they came on newerish 360's, its not a huge deal.
Post by: RaulDuke21 on July 25, 2008, 08:51:00 AM
Had the e74 error for 3 months. Hairdryer didnt work, x-clamp no-go, and pennies were useless. I came across this post yesterday and went this morning and bought me a heat gun. Ran it over the backside for about a minute and a half in small circles back and forth between the Ana and GPU.
I tested it and it worked! I didnt believe it so as I was putting it back together I kept testing it after putting another piece on. Still going 3 hours later.
Now I just need to get a new DVD drive that doesnt think its just a DVD drive that cant run 360 games.
Thanks again.
Post by: jimwross on July 25, 2008, 10:15:00 PM
QUOTE(RaulDuke21 @ Jul 25 2008, 10:27 AM)
I would like to say another success story here. I registered just to say thank you.
Had the e74 error for 3 months. Hairdryer didnt work, x-clamp no-go, and pennies were useless. I came across this post yesterday and went this morning and bought me a heat gun. Ran it over the backside for about a minute and a half in small circles back and forth between the Ana and GPU.
I tested it and it worked! I didnt believe it so as I was putting it back together I kept testing it after putting another piece on. Still going 3 hours later.
Now I just need to get a new DVD drive that doesnt think its just a DVD drive that cant run 360 games.
Thanks again.
Sweet! Good to hear.
Post by: evildereck on July 27, 2008, 10:59:00 PM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on July 28, 2008, 01:57:00 AM
QUOTE(evildereck @ Jul 28 2008, 07:35 AM)
I apologize in advance if it's already been covered and I missed it, I have only had a very brief time to skim so I hope you'll be patient.... Is the E74 even remotely related to overheating (IE, something a whisper fan can help prevent again after the box is up and running)? And is a heatgun a must, I'm gathering it is much more efficient than the hairdryer, but if I take the heatsink off the GPU and heat the top and bottom with a hairdryer as well as the ANA chip, and the X-Box starts running again, will putting a whisper fan in then be enough? Or is the problem either not overheating at all therefore better fan doesn't help and/or a hairdryer just cannot possibly deliver enough heat? I'm kinda strapped for cash, so I was hoping to avoid having to buy one..... Thanks!
A Whisperfan costs more than a heatgun and it will most likely not do a shit...
It might work because the solder joints become cold at a certain temperature and then the screen gets artifacts, color changes and noise....
The mor eoften this happens the earlier it will the next time so it is a waste of time and money.
A heatgun costs like 25 where I live, a Whisperfan like 18+ shipping, so go for the heatgun it will definitely fix it and unless you want a nice LED fan you dont need it because the stocks are not much worse
Post by: jimwross on July 28, 2008, 07:47:00 PM
Skip the fan, buy a heatgun. Hairdryer won't do anything.
Post by: evildereck on July 30, 2008, 03:44:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Jul 28 2008, 09:23 PM)
I agree.
Skip the fan, buy a heatgun. Hairdryer won't do anything.
How easy is it to screw up and damage the xbox with a heatgun?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on July 30, 2008, 03:47:00 AM
QUOTE(evildereck @ Jul 30 2008, 12:20 PM)
How easy is it to screw up and damage the xbox with a heatgun?
Depends on how well you can follow instructions...
If you do it right there is nearly no danger.
First heatgun the bottom like shown here, then let it cool down for 45 minutes, isolate the top like shown in my heatgunning tutorial and heatgun the top
Post by: jimwross on August 02, 2008, 02:58:00 AM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Jul 30 2008, 05:23 AM)
Depends on how well you can follow instructions...
If you do it right there is nearly no danger.
First heatgun the bottom like shown here, then let it cool down for 45 minutes, isolate the top like shown in my heatgunning tutorial and heatgun the top
Heatgun the bottom, let it cool down, try it out see if it works then... and then move on to doing things on the top if need be.
Make sure to keep the heatgun moving at all times (seriously). Honestly it doesnt take long to do...
Post by: vamcavalo on August 04, 2008, 08:42:00 PM
i register on xbox-scene just to say THANKS.
My xbox are ok now.
A bought a heatgun here in Brazil and use 1 minute and a half on 300ºC and 1 minute and a half on 500ºC; only on the bottom of the mobo.
THANKS GUYS
I'd played for almost 2 hours GRID and it's ok
Post by: halltopia on August 04, 2008, 11:56:00 PM
A HUGE thanks for this thread! Wross, & Wilhelm you guys are awesome.
Now an update and a quick q. I fixed my E74 on 6/30- my baby E74'd again, about a week ago. So I grabbed another heat gun and did the fix and it's all fine again. I was curious if anyone else had to do a quick reheating? if often, whats the frequency?
Also, I now have my box sitting outside it's case.. for the time being (ugly, sure- but it works). Other than dust, is this not a good thing? or is this ok? Just curious. Thanks again everyone for all the info.
Post by: jimwross on August 06, 2008, 10:59:00 AM
QUOTE(vamcavalo @ Aug 4 2008, 10:18 PM)
Hello,
i register on xbox-scene just to say THANKS.
My xbox are ok now.
A bought a heatgun here in Brazil and use 1 minute and a half on 300ºC and 1 minute and a half on 500ºC; only on the bottom of the mobo.
THANKS GUYS
I'd played for almost 2 hours GRID and it's ok
Good to hear!
QUOTE(halltopia @ Aug 5 2008, 01:32 AM)
Hey guys. First of all (and you may have heard it before but I don't care) -
A HUGE thanks for this thread! Wross, & Wilhelm you guys are awesome.
Now an update and a quick q. I fixed my E74 on 6/30- my baby E74'd again, about a week ago. So I grabbed another heat gun and did the fix and it's all fine again. I was curious if anyone else had to do a quick reheating? if often, whats the frequency?
Also, I now have my box sitting outside it's case.. for the time being (ugly, sure- but it works). Other than dust, is this not a good thing? or is this ok? Just curious. Thanks again everyone for all the info.
There's nothing wrong with having the box outside the plastic shell, the metal case helps protect the board though (so I'd leave that).
I've had a few E74's that had to have been re-heated, just give it a little more heat and keep the gun moving and you should be fine. I switched over to OCZ Freeze thermal paste and haven't had any come back lately (IDK how much of a real difference this would make, but the broken solder joints are most likely directly under the GPU so it would make sense if its cooler).
Hope this helps
-Jim
Post by: felcrow on August 07, 2008, 10:28:00 PM
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-650-Degree-Heat-HT-400/dp/B000X4SMRQ/ref=pd_bbs_11?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1218166230&sr=8-11
Post by: boffo123 on August 09, 2008, 06:55:00 PM
I'm trying apply this heatgun + x-clamp fix for E74 error, but have hit an unexpected snag. I just cannot get the old thermal compound off the CPU, GPU, and heatsinks. I've been working at the GPU alone for over half an hour, and there is still residue that won't come off. I'm using q-tips and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The q-tips don't seem to be getting darker anymore (i.e. no more thermal compound coming off I think), but I still change q-tips every 30-40 seconds. Should I use something like Arcticlean to get the remaining residue off?
Also, for the GPU heatsink, in addition to just isopropyl alcohol, I've tried Goof Off. Tried for over half hour for that and not seeing any more results. I can't feel the residue with my finger anymore, but it's very visible, a lot of it left. I'm considering lapping the heatsink, but maybe someone can suggest an easier alternative?
Thanks!
Post by: Ultraison on August 10, 2008, 12:39:00 AM
I guess i'll try this, the only difference for me, is my xbox has the hana...idk if that'll effect anything.
Post by: TheBestXboxModder on August 10, 2008, 01:22:00 AM
QUOTE(boffo123 @ Aug 9 2008, 09:31 PM)
Hi guys,
I'm trying apply this heatgun + x-clamp fix for E74 error, but have hit an unexpected snag. I just cannot get the old thermal compound off the CPU, GPU, and heatsinks. I've been working at the GPU alone for over half an hour, and there is still residue that won't come off. I'm using q-tips and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The q-tips don't seem to be getting darker anymore (i.e. no more thermal compound coming off I think), but I still change q-tips every 30-40 seconds. Should I use something like Arcticlean to get the remaining residue off?
Also, for the GPU heatsink, in addition to just isopropyl alcohol, I've tried Goof Off. Tried for over half hour for that and not seeing any more results. I can't feel the residue with my finger anymore, but it's very visible, a lot of it left. I'm considering lapping the heatsink, but maybe someone can suggest an easier alternative?
Thanks!
Post by: boffo123 on August 10, 2008, 11:08:00 AM
QUOTE(TheBestXboxModder @ Aug 10 2008, 02:58 AM)
I was actually looking for that originally but couldn't find it, that's why I tried Goof Off instead. But, I managed to find some today so I will give it a try, thanks!
Btw, is it safe to use Goo Gone on the CPU and GPU? I'll use it on the heatsink for sure.
Post by: jimwross on August 10, 2008, 12:27:00 PM
Just squirt a little on a q-tip and that stuff right off... just wipe it off with rubbing alcohol afterward
Post by: Ultraison on August 10, 2008, 03:13:00 PM
I was surprised.
It kept getting 2 red lights, even after a cold ass boot. even got 0031 once.
So i did it again, this time doing what wilhem said about stepping the temp to 500C. I let the board cool down for about half hour.
Started it up, it worked!! I was shitting myself lol.
So its on right now, just trying it out
Post by: boffo123 on August 10, 2008, 08:07:00 PM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Aug 10 2008, 02:03 PM)
I use the "Goo Gone Gel"
Just squirt a little on a q-tip and that stuff right off... just wipe it off with rubbing alcohol afterward
I can't seem to find any Goo Gone Gel where I live. The Goo Gone liquid I got didn't help. I'm going to try lapping the heatsink, I'll pick up some sandpaper tomorrow and post the results when I actually do the fix.
Post by: jimwross on August 11, 2008, 09:10:00 PM
QUOTE(boffo123 @ Aug 10 2008, 09:43 PM)
I can't seem to find any Goo Gone Gel where I live. The Goo Gone liquid I got didn't help. I'm going to try lapping the heatsink, I'll pick up some sandpaper tomorrow and post the results when I actually do the fix.
Do you live in the US? Target has it
Post by: boffo123 on August 12, 2008, 12:41:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Aug 11 2008, 10:46 PM)
Do you live in the US? Target has it
No, I'm in Canada. I did end up seeing the Goo Gone Gel at Rona (it's like Home Depot, but Canadian), but I decided I might as well lap the heatsinks instead for a smoother surface area. I don't think I'll ever do that again, what a pain! And I couldn't even get it to a mirror finish like I was expecting, but at least it's noticeably smoother than before.
Anyways, bottom line, I've tentatively got my xbox working again, recovered from E74 error. I'll have to do some more testing, but I'm hopeful. I bought this box used, it's my first xbox fix ever, and this is the first time I've seen it boot!
Thanks to jimwross, Wilhelm_I, and everyone else in this thread!
Post by: jimwross on August 12, 2008, 12:46:00 AM
QUOTE(boffo123 @ Aug 12 2008, 02:17 AM)
No, I'm in Canada. I did end up seeing the Goo Gone Gel at Rona (it's like Home Depot, but Canadian), but I decided I might as well lap the heatsinks instead for a smoother surface area. I don't think I'll ever do that again, what a pain! And I couldn't even get it to a mirror finish like I was expecting, but at least it's noticeably smoother than before.
Anyways, bottom line, I've tentatively got my xbox working again, recovered from E74 error. I'll have to do some more testing, but I'm hopeful. I bought this box used, it's my first xbox fix ever, and this is the first time I've seen it boot!
Thanks to jimwross, Wilhelm_I, and everyone else in this thread!
You don't have to be super concerned with getting a mirror finish, just make sure the stock thermal tape / compound is gone and that there is a flush (and clean) surface for the new thermal compound to adhere to properly.
Anyway glad to hear its working for you.
Post by: grimreaper36 on August 12, 2008, 11:55:00 AM
My only problem is that I have had to repeat it about once a month for the past six months.
Each time I let it heat a little more than the last. I've got to the point where I don't even put the cover back on anymore. I can not figure out what I can possibly be doing wrong that it will fix but not stay fixed. I have tried to read all comments about that problem in this thread but most seemed to center on more heat. I'm using a heat gun and it does get very hot. I just can't figure out how to heat it much more without reducing the board to cinders.
Can anyone PLEASE point out anything I may have missed in the (currently) 17 pages of this thread that might help me have this thing stay fixed?
You know the thing always seems to crap out when there's a new game being released
Thanks in advance. You people are the best!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on August 12, 2008, 12:26:00 PM
QUOTE(grimreaper36 @ Aug 12 2008, 08:31 PM)
Thank you so much for this fix. It is a lifesaver.
My only problem is that I have had to repeat it about once a month for the past six months.
Each time I let it heat a little more than the last. I've got to the point where I don't even put the cover back on anymore. I can not figure out what I can possibly be doing wrong that it will fix but not stay fixed. I have tried to read all comments about that problem in this thread but most seemed to center on more heat. I'm using a heat gun and it does get very hot. I just can't figure out how to heat it much more without reducing the board to cinders.
Can anyone PLEASE point out anything I may have missed in the (currently) 17 pages of this thread that might help me have this thing stay fixed?
You know the thing always seems to crap out when there's a new game being released
Thanks in advance. You people are the best!
Reflow the top like shown in my tutorial.
First heatgun the bottom, preheat 1 minute, heatgun 4 minutes on high.
Let it cool down for 45 minutes.
Then isolate the top like shown in my tutorial as well.
Then do the same procedure for the top 1 minute preheating 4 minutes heatgunning on high.
Let it cool down for another 45 minutes and replace the X-Clamps afterwards using my x-clamp replacement tutorial.
Fixed a lot of E74s and 0022s like that and they are all still working, never had to redo it a single time...
Links are in my signature
Post by: leecm3 on August 12, 2008, 07:43:00 PM
QUOTE(Wilhelm_I @ Aug 12 2008, 08:02 PM)
Reflow the top like shown in my tutorial.
First heatgun the bottom, preheat 1 minute, heatgun 4 minutes on high.
Let it cool down for 45 minutes.
Then isolate the top like shown in my tutorial as well.
Then do the same procedure for the top 1 minute preheating 4 minutes heatgunning on high.
Let it cool down for another 45 minutes and replace the X-Clamps afterwards using my x-clamp replacement tutorial.
Fixed a lot of E74s and 0022s like that and they are all still working, never had to redo it a single time...
Links are in my signature
I saw on a you-tube video, after installing x-clamp mod they disconnected the fans, connected the video cable & DVD and ran the XBOX 360 for 2 minutes (Should get 2 red lights for overheating) then turned off
XBOX 360. Reconnected fan and put box back together and it worked.
Anybody have any ideas good or bad on this?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on August 12, 2008, 11:57:00 PM
QUOTE(leecm3 @ Aug 13 2008, 04:19 AM)
I saw on a you-tube video, after installing x-clamp mod they disconnected the fans, connected the video cable & DVD and ran the XBOX 360 for 2 minutes (Should get 2 red lights for overheating) then turned off
XBOX 360. Reconnected fan and put box back together and it worked.
Anybody have any ideas good or bad on this?
It reconnects the solderballs temporarily , it doesnt really fix it because it will crap out again after a couple of days...
Post by: racekilladude on August 13, 2008, 10:33:00 AM
i alredy have my box in pieces
Post by: Wilhelm_I on August 13, 2008, 11:28:00 AM
QUOTE(racekilladude @ Aug 13 2008, 07:09 PM)
so i am about to try this any help on wether i should put the thermal paste before or after i reflow it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/uhh.gif)
i alredy have my box in pieces (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
After reflowing of course...
You have to do it with clean chip dies and
WITHOUT ANY HEATSINKS INSTALLED!!!
Post by: bigpickles on August 15, 2008, 07:44:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on August 15, 2008, 10:41:00 AM
QUOTE(bigpickles @ Aug 15 2008, 04:20 PM)
ok not sure weather you guys can help i have a weird problem i get the E-74 error screen with a secondary code of 1021 yes 1021 checked it a couple of times just to make sure anyways should i try the heat gun method as im running out of ideas (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)
1021 is E73 double check the screen it shows...
If it is E73 it is Southbridge related, can also be a cold joint under the GPU though.
First try my x-clamp replacement and if this doesnt work go get a heatgun and reflow the GPU -> Southbridge area.
Links are in my signature
Post by: bigpickles on August 15, 2008, 09:09:00 PM
Post by: dirtyjensen on August 31, 2008, 10:47:00 AM
First thanks for the fix for the E74 error. I have follow jimwross tutorial. And my error E74 is gone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
But now i have a heating error, two rings error. A dude on youtube have the same error like me. XBOX 360 2 red lights Youtube video
Anyone know how to fix this.
Thanks
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Post by: humboldt111502 on August 31, 2008, 12:49:00 PM
QUOTE(dirtyjensen @ Aug 31 2008, 05:47 PM)
Hello.
First thanks for the fix for the E74 error. I have follow jimwross tutorial. And my error E74 is gone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
But now i have a heating error, two rings error. A dude on youtube have the same error like me. XBOX 360 2 red lights Youtube video
Anyone know how to fix this.
Thanks
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
2 lights means something is overheating. Probably one of your heatsinks are not sitting perfectly level and making for a bad thermal connection between the die and heatsink. Try carefully pulling off the heatsinks and look at the impression made by the thermal compound. Try redoing the whole xclamp replacement using the tuturial in the link below:
Wilhelm's improved x-clamp replacement guide
Post by: iJunaid on August 31, 2008, 07:07:00 PM
Post by: endorphin2007 on September 02, 2008, 02:45:00 PM
One board was fixed and worked for 2 days and I got the same errors again. The other board stayed with the same problem and the heatgunning did not help me at all. Both where already fixed with the xclamp removal method, bolted and artic silver 5.
Do I need to heatgun the GPU and (H)ANA area longer then 3 minutes on 550C or try maximum 600C?
Heatgunning is easy but all the plastic and aluminium foil work take some time, so I want to do it right the second time!
Post by: Wilhelm_I on September 02, 2008, 04:15:00 PM
QUOTE(endorphin2007 @ Sep 2 2008, 11:21 PM)
I have 2 boards with the E74 error and secondary error 1022. I heatgunned both 1 minute on 350C and 3 minutes on 550C. I did the bottom first and after 1 hour I did the top. Followed Wilhems tutorial. The heatgun works to a 600C maximum.
One board was fixed and worked for 2 days and I got the same errors again. The other board stayed with the same problem and the heatgunning did not help me at all. Both where already fixed with the xclamp removal method, bolted and artic silver 5.
Do I need to heatgun the GPU and (H)ANA area longer then 3 minutes on 550C or try maximum 600C?
Heatgunning is easy but all the plastic and aluminium foil work take some time, so I want to do it right the second time!
You have to do it for 4 minutes, 3 is not enough it is clearly said in my tutorial.
Errors sometimes return if you dont do it for long enough..
Also dont do it for longer than 4.30 minutes because then the isolation will go on fire...
Post by: endorphin2007 on September 03, 2008, 07:54:00 AM
"Now you are done. Get your heatgun and use it on the lowest step to warm it up for a minute. Never keep it at the same spot, move it over the whole area in circles. Then switch to the next step (thats a 500°C for me) and heatgun it for another 3 minutes.
The solder get a golden/yellowish glance when it reflowed, then you are done. Also make sure that you never move the board or accidently hit the table while you are reflowing it because this might fuck it up completely..."
That's what I did 1 minute on 350C and 3 minutes on 550C, or do I have to do the second step on 550C for 4 minutes?
Post by: Wilhelm_I on September 03, 2008, 02:07:00 PM
QUOTE(endorphin2007 @ Sep 3 2008, 04:30 PM)
Wilhelm this is what is stated in the tutorial:
"Now you are done. Get your heatgun and use it on the lowest step to warm it up for a minute. Never keep it at the same spot, move it over the whole area in circles. Then switch to the next step (thats a 500°C for me) and heatgun it for another 3 minutes.
The solder get a golden/yellowish glance when it reflowed, then you are done. Also make sure that you never move the board or accidently hit the table while you are reflowing it because this might fuck it up completely..."
That's what I did 1 minute on 350C and 3 minutes on 550C, or do I have to do the second step on 550C for 4 minutes?
Ye 4 minutes is right, the 3 minutes are outdated, use the link to the updated tutorial in my signature.
I am sorry for the wrong timing but I cant edit my posts on xbox-scene so...
Post by: endorphin2007 on September 03, 2008, 07:44:00 PM
Post by: l_white15 on September 08, 2008, 11:22:00 AM
Post by: Wilhelm_I on September 08, 2008, 12:19:00 PM
QUOTE(l_white15 @ Sep 8 2008, 07:58 PM)
i had an xbox 360 that the sound worked but video didnt and i was able to fix it by replacing the x-clamps on the GPU like Wilhelm_I said a few pages back ill keep you updated on how long it lasts
If it returns heatgun the GPU-> ANA chip area like shown in my heatgunning tutorial...
The link is in my signature...
This post has been edited by Wilhelm_I: Sep 8 2008, 07:19 PM
Post by: tta on September 27, 2008, 09:39:00 AM
The drive has no clicking sound, no laser, can't open or close. Basically there is no power fed to the drive I think. Did anyone have this problem and how did you fix it?
Post by: ILikeMeat on September 27, 2008, 09:56:00 AM
Post by: tta on September 27, 2008, 10:04:00 AM
Post by: BlackaCid on October 11, 2008, 12:54:00 AM
Post by: bubblebuddyi on October 26, 2008, 01:37:00 AM
Post by: katakonik on October 27, 2008, 09:45:00 AM
QUOTE(bubblebuddyi @ Oct 26 2008, 04:13 AM)
Thanks, fixed my e74 problem. I used a butane tourch though. I just gently heated up the area slowly for around a minute, and it worked. I didn't use any foil or protection around everything else, because the tourch its a pretty much direct flow. Anyways, thanks!
Do you know how hot those butane torches get? I'm thinking of using that also. So you just heated it up for 1 min and it worked? You didn't do the 4 min thing afterwards?
Post by: katakonik on October 27, 2008, 04:49:00 PM
Post by: signum on October 27, 2008, 07:01:00 PM
Very disappointed it didn't last longer.
I do not have a heatgun so i sent it off to someone today to reflow the CPU & GPU with a infrared oven (which is much better than a heatgun) and change the heatsink fixings so i shouldn't ever get anymore problems. It wasn't much more than buying my own heatgun! And less hassle too!
I couldn't send it off to MS as i voided the warranty but at least i get 3 months with this guy aswell which is better than nothing.
Just hope it can fix it.
Post by: Zan3 on November 14, 2008, 05:47:00 PM
Post by: BJTECH on November 14, 2008, 11:41:00 PM
I keeps getting E73 & E74. What happened is i originally got 3RROD but fixed it with X clamp fix. After about 1 month i got the dreaded 3RROD, so I heatguneed it and it worked for 10 seconds, after rebooted i got E73 which sometimes went to E74, at the moment I got E73. Please I need help I am almost lost all hope in this so any help will be considered.
Thanks in advance.
Post by: Zan3 on November 15, 2008, 07:56:00 AM
.... the secund try i used the heatgun more carefully than before and pam! it works.. and i hope this solw my E74 error that appers like once aday...so i did this tryck cuse i hade problem with E74 _not_ RROD. Thanks again for the info! and sorry for my bad english
Post by: xb360xls on November 24, 2008, 10:40:00 AM
I have no problems doing both cos I have had success with replacing x-clamps in the past.
Help greatly appreciated and I am assuming instructions in the very first post are all GOOD? I tried reading through all pages to see if there are any updates but none right? Basically follow Original first post instructions??
Post by: Terry38 on November 25, 2008, 05:50:00 PM
Post by: euphoricism on November 26, 2008, 04:10:00 PM
Any ideas what could be causing it to continually E74? Should I aim for heating longer?
This time I did 2 minutes low, 2 high, 2 low.... but only on the top, which was foolish of me. I guess I dont have much choice but do it *again*, both sides this time and see what happens.
Post by: euphoricism on November 26, 2008, 05:33:00 PM
QUOTE(euphoricism @ Nov 27 2008, 12:46 AM)
My box went E74 and I heatgunned it about two months ago. It worked fine for about a month, when it did it again and I heatgunned it again. It worked fine til about 4 days ago when I heatgunned it a third time (but only on top this time...) and it lasted until today.
Any ideas what could be causing it to continually E74? Should I aim for heating longer?
This time I did 2 minutes low, 2 high, 2 low.... but only on the top, which was foolish of me. I guess I dont have much choice but do it *again*, both sides this time and see what happens.
I just did bottom for 8minutes (4 on low, 2 high, 2 low), and i still doubt that it got anywhere near 500 degrees...
Post by: euphoricism on November 26, 2008, 09:06:00 PM
QUOTE(euphoricism @ Nov 27 2008, 02:09 AM)
I just did bottom for 8minutes (4 on low, 2 high, 2 low), and i still doubt that it got anywhere near 500 degrees...
Put it all back together and it went to RRoD... but it's been xclamp fixed.
any ideas?
Post by: pricemeista33 on December 04, 2008, 10:15:00 PM
I have fixed numerous 360s using it and I have took it upon myself to add 4 more heat sinks in many of the fixed boxes. I've placed a sink on the SCALER chip, exposed RAM chips which border the GPU, and the Lynxsis chip to the left of the GPU also. I believe that this is a PERMA fix for the e74 code. Thanks again!
Post by: Substance90 on December 05, 2008, 11:03:00 AM
Hey, guys my x360 was getting the E74 error and I tried reballing (only on the GPU and HANA chip) and putting new thermal paste on the GPU, but now I get 3 lights right from start with no error message showing on the TV. I got RROD before and I removed my x-clamp on the GPU and it worked ok until a few days, when it started showing E74 error.
Any ideas?
[/VERY URGENT]
Post by: jjrooster on December 17, 2008, 10:35:00 AM
I'm still reading the thread, but I recently got the E-74 error (green graphical artifacts on the screen during a game appeared before that) and true enough, pushing down on 1 corner of the scaler chip made them go away.
So now I'm off to buy a heat gun and hope this works!
Post by: euphoricism on December 17, 2008, 01:47:00 PM
QUOTE(euphoricism @ Nov 27 2008, 12:46 AM)
My box went E74 and I heatgunned it about two months ago. It worked fine for about a month, when it did it again and I heatgunned it again. It worked fine til about 4 days ago when I heatgunned it a third time (but only on top this time...) and it lasted until today.
Any ideas what could be causing it to continually E74? Should I aim for heating longer?
This time I did 2 minutes low, 2 high, 2 low.... but only on the top, which was foolish of me. I guess I dont have much choice but do it *again*, both sides this time and see what happens.
Got it up, ran for about another month -- died again this morning. Thoughts on preventative measures? I'm getting sick of repairing this... like fourth time now?
I assume just needs more cooling power to get that stale hot air out?
Post by: wrigley047 on December 20, 2008, 07:20:00 PM
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
QUOTE(wrigley047 @ Dec 21 2008, 03:54 AM)
So I just went through this tutorial step by step and now I am getting the 3 rrod and my tv will not recognize that the 360 is connect. Any ideas? I have it hooked up through HDMI, should I use the standard VGA cables?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
A lil more info - the fans turn on for about 2 sec and then shut off before the 3 rrod appear.
Thanks.
Post by: Wilhelm_I on December 21, 2008, 04:23:00 AM
QUOTE(wrigley047 @ Dec 21 2008, 03:56 AM)
So I just went through this tutorial step by step and now I am getting the 3 rrod and my tv will not recognize that the 360 is connect. Any ideas? I have it hooked up through HDMI, should I use the standard VGA cables?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
A lil more info - the fans turn on for about 2 sec and then shut off before the 3 rrod appear.
Thanks.
Try this repairguide it will tell you what is causing the problem and how you can fix it -> http://xbox-experts.com/e/repairguide.php
Post by: suffah on December 23, 2008, 08:44:00 PM
Then a couple of days ago I was messing with my video settings and switched from 1080i output to 720p. Games started crashing after 10 minutes. I didn't put two and two together. I just assumed my xclamp fix needed a tweak so I opened the 360, re-applied thermal paste, etc, and the system kept booting up RROD. After the 3rd or 4th try, it gave me the E74 error message. Which led me to this great thread...
I picked up a heat gun today and am waiting for my 360 board to cool down. Since my problems started happening after I switched resolutions, I wonder if it's safe to assume my ANA chip is the problem. What's strange is that the native res of the game I'm playing to be 720P. I would figure the chip would have less stress at that resolution.
Will post an update with the status of my 360 soon!
Post by: suffah on December 24, 2008, 12:29:00 AM
QUOTE(suffah @ Dec 24 2008, 05:20 AM)
A couple of months ago my 360 went RROD. Did the xclamp replacement fix, worked perfectly.
Then a couple of days ago I was messing with my video settings and switched from 1080i output to 720p. Games started crashing after 10 minutes. I didn't put two and two together. I just assumed my xclamp fix needed a tweak so I opened the 360, re-applied thermal paste, etc, and the system kept booting up RROD. After the 3rd or 4th try, it gave me the E74 error message. Which led me to this great thread...
I picked up a heat gun today and am waiting for my 360 board to cool down. Since my problems started happening after I switched resolutions, I wonder if it's safe to assume my ANA chip is the problem. What's strange is that the native res of the game I'm playing to be 720P. I would figure the chip would have less stress at that resolution.
Will post an update with the status of my 360 soon!
Unsuccessful here. First time I just removed heatsink/thermal paste and did the underside for 4 mins. Still gave me E74.
I tried again but this time I did 4 minutes on the bottom, let it cool for an hour, did 1 min warmup + 4 minutes on high on top. Let it cool for an hour and just tried it. Still E74.
Am I screwed? Should I try again? Normally I wouldn't care that much but this is a Japanese 360 which will be a pain to replace.
Post by: cman8 on December 28, 2008, 05:35:00 PM
. Thanks again for the TUT and all the helpful people on these boards.
Post by: pricemeista33 on December 30, 2008, 06:33:00 AM
I have revived plenty of 360s using Lawdogg's and RBJTech's methods and they have all been a success. I have recently come across a "box" with the E74 again and this one is quite a pain. I have cleared the error 5 times as it just keep recurring after the heat gun trick which has lasted for about 12-23 days. Now it's up and running again but the video is a little choppy with white speckle artifacts glitching in some spots. I don't know if it's the scaler chip or the GPU not receiving enough pressure or what.
Post by: thelord12345 on December 30, 2008, 03:45:00 PM
QUOTE(pricemeista33 @ Dec 30 2008, 06:09 AM)
Hey guys,
I have revived plenty of 360s using Lawdogg's and RBJTech's methods and they have all been a success. I have recently come across a "box" with the E74 again and this one is quite a pain. I have cleared the error 5 times as it just keep recurring after the heat gun trick which has lasted for about 12-23 days. Now it's up and running again but the video is a little choppy with white speckle artifacts glitching in some spots. I don't know if it's the scaler chip or the GPU not receiving enough pressure or what.
Well, I got that at the second time! For me it was a bad contact w/ the heatsink / processor...
Post by: Col.Havoc on January 01, 2009, 05:41:00 PM
Thanks again.
Post by: clownpatrol on January 02, 2009, 08:40:00 PM
Post by: staged on January 04, 2009, 07:56:00 PM
Post by: PalKat on January 09, 2009, 11:16:00 PM
360 started with no video just audio a week ago...did the towel trick knowing it would not last...it worked and the xbox lasted 2 days then back to no video but had audio...lights looked ok.
so today got everything to replace the xclamp did it per this and many other threads directions...then did the heat to the underside of the motherboard per this threads instructions...applied heat in circular motion for about 4-5 mins first on low then on high using the wagner 750f/1000f heat gun.
let it cool to cool touch...reconnected the dvd, power button, fans...went to turn it on now i just get the 3 RED RING OF LIGHTS and once they start flashing the cooling fans turn off yet the 3 lights flash on and on....
re-tried to heat the board again and resit the gpu heat sink looseing the screws and re tightening them to sung fit. still 3 red lights and fans turn off.
what am i missing i dont remember reading anyone talking about thier fans turning off during the 3 red lights.
ANY ADVICE on what to do from here?
Post by: Danny-boy on January 10, 2009, 09:21:00 AM
QUOTE(PalKat @ Jan 10 2009, 06:52 AM)
Any advice guys?? Here is what happened...
360 started with no video just audio a week ago...did the towel trick knowing it would not last...it worked and the xbox lasted 2 days then back to no video but had audio...lights looked ok.
so today got everything to replace the xclamp did it per this and many other threads directions...then did the heat to the underside of the motherboard per this threads instructions...applied heat in circular motion for about 4-5 mins first on low then on high using the wagner 750f/1000f heat gun.
let it cool to cool touch...reconnected the dvd, power button, fans...went to turn it on now i just get the 3 RED RING OF LIGHTS and once they start flashing the cooling fans turn off yet the 3 lights flash on and on....
re-tried to heat the board again and resit the gpu heat sink looseing the screws and re tightening them to sung fit. still 3 red lights and fans turn off.
what am i missing i dont remember reading anyone talking about thier fans turning off during the 3 red lights.
ANY ADVICE on what to do from here?
You will need a secondary error code, turn on, then while the red lights flash, hold the small white button on the front nr where you put mem sticks, and press the eject button 4 times, count the lights on each press then usehttp://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=484726 guide (scroll down to 2ndry codes) to determine yours.
Post by: PalKat on January 10, 2009, 10:38:00 AM
QUOTE(Danny-boy @ Jan 10 2009, 09:57 AM)
You will need a secondary error code, turn on, then while the red lights flash, hold the small white button on the front nr where you put mem sticks, and press the eject button 4 times, count the lights on each press then usehttp://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=484726 guide (scroll down to 2ndry codes) to determine yours.
Danny-boy, THANKS!
Okay i did that and my 2nd'ary error code is "0030 Problem with temperature control"
Im guessing my heat gun did more damage than good
So what would you advice now?
Post by: Danny-boy on January 10, 2009, 03:52:00 PM
QUOTE(PalKat @ Jan 10 2009, 06:14 PM)
Danny-boy, THANKS!
Okay i did that and my 2nd'ary error code is "0030 Problem with temperature control"
Im guessing my heat gun did more damage than good
So what would you advice now?
Well I havent heard of much about 0030 and having looked through the forums there isn't a great deal on fixing it, all I can tell is it may be some damaged part of the minute circuit board wiring (which does tie in with having over done the heat gunning) so I would maybe go back to the main part of this forum and post a new message on finding 0030 solution and see what responses you get. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Post by: gotskunk on January 10, 2009, 08:59:00 PM
Now I did find something interesting out while playing. Was playing COD: WAW and started getting the artifacts on the screen. I had the fan running at 12v. When I turned the fan down to 5v the artifacts disappeared after about 5 minutes and I was able to play for about a week. even sometimes I will run the 360 with the red ring for like 20-30 minutes, turn it off and back on and it will boot up.
Basically all I can do is figure out a temporary fix before having to crack it open again. Seriously this thing has been worked over more than a 2 dollar whore. Been messin with it a year now to no avail.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Also I got a new tv for christmas and am now running at 1080i no HDMI as this is an original 360, in case that helps at all.
Post by: M Righi on January 11, 2009, 03:10:00 PM
Post by: VooDoo Doll on January 11, 2009, 05:39:00 PM
Post by: PalKat on January 11, 2009, 06:18:00 PM
QUOTE(Danny-boy @ Jan 10 2009, 04:28 PM)
Well I havent heard of much about 0030 and having looked through the forums there isn't a great deal on fixing it, all I can tell is it may be some damaged part of the minute circuit board wiring (which does tie in with having over done the heat gunning) so I would maybe go back to the main part of this forum and post a new message on finding 0030 solution and see what responses you get. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Well this gives me an excuse to put aside a few dollars to buy a new JASPER xbox in a few weeks then and see how good the new motherboard and .65 GPU from ATI works!!!
Trying to look for a silver lining here!
Post by: goldensun on January 11, 2009, 11:53:00 PM
A side question, which heat sink is suppose to get hotter? I notice the smaller heat sink gets hotter than the big one. Is this normal?
Post by: jimwross on January 25, 2009, 10:16:00 PM
Any advice guys?? Here is what happened...
360 started with no video just audio a week ago...did the towel trick knowing it would not last...it worked and the xbox lasted 2 days then back to no video but had audio...lights looked ok.
so today got everything to replace the xclamp did it per this and many other threads directions...then did the heat to the underside of the motherboard per this threads instructions...applied heat in circular motion for about 4-5 mins first on low then on high using the wagner 750f/1000f heat gun.
let it cool to cool touch...reconnected the dvd, power button, fans...went to turn it on now i just get the 3 RED RING OF LIGHTS and once they start flashing the cooling fans turn off yet the 3 lights flash on and on....
re-tried to heat the board again and resit the gpu heat sink looseing the screws and re tightening them to sung fit. still 3 red lights and fans turn off.
what am i missing i dont remember reading anyone talking about thier fans turning off during the 3 red lights.
ANY ADVICE on what to do from here?
[/quote]
Sounds like you heated it up too much... theres not much you are going to be able to do. Take the heat sink off, and look at the GPU... you should see that it is sitting evenly on the board.... if the balls underneath make the chip slanted one way or the other you can consider your xbox done.... are your traces on the bottom of the board 100% intact or are there knick marks?
[quote name='gotskunk' post='4413497' date='Jan 10 2009, 10:35 PM']
well I originally posted about my E74 1022 April and May of '08. Did the heat gun and xclamp fix. It worked solidly for about 5 months then BOOM! E74 again. have been continuously F***ing with this thing for the past few months heat gunning top and bottom around the GPU and ANA. Sometimes it works for a week, sometimes a few days or even a few hours. I also put copper heatsinks on all of the exposed chips ans installed a talismoon whisper max case fan.
Now I did find something interesting out while playing. Was playing COD: WAW and started getting the artifacts on the screen. I had the fan running at 12v. When I turned the fan down to 5v the artifacts disappeared after about 5 minutes and I was able to play for about a week. even sometimes I will run the 360 with the red ring for like 20-30 minutes, turn it off and back on and it will boot up.
Basically all I can do is figure out a temporary fix before having to crack it open again. Seriously this thing has been worked over more than a 2 dollar whore. Been messin with it a year now to no avail.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Also I got a new tv for christmas and am now running at 1080i no HDMI as this is an original 360, in case that helps at all.
[/quote]
Artifacting and all that is related to the GPU / Scaler chip problem. Heat gun the bottom of the board, and then put the right amount of thermal paste (I can't stress this enough, I've done 1000's of these, and this is one of the most important things to do) and let the heatsink spread the thermal paste.
[quote name='goldensun' post='4414343' date='Jan 12 2009, 01:29 AM']
Hello, well this is my first post and hopefully my last one. So I also had this error and so I opened it, did the x clamp fix, clean the chip under the heat sink applied thermal paste and it works fine... for one day. I have to open it like everyday to make it work for a day. Will this solve the problem? I mean I pretty much have to remove the heat sink, put it back on and it works fine. I don't have to mess with anything else. I just don't want to over heat the thing and end up destroying it. I would rather fix it everyday if that was the case. So can anyone give me an opinion? Again, I only have to remove and replace the the heat sink and it works fine (I tried loosening the screws, tighten them, and it still does the same so I don't think its pressure. A
A side question, which heat sink is suppose to get hotter? I notice the smaller heat sink gets hotter than the big one. Is this normal?
[/quote]
You need to use a heat gun, and your prob. applying the thermal paste wrong. Put a small dot (size of a grain of large rice) in the center of the chip (and on the small part of the GPU) and then put the heat sink back on, and let it do the spreading.
[quote name='BJTECH' post='4375899' date='Nov 15 2008, 01:17 AM']
Hi Everyone,
I keeps getting E73 & E74. What happened is i originally got 3RROD but fixed it with X clamp fix. After about 1 month i got the dreaded 3RROD, so I heatguneed it and it worked for 10 seconds, after rebooted i got E73 which sometimes went to E74, at the moment I got E73. Please I need help I am almost lost all hope in this so any help will be considered.
Thanks in advance.
[/quote]
Heatgun the Southbridge chip area....
[quote name='xb360xls' post='4382346' date='Nov 24 2008, 12:16 PM']
I started getting artifacts two days ago, and then last night E74 error. Do I have to perform the x-clamp replacement in addition to the heat gun method?? Or just the heat gun?
I have no problems doing both cos I have had success with replacing x-clamps in the past.
Help greatly appreciated and I am assuming instructions in the very first post are all GOOD? I tried reading through all pages to see if there are any updates but none right? Basically follow Original first post instructions??
[/quote]
I can't edit my first post, but heatgun, then bolt the heatsinks down, other then that the instructions are still good.
[quote name='euphoricism' post='4383692' date='Nov 26 2008, 05:46 PM']
My box went E74 and I heatgunned it about two months ago. It worked fine for about a month, when it did it again and I heatgunned it again. It worked fine til about 4 days ago when I heatgunned it a third time (but only on top this time...) and it lasted until today.
Any ideas what could be causing it to continually E74? Should I aim for heating longer?
This time I did 2 minutes low, 2 high, 2 low.... but only on the top, which was foolish of me. I guess I dont have much choice but do it *again*, both sides this time and see what happens.
[/quote]
The reason it keeps doing it, is most likely due to uneven contact between the heatsink and the GPU. Your either using too much thermal paste, or not enough, or spread incorrectly. Use quality stuff that won't dry out, put a small dab on both areas of the GPU, and then clamp that sucker down... let the heatsink spread the thermal paste out.
[quote name='euphoricism' post='4383765' date='Nov 26 2008, 10:42 PM']
Put it all back together and it went to RRoD... but it's been xclamp fixed.
any ideas?
[/quote]
What's your error code?
[quote name='pricemeista33' post='4388299' date='Dec 4 2008, 11:51 PM']
This is a very nice tut imho,
I have fixed numerous 360s using it and I have took it upon myself to add 4 more heat sinks in many of the fixed boxes. I've placed a sink on the SCALER chip, exposed RAM chips which border the GPU, and the Lynxsis chip to the left of the GPU also. I believe that this is a PERMA fix for the e74 code. Thanks again!
[/quote]
Your welcome!
[quote name='Substance90' post='4388571' date='Dec 5 2008, 12:39 PM']
[VERY URGENT]
Hey, guys my x360 was getting the E74 error and I tried reballing (only on the GPU and HANA chip) and putting new thermal paste on the GPU, but now I get 3 lights right from start with no error message showing on the TV. I got RROD before and I removed my x-clamp on the GPU and it worked ok until a few days, when it started showing E74 error.
Any ideas?
[/VERY URGENT]
[/quote]
You might have killed it... did you scrape any traces on the bottom of the board removing the x-clamps? What error cod eare you getting?
[quote name='jjrooster' post='4395991' date='Dec 17 2008, 12:11 PM']
jimwross, thank you very much for your tips and instructions!
I'm still reading the thread, but I recently got the E-74 error (green graphical artifacts on the screen during a game appeared before that) and true enough, pushing down on 1 corner of the scaler chip made them go away.
So now I'm off to buy a heat gun and hope this works!
[/quote]
Hope it works out for you...
[quote name='euphoricism' post='4396087' date='Dec 17 2008, 03:23 PM']
Got it up, ran for about another month -- died again this morning. Thoughts on preventative measures? I'm getting sick of repairing this... like fourth time now?
I assume just needs more cooling power to get that stale hot air out?
[/quote]
Read the above replies... thermal paste evenly spread out...
Not sure why all the quotes got messed up... hopefully you guys can read my responses.
Post by: Z3roZach on January 26, 2009, 02:46:00 PM
Post by: Z3roZach on January 26, 2009, 03:21:00 PM
Post by: twbolek on January 28, 2009, 04:40:00 PM
What do you think? Sorry 4 my english
Post by: jimwross on January 29, 2009, 01:34:00 AM
QUOTE(Z3roZach @ Jan 26 2009, 04:57 PM)
ohh... and i didnt have screws to put on so i just bent the xclamp a little to put more pressure on it then put it back on if that makes a difference
Yes, it makes a huge difference (it's not going to work), and Yes you used WAY to much thermal paste.
QUOTE(twbolek @ Jan 28 2009, 06:16 PM)
I have e74, to be more precisely no video, sound ok, rrod ok. I will try heatgun fix, but I want to ask you something else. What do you think about idea to move dvdrom device outside xbox, to prevent e74 back again and help xbox to last longer after repair? Its not my idea, I've seen that mod before. Advantages are obvious: more space above gpu = lower temperture, dvdrom is heating as well so even more lower temperature, dvdrom is shaking while it's working so it may also cousing problems.
What do you think? Sorry 4 my english
The heat given off by the DVD drive vs. the heat of the GPU = insignificant... vibrations matter? doubtful. I don't think moving the drive is going to make a huge difference.
Post by: voffka on February 07, 2009, 10:56:00 PM
I have Xbox 360 Premium Falcon, i've been played for a 6 month, then i got E7x. I read a lot of manuals, i did x-clamp fix, overheated my console, finaly it began to work. But when i play via componetnt cable which set in position HDTV i have no video only sound.
But when swich to TV - all works perfect.
Please tell me what can i do to fix such error?
Post by: Fuzionart on February 08, 2009, 12:13:00 AM
QUOTE(voffka @ Feb 8 2009, 01:32 AM)
Ok, let start.
I have Xbox 360 Premium Falcon, i've been played for a 6 month, then i got E7x. I read a lot of manuals, i did x-clamp fix, overheated my console, finaly it began to work. But when i play via componetnt cable which set in position HDTV i have no video only sound.
But when swich to TV - all works perfect.
Please tell me what can i do to fix such error?
I answered you on your other thread. You need to reflow the solder between the ana chip and the processor. Here is the tutorial.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=646900Which oints back to the beginning of this thread. Read it from the beginning.
This post has been edited by Fuzionart: Feb 8 2009, 08:14 AM
Post by: Just Another Gamer on February 08, 2009, 12:34:00 AM
Post by: voffka on February 08, 2009, 12:16:00 PM
QUOTE(Fuzionart @ Feb 8 2009, 09:13 AM)
I answered you on your other thread. You need to reflow the solder between the ana chip and the processor. Here is the tutorial.
http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=646900Which oints back to the beginning of this thread. Read it from the beginning.
OK I did all what is written in this tutorial? i heated the area between GPU and ANA chip, but is still no picture in HDTV mode. In TV mode all goes OK! I have two boxes with such trouble...
Post by: Fuzionart on February 08, 2009, 03:21:00 PM
QUOTE(voffka @ Feb 8 2009, 02:52 PM)
OK I did all what is written in this tutorial? i heated the area between GPU and ANA chip, but is still no picture in HDTV mode. In TV mode all goes OK! I have two boxes with such trouble...
Did you try a new cable?
Post by: ppipieisgod on February 08, 2009, 07:45:00 PM
I'm stuck with no sound though, all the cords are in, is it possible I fried something while heatgunning it?
Post by: voffka on February 08, 2009, 11:42:00 PM
QUOTE(Fuzionart @ Feb 9 2009, 12:57 AM)
Did you try a new cable?
Yes I did...
Post by: Libtoem on February 09, 2009, 04:53:00 PM
Post by: mr2000jp on February 10, 2009, 01:47:00 AM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Apr 7 2008, 02:34 PM)
This has to do with frying the ethernet chip, usually from people doing the stupid towel trick and overheating components that were not supposed to be hot. You could replace it.
not necessarily , some times its the connections between the bus (in the gpu bga) and the network ic is damaged and commonly it happens because of the solderballs break under the gpu ,
Post by: Bazdoctor on February 10, 2009, 04:21:00 AM
Post by: jimwross on February 17, 2009, 03:06:00 PM
QUOTE(voffka @ Feb 8 2009, 12:32 AM)
Ok, let start.
I have Xbox 360 Premium Falcon, i've been played for a 6 month, then i got E7x. I read a lot of manuals, i did x-clamp fix, overheated my console, finaly it began to work. But when i play via componetnt cable which set in position HDTV i have no video only sound.
But when swich to TV - all works perfect.
Please tell me what can i do to fix such error?
Are you sure everything is hooked up on your TV correctly, that sounds like a cable / input issue.
QUOTE(Just Another Gamer @ Feb 8 2009, 01:34 AM)
quick question, since I read on page 1 that you guys think the E74 error has nothing to do with the ANA Chip itself, but rather the GPU, then why when I would press on the ANA chip itself it would clear up the distortion of the video?
You are bending the board when you do this, hence the connection between the ANA / GPU being flexed back and forth in to contact.
QUOTE(ppipieisgod @ Feb 8 2009, 08:45 PM)
I had an E74, used this and now I can play the games fine.
I'm stuck with no sound though, all the cords are in, is it possible I fried something while heatgunning it?
Doubeful... cables? connections?
Post by: omar77 on February 17, 2009, 04:28:00 PM
QUOTE(towerblocks @ Apr 8 2008, 04:16 PM)
Nice tutorial, Anyone know where to get a ANA chip heatsink from?
I know its bout a year late but yeh u can get a heat sink for the ana chip. Well i got mine as a bundle when i bought he talismon whisper fan. Its got a sticky underside for its thermal compound but its pretty neat. BTW does anyone know what the diffenerence is in using a typical hairdryer and a heat gun for resoldering these joints. I have this problem of no visual on screen so i tried to fix it but got the 2 red lights. I ended up using all your steps. All i need now is to drill the holes in the metal case and use a heat gun to resolder the joints between the gpu and asa chip, the 2 red lights have vanquished if u wanted to know....thank you for your time.
Post by: goldensun on February 21, 2009, 07:02:00 PM
Post by: twbolek on February 22, 2009, 05:04:00 PM
Post by: lethal.b on March 09, 2009, 06:38:00 PM
Post by: wesley_fg on March 13, 2009, 08:38:00 PM
Post by: Red Gloves6 on March 16, 2009, 02:32:00 PM
Post by: yonixxx on March 18, 2009, 04:10:00 PM
Post by: terzi91 on March 19, 2009, 04:24:00 PM
I used heat gun with 1 minute warming (about 300 C) + 3 minute. Should I use 4 minutes with full heat (about 500 C).
Post by: idr4life7 on March 31, 2009, 07:06:00 PM
it had no video with audio, then turned to no video or audio, then e74, used this fix, working.
thanks btw
Post by: dobosininja on April 02, 2009, 11:20:00 PM
Post by: SnoopKatt on April 07, 2009, 01:01:00 AM
QUOTE(dobosininja @ Apr 2 2009, 10:56 PM)
I have the E74 on my xbox (1022) and I tried heating the top of the board, but not the bottom. I am still getting the error after the heat gun and the hybrid fix. Should I try heat gunning the bottom and the top?
You only need to heat the bottom of the board in the area in the diagram. Probably doesn't hurt to heat the top, but if it works with only the bottom, then why do more
Heating the bottom seems to have gotten rid of the error for me at least, but it hasn't been very long yet (just did it this afternoon), so we'll see. Thank you for the guide!
Post by: Chickan on April 08, 2009, 12:44:00 AM
It will give you 0011 (cpu), 0012 (gpu), or 0013 (ram). If it is CPU or GPU, you do not have good contact with your heatsink to the cpu/gpu. Take it off, and reseat it, or try something like Tortuga's method (my favorite)Tortuga's Method Link
If it is 0013 - Ram, it means the thermistor on the ram is screwed up, you can try to reflow the ram chips with a heatgun, but that is very YMMV.
Post by: ilovemyfbm on April 08, 2009, 11:38:00 AM
Since it still gives vid, which chip do i heat gun, or heat gun both of the hana and gpu?
and how far away (in inches) do i put the heat gun with 500F?
Post by: Chickan on April 08, 2009, 02:48:00 PM
Post by: ilovemyfbm on April 08, 2009, 09:36:00 PM
Well, i heat gunned it, and now its working!we played about 2 hours of halo 3, on co-op(so the gpu is deff being stressed since it has to process 2 videos) and it has been doing well, no redness at all!
Its still too early to tell if it offcially worked, but I will post back when if it ruins again.
One quick question though, he didn't buy the xclamp replacement parts i told him to, so he is still using the stock xclamps on his 360, will it die again because of that or no? Will the flexing of the clamps ruin it again? I also upgraded his thermal compound to artic silver 5, 12v'ed the fans, fan shroud mod, and cut the metal mesh behind the fans, so cooling now is pretty ideal compared to stock 360 cooling, if it messes up again, will it be because of cooling(meaning, all those mods weren't enough?)? or will the solder joint just mess again because of normal wear and tear?
thanks! i appreciate the thread!
Post by: IP l0 IN lG on April 09, 2009, 03:07:00 AM
Post by: SRobby on April 09, 2009, 11:48:00 AM
Post by: SnoopKatt on April 09, 2009, 02:15:00 PM
QUOTE(SRobby @ Apr 9 2009, 11:24 AM)
I have a halo ed. box with the 2nd gen heatsinks and an HDMI out, it has the e74 problem. I have redone both heatsinks to remove the clamps and apply better thermal paste, i was hoping that would fix it. I havent seen anyone mention a newer board with these problems, will the heatgun method work, or more importantly is there any reason i shouldnt try it. Thanks for any advice
It should work fine. If you heatgun anywhere else on the board, be sure to take off the heatsinks. Just be careful and follow the directions.
Post by: jimwross on April 10, 2009, 09:58:00 AM
Post by: nos33 on April 11, 2009, 01:27:00 PM
Post by: nsta on April 14, 2009, 06:54:00 PM
My 360 was giving me all sorts of trouble....the main one was the one red light, followed by 3 rings every now and then....but the main light was always e74 one red....
I went about the x-clamp...this was very temperamental after this fix...it would work for awhile....id turn it on, play for awhile...then it would start having artifacts on the screen....id keep adjusting pressure on heatsinks and it would work for a little....then start to e74 on me!!!..
Then i came accross this fix....it worked 1st time
I didnt have a powerful heatgun...only one that went to 500c....this was more than enought though..
I heated the back of the board focusing on the gpu and ana side in up and down motions...keeping the heatgun quite close to the board....i done this for about a couple of minutes...back off for a bit and then reapplied....i heated it up to a stage where i oculd see a bit of fumes coming off...though that must be enough and stopped it.....waited about 30mins and made sure the traces were cold to touch.
Reapplied my heatsinks...tested and worked first go!!!...i had the 360 running all night just to make sure it doesnt have any weird artifacts and doesnt ring on me again...all fine...i turned off in the morning and back on, all perfect
....how do most on these boards test to make sure any fix is working properly...leave it on full all day long???THANKS FOR REVIVING MY XBOX 360:)
On a side note: Can you really do much damage to the board heatgunning from the backside of it?....i mean all the danger stuff is on the top side like the big capacitors etc???....im really happy to fix my 360 though really need to know when to stop heatgunning...what do most go by ... im guessing too hot is no good...but no enough will make the ring come back eventually....
Post by: nsta on April 16, 2009, 05:29:00 AM
Hey guys, i tried to fix my E74 fix today.....i concentrated the heatgun on the gpu and ana chipsets, only for 1min on high but close to the motherboard...always moving the heatgun....this was only for the underside of the board as in this tutorial...i thought since the underside has no big capacitors etc it would be ok...
Anyway, i saw some smoke coming out so i though this would be a good place to stop...i then hear what seem to be a crackling noise???.....what would this be?....
What was an e74 to begin with....now is either a 2 red lights, or 3 red light error....
It takes a long time to display the rol now...the middle green light blink for ~10-20secs, then displas the RROD or 2lights.
Please advise what i done wrong?....my heatgun gets to 500c and it seems it fried my board...why the the console still go though>?
Also....how do i know when to stop heatgunning?....this is a big one for me...i fixed my last 360 heatgunning with no problems!
Post by: nsta on April 16, 2009, 04:28:00 PM
Is there a video showing how to heatgun the board properly?....ie from behind in this message....i went from a 1 ring e74 to a 2 ring, then a 3rrod so im sure its dead!...
FYI the part of the board underside i heatgun looks verygold bronze, im guessing i fried something by heatgunning too close...is there a distance away to heatgun...i need to know when to stop!
I always thought that since we are heatgun the backside of the board that nothing would happen, though it seems something crackled and maybe popped for me?
Post by: enito on April 19, 2009, 10:54:00 PM
i tryed the method of reflow, but still get e74, but is strange..if i open all, and leave only the board and make a little overheating, like 15 mins, the e74 goes away. But this is not definitive, because is back again. Is like whne the gpu is hot, the stuff back to work..Any tip? the i reflowed no the back side of the board, the front of the board, is necesary reflow the back? with the xclamp put in on? thx!!!
Post by: nsta on April 20, 2009, 05:08:00 AM
Do the back of the board focusing on the GPU and ANA chip ponly going up and down....ALWAYS MOVE THE HEATGUN....as it doesnt take long to fry something having the gun pointing at one area for long!...ive burnt a board like this before.
Post by: enito on April 20, 2009, 10:08:00 AM
i mean hot, with xclamp and plust the thermal paste, can be little dangerous?
thx
Post by: Mholt215 on April 20, 2009, 10:14:00 AM
QUOTE(enito @ Apr 20 2009, 11:00 AM)
Right, but is not dangerous apply heatgun with the xclamped put in on? like i see in the tutorial pictures?
i mean hot, with xclamp and plust the thermal paste, can be little dangerous?
thx
Yes it is not a good idea to heatgun the board with the x clamps on. Terrible idea actually, because if you actually DID achieve reflow then the force of the xclamps would probably squish the solder balls together and/or actually MOVE the whole GPU chip.. thats IF you achieved reflow.
Post by: nsta on April 20, 2009, 11:38:00 PM
Post by: enito on April 21, 2009, 01:35:00 AM
Post by: ps2moduk on April 21, 2009, 09:03:00 AM
using m5 x 10mm machines screws from screwfix (UK) (Offer on at moment 1000 screws £4.92)
using m5 washers x 2 (none on base of board)
Thermal compound
And a 150c setting 1 to 560c setting 2 heat gun
stripped and cleaned, then heatgunned bottom of the board (1 of the boards flexed a bit like it was straihgtening out which freaked me out) 1min on low setting then approx 2 mins on high about an inch or so from the board using circular motions.
Then applied the new screws/washers/thermal compound and tightened. Both machines booted up first time with no problems.
One was a 3rrod no picture thed other was 1 rrod and E74
Time will tell how long the fixes last, if they come back a bit more time on the bottom of the board and as a last resort will do the top of the board but hoping to avoid.
Post by: hazed69 on April 23, 2009, 09:12:00 AM
or should i do the top
plus this time ill time my self to see how long im using the heat gun
on it
Post by: bigheadnick on April 24, 2009, 10:07:00 PM
QUOTE(jimwross @ Apr 8 2008, 11:25 AM)
You'd have to figure out how to attach it too... but I don't think its the ANA chip thats really getting to hot, ow i'm fairly certain its from the GPU getting really hot and melting the connection between the two...
Ive now fixed a bunch of consoles with the 3 reds and only attempted 2 that had one red.I noticed with the 1red(e74) that they were the newer consoles with the heavier heatsinks on the cpu and the added mini heatsink(located behind the rf-module) connected to the gpu's primary heatsink.Is this a consistent issue with the newer consoles having this heatsink design?Im not saying its due to the heatsinks rather trying to find out if e74 is isolated to these consoles.Whats different between the scaler chips on the older consoles as compared to these ones? I would venture that they are different models that run hotter than the old ones and thus, need they're own heatsinks.I want to test this theory by cutting down a piece of a gpu's heatsink from a spare console but am not sure if it can be mounted properly.Not one of the e74 fixes I have seen are permanent.None of them work for more than a few weeks.I think this idea could fix it permanently. Any ideas on properly mounting a heatsink to this area without drilling a hole through something important?
Post by: nsta on April 25, 2009, 02:26:00 AM
Thanks
P.s i bought a heatgun today with a concentrator on it and two settings low and hi 300/500c
Hopefully i never burn a board again!
Post by: bigheadnick on April 25, 2009, 01:31:00 PM
QUOTE(nsta @ Apr 25 2009, 02:18 AM)
What method have you used to fix all your 3 red ring issues?....do you have to heatgun to fix 3 red rings?...or is it only with E74 where i should be using the heatgun method?
Thanks
P.s i bought a heatgun today with a concentrator on it and two settings low and hi 300/500c
Hopefully i never burn a board again!
Ive never felt the need to use a heat gun to fix the 3 reds, simply lay the fan over the disc drive and the cpu's heatsink so that the gpu bakes while the cpu is still being cooled by the fan.Do this for 15 mins or till u see 2 red lights whichever comes first.Let the thing cool down for 20-30mins and thats it.I still need some input on my previous post though
Post by: nsta on April 25, 2009, 02:39:00 PM
Post by: bigheadnick on April 25, 2009, 10:32:00 PM
QUOTE(nsta @ Apr 25 2009, 03:31 PM)
Thanks - how many 3 red rings have you fixed with this method? - also, i know that their are heatsinks you can purchase yourself for the ANA chips....so it maybe worthwhile to invest on....others are running thermal compound followed by a 1mm washer to sort the heat issue on them...as with the memory chips.
Ive fixed 25 or so 3reds and have only got 1 call back, all i had to do was bake the gpu a little longer.I hope u are aware that u must replace the x-clamps with machine screws and washers, as well as replace the old thermal paste with arctic silver or some other high grade paste before baking the gpu. There are several tuts on this site alone explaining the process.As far as the ana/scaler chip,I researched it a little and realized its a new feature of the opus motherboard.My guess is they replaced the 3red error with the one red.Loli think i'd rather have the 3 red cause i know exactly how to fix it permanently.Im gonna look into a heat sink for the ana chip and if this cures the e74 i will post a tutorial.
Post by: nsta on April 26, 2009, 02:04:00 AM
Anyway, i fixed anther one today by heatgunning, and then x-clamp baking method....all good:)....heatgunning is scary every time i do it though....as i have already blown 2 boards this way....im getting used to it now though...i just purchased a concentrator peice for my heatgun, which i think helps this, as well as isolating a bit better!
Thanks
Post by: nsta on April 27, 2009, 12:51:00 AM
....is 30secs on 300c, and then a minute on 500c, then 30secs back on 300c a good plan of attack for the back side of the board?? - And how fast are your heatgun movements in circles...i always think im not realy reflowing anything while i move the gun fast and in circular motion!!!
Post by: darealmastad on April 28, 2009, 01:29:00 PM
Edit*
Also I was wondering if the overheat resets the errors codes because when I was attempting the fix the e74 yesterday I turned it on and to my surprise it instantly overheated. When I turned it back on it was running the logo screen but a couple seconds later it overheat again. I found out it wasn't contacting with the heatsink so it made me think that the overheat reset the error. I didn't have the e74 code anymore but it was overheating.
Post by: darealmastad on April 28, 2009, 09:37:00 PM
Post by: strikey on April 30, 2009, 12:28:00 PM
Post by: DJKrafty03 on April 30, 2009, 03:41:00 PM
I tried the X-Clamp first and it wouldn't even heat up after 15 minutes of being on. So I decided to try this, and viola, works perfect!
I finished the process after first heatgunning it and it's fine. I played for 3 hours last night and it's working great, no network errors no video errors. Perfect fix for the strangest of issues.
Post by: bozza69 on May 02, 2009, 01:18:00 AM
worked a treat! thanks heaps
oh and i also did it with the gpu heatsink removed.
Post by: Doppelganger810 on May 03, 2009, 05:15:00 AM
I enabled a lasting fix with the use of a shim, and no longer get the red lights, but now possibly with the downward pressure of using the shim (It's 1mm thick and I use 2 metal washers under the heatsink) I have been getting no video.
I bought a heatgun and put it on medium setting just above 300 degrees, and that sorted it out for a week. Now it has returned and I fixed it again with another blast from the heatgun turning it up to about 400 degrees for about 2 minutes or so. Hopefully this will last but I suspect that it will return due to the board being bent with the pressure of the shim.
If I don't use a shim, then the 360 freezes after about 5-10 minutes into a graphically-intensive game. So it's catch-22 for me. Is there anything I can attach to the underside of the board to counteract the flexing caused by the shim?
Post by: mcalvelloxx on May 16, 2009, 06:24:00 PM
After getting e74 three times, I can finally see the dashboard.
I still don't trust this 360 though.
I guess I will leave running for a week
Gracias for the tutorial!
Post by: markbradcliffe on May 17, 2009, 02:06:00 PM
I then re-did the XClamp fix, and it is all working. My son is currently testing as his Elite has broken again! having been back from TCR (Total Console Repairs) for about 2 weeks with an E74 error! But not touching my sons Elite as it is insured through game until November this year.
Will let you know how long it lasts. I plan to do a fan mod on it over the extended heatsink for the GPU, an then drill some vent holes in the top of the console. Assuming this console works for a while :-)
So for those of you that don't think it works - your wrong, the key is to just get it hot enough to melt the solder and keep away from capacitors, plastic etc......I didn't use any foil....was just very careful.
Good luck.
Post by: mcalvelloxx on June 01, 2009, 08:42:00 PM
I did the x-clamp fix and used the heat gun once.
Not sure if I should redo the X-clamp fix or what?
This post has been edited by mcalvelloxx: Jun 2 2009, 03:43 AM
Post by: Kendo2748 on June 02, 2009, 03:16:00 AM
However I believe if you have done the xclamp fix correctly using this guide http://xbox-experts....al.php?n=hybrid from Team Hybrid there is no need to bake or heat up the motherboard as it should boot first time after the fix.
mcalvelloxx - I would redo xclamp fix inaccordance with the guide above
Post by: tapo39 on June 04, 2009, 04:36:00 AM
hi, just got a heat gun, but its 550c only, would i still be able to use it but instead of heating 4 2-3 minutes heat for 1-1.30?
Post by: L14M333 on June 13, 2009, 03:47:00 PM
Thanks
Liam
Post by: dman25 on June 19, 2009, 09:30:00 AM
Post by: L14M333 on June 19, 2009, 01:30:00 PM
QUOTE(dman25 @ Jun 19 2009, 04:30 PM)
and Do you apply the heat with the heat sink on or off? If on should i clean and reapply the artic silver after its working beacuse the paste can only take so much heat?
For this part i know you have to take the heatsinks off as you can squash the soldier balls and ruin your 360 mobo, and to be on the safe side i would redo the paste. Hope it helps still waiting for my heatgun, if anyone could reply to my post i would be greatful
, Thanks
EDIT: oh yeah... i have watched some videos on YouTube and they have it upside down so i think its ok but im not 100% sure also let us know how it went. Thanks. Liam
Post by: slimjim604 on June 23, 2009, 09:41:00 PM
Fixed my xbox which had the following symptoms -> e74, freezes after 3-5 minutes of gameplay and glitchy graphics. (ANA chip related probably)
All I did was heat it at the low setting for 1 minute and 2 minutes at the higher setting. always moving, never stationary, about 2-3 inches away from board. I also aluminum foiled everything besides the ram chips/ANA chip and GPU(no heatsink).
I placed my motherboard on four 2 litre bottles(one on each corner) for the entire process... this ensured the board was level and I could access the under side and top side of the board instantly.
I let it cool for 20ish minutes. (didn't move it at all.. didn't want to
my heatgun had a 375 and 540 setting.
Post by: L14M333 on June 24, 2009, 06:21:00 AM
QUOTE(slimjim604 @ Jun 24 2009, 04:41 AM)
Thanks OP.
Fixed my xbox which had the following symptoms -> e74, freezes after 3-5 minutes of gameplay and glitchy graphics. (ANA chip related probably)
All I did was heat it at the low setting for 1 minute and 2 minutes at the higher setting. always moving, never stationary, about 2-3 inches away from board. I also aluminum foiled everything besides the ram chips/ANA chip and GPU(no heatsink).
I placed my motherboard on four 2 litre bottles(one on each corner) for the entire process... this ensured the board was level and I could access the under side and top side of the board instantly.
I let it cool for 20ish minutes. (didn't move it at all.. didn't want to
my heatgun had a 375 and 540 setting.
Hi, ive done what you said... then i boot it up and get 3 Red Lights so i took it apart again and reflowed it, it booted up for about 60 seconds and then i got a static noise and the screen went scrambled (Via HDMI(HANA Chip)) Turned it off then on and i got 3 Red Lights Again... now im stuck... shall i try reflow again or just put it in the bin and use it as spairs and repairs... i would like to get it working as it a HDMI elite so please can anyone help
Thanks
Liam
Post by: ron6399 on June 24, 2009, 01:23:00 PM
QUOTE(Kendo2748 @ Jun 2 2009, 05:16 AM) 
Cannot quite understand why anyone would use a heat gun on a xbox motherboard, the baking method with the fan disconnected works well if done right.
However I believe if you have done the xclamp fix correctly using this guide http://xbox-experts.com/e/tutorial.php?n=hybrid from Team Hybrid there is no need to bake or heat up the motherboard as it should boot first time after the fix.
mcalvelloxx - I would redo xclamp fix inaccordance with the guide above
The reason a heat gun is used is because the heat can be directed to desired areas of the board. You can shield certain parts of the board and do specific locations. The heat gun allows for a more precision reflow.
As a matter of fact someone posted in an earlier thread that they baked the whole board and they have to boot twice to get the console to work. How do you find the problem with this. I heat near the gpu , above and below on the bottom of the board with great results. The gpu is the area which typically gets heated the most causing most of our issues. Just letting the gpu heat up typically is a temporary fix because it really doesn't do a reflow of the solder , to fix bad solder joints.
Post by: covekotx on July 03, 2009, 01:21:00 PM
Thanx jimwross
and everyone
Post by: GMSkel on February 03, 2020, 10:41:00 PM
About a month ago, my brother was playing and he started to get graphical glitches. And he got the e74 error message. I noticed that the GPU side of the Talismoon stopped working for some reason. It turned out to be a wiring issue, so I rewired the fan and had it working again.
Ever since then, my 360 has been getting the e74 error.
I've tested the 360, and I can play it for hours at a time, but once I turn it off and then turn it on again I get the e74 error, every time. I've tried the baking trick, which worked. Played for a couple hours, turned it off. Turned on again, and got the same result: e74. I've done the baking trick 3 or 4 times now.
Yesterday I got the e74. Troubleshooted the 360 by turning it off and on to see if it would go away, but it wouldn't. So I opened it up, un-tightened the screws on the gpu heat sink giving me enough space to lift the heat sink a little bit, and re tightened it without doing the baking trick. And it worked for awhile, then I turned it off, and turned it on to see e74 on my screen.
Then I took off the heatsink and cleaned it up, cleaned up the GPU, re-applied arctic silver, and did the baking trick. It worked for awhile. Turned off.. turned it on.. e74.
I inspected the underside of the mobo and noticed that there were some solder points inbetween the GPU and ANA which had holes in them.. I'm not sure if this is the issue for my e74, but I'm going to re solder these points and see what happens.
This e74 crap is pissing me off.
This post has been edited by GMSkel: Today, 06:42 AM
Post by: leo5150 on July 05, 2009, 03:20:00 PM
Post by: GMSkel on July 05, 2009, 09:12:00 PM
QUOTE(GMSkel @ Jul 4 2009, 01:41 AM)
I bought an Xbox 360 Falcon mobo on ebay about 2 months ago, which worked great, and I purchased a Talismoon Whisper fan from ebay to install on the mobo.
About a month ago, my brother was playing and he started to get graphical glitches. And he got the e74 error message. I noticed that the GPU side of the Talismoon stopped working for some reason. It turned out to be a wiring issue, so I rewired the fan and had it working again.
Ever since then, my 360 has been getting the e74 error.
I've tested the 360, and I can play it for hours at a time, but once I turn it off and then turn it on again I get the e74 error, every time. I've tried the baking trick, which worked. Played for a couple hours, turned it off. Turned on again, and got the same result: e74. I've done the baking trick 3 or 4 times now.
Yesterday I got the e74. Troubleshooted the 360 by turning it off and on to see if it would go away, but it wouldn't. So I opened it up, un-tightened the screws on the gpu heat sink giving me enough space to lift the heat sink a little bit, and re tightened it without doing the baking trick. And it worked for awhile, then I turned it off, and turned it on to see e74 on my screen.
Then I took off the heatsink and cleaned it up, cleaned up the GPU, re-applied arctic silver, and did the baking trick. It worked for awhile. Turned off.. turned it on.. e74.
I inspected the underside of the mobo and noticed that there were some solder points inbetween the GPU and ANA which had holes in them.. I'm not sure if this is the issue for my e74, but I'm going to re solder these points and see what happens.
This e74 crap is pissing me off.
Well, I resoldered the points that had tiny holes. I also noticed some holes in the points coming from the AV/HDMI port, and resoldered those points to fill the gaps. I also made sure that the mobo wasn't being warped by the screws that hold it down (i read somewhere on xbox-scene that warping was a cause for the red ring of death)
I tested my 360 by turning it on and off multiple times, and had no e74 error. I played Halo Wars for about 25 minutes. Tuned it off, and then on again, no e74. I'm going to do some more testing and play for a couple hours, and hopefully I get no e74.
Post by: kirca on July 06, 2009, 03:48:00 AM
QUOTE(GMSkel @ Jul 6 2009, 05:12 AM)
Well, I resoldered the points that had tiny holes. I also noticed some holes in the points coming from the AV/HDMI port, and resoldered those points to fill the gaps. I also made sure that the mobo wasn't being warped by the screws that hold it down (i read somewhere on xbox-scene that warping was a cause for the red ring of death)
I tested my 360 by turning it on and off multiple times, and had no e74 error. I played Halo Wars for about 25 minutes. Tuned it off, and then on again, no e74. I'm going to do some more testing and play for a couple hours, and hopefully I get no e74.
Can you tell me if holes are clearly visible with naked eye. And what did you use for resoldering (soldering iron, heatgun,?).
Thx
Post by: GMSkel on July 07, 2009, 12:45:00 AM
QUOTE(kirca @ Jul 6 2009, 05:48 AM)
Can you tell me if holes are clearly visible with naked eye. And what did you use for resoldering (soldering iron, heatgun,?).
Thx
the holes were visible to the naked eye. the biggest ones were on the solder points coming from the ANA chip and the AV/HDMI port. I did notice a few more throughout the board. some on the ram. i used a magnifying glass to check the whole board.
i used a soldering iron. you really need a steady hand to do this.
i haven't had the e74 error message pop up yet, but i was playing Fable 2 and i traveled to a town and noticed some graphical glitches: blue lines at the top half of my screen. I turned off my 360 and on again, luckily no e74 message, and i went back to the town that gave me the glitches, and had no glitches since. i'm thinking it was the 360 overheating.
i have a talismoon whisper fan, and 2 xcm core cooler fans. i'm going to remove the core cooler fans, because they could be doing more harm than good since they're not really drawing air from the outside. it seems like they're just circulating the hot air inside, i don't know for sure, but i just want to test it out..
Post by: GMSkel on July 07, 2009, 09:31:00 PM
Post by: Ronaldo VII on July 13, 2009, 11:13:00 AM
It has fixed the e74 error, but when the xbox turns on the fans start going and get really loud, even with no game in. They started doing this before the heat gunning when we had left the console for a couple of weeks and tried it again. Is this a natural occurrence after the e74 error or is there something else wrong with my console that needs looking into?
I've heard elsewhere that the fans should do this initially but I don't want to leave them on at increasing speeds if they shouldn't be.
Post by: neilw5112 on July 13, 2009, 12:44:00 PM
followed these instructions and went to start it up and light on power brick turned red as soon as i plugged it in!!
Is my console now officially dead or can i make it live again?
thanx in advance
Post by: Ronaldo VII on July 13, 2009, 02:23:00 PM
QUOTE(Ronaldo VII @ Jul 13 2009, 06:13 PM)
My 360 got the E74 error about 5 weeks ago. Finally had a Heat Gun delivered today and did the fix in this guide.
It has fixed the e74 error, but when the xbox turns on the fans start going and get really loud, even with no game in. They started doing this before the heat gunning when we had left the console for a couple of weeks and tried it again. Is this a natural occurrence after the e74 error or is there something else wrong with my console that needs looking into?
I've heard elsewhere that the fans should do this initially but I don't want to leave them on at increasing speeds if they shouldn't be.
Ahh, sorted it. The fan cover wasnt on so it wasn't focussing on the CPU, causing the fans to take off. All done now, cheers for the fix guys!
Post by: xXBlackChaosXx on July 13, 2009, 10:16:00 PM
Post by: taggart on July 23, 2009, 02:22:00 PM
Post by: Kendo2748 on July 24, 2009, 08:23:00 AM
QUOTE(taggart @ Jul 23 2009, 09:22 PM)
Instead of a heat gun, would it be possible to use a standard oven set to 100 F ?
The oven would heat everything, the heat gun is required to target a certain area on the PCB.
Post by: countchocula on August 22, 2009, 04:46:00 PM
-first i modified the tin case the motherboard sits in. i cut the honey comb out in the back which cover the fans. i also cut a 5" rectangular section of the honey comb on the air intake side (this is the right side if you looking at your system laying horizontally). i just used some wire snippers to cut them.
-after i put it back together i left off the plastic screen on the intake side also. don't mess with the rear plastic honey comb as you need it to attach a fan.
-i bought and attached the intercooler 360 TS fans on the back. The TS model is important since it is activated with heat sensor and has an independent AC power supply. this keeps it on for a minute or two after you shut your system off.
-i also placed a 5" computer fan right up against the air intake where i made the hole to force air into the unit. the model is a sythe " s-flex" sff21d (12v) and the AC adaptor is a cs power supply.
-my xbox is horizontal and so i place 4 little glass tea candle holders (they are the little glass cups to hold tea candles) underneath to raise it about 1" not only does this allow better cooling underneath but this centers the 5" fan on the unit slightly overlapping above and below. now there is not only airflow inside the xbox but also above and below the entire system.
-i connected both the intercooler and the 5" fan on the same AC multitap so i just plug in one unit when i want to play.
-after a game session i shut the xbox down but i leave the fans plugged in for about 15-20 min. the intercooler will automatically shut off after a minute or so and the 5" fan just stays on. i don't think you should leave the 5" fan plugged in constantly as it will force more dust in your system.
-one note is that although the inter cooler does work (i can feel a more powerful air flow) it is a bit louder.
so far this has kept my system going for over 3 weeks. after game play the system is much cooler. a couple of hours on Gears2 and the top and bottom are cool to barely warm. hopefully this lasts a while but if dies again i let you guys know.
Post by: playakrc on August 26, 2009, 04:20:00 PM
i started playing madden today and before i played a game the menu was a little messed up in the game. then when the football game started you could see lines on the players and on the field. it would disappear for a few seconds or at certain cut scenes in the game. i played a full game saved and went out to the dashboard with the lines still there. the lines are visable on the bottom right corner and most of the dashboard is fine.
i left the system on for a few mins at the dashboard and the lines disappeared. i tried playing another game of madden and they reappeared.
if this little story can help any of you guys figure out which chip is really the problem on this p.o.s microsoft built can you tell me so i can focus on one chip because im tired of opening it up and using the heat gun. its annoying and i know most of you here think so to.
Post by: mem0001 on September 01, 2009, 12:12:00 PM
1) i've put pressure on the hana/ana chip and have no fix for e74.
2) i've put pressure on the heat sink and no fix for e74.
The red light only comes on when i have the video cable plugged in (i have tried multiple cables also). When the cable is NOT plugged in with power on, the green power light just blinks continuously - nothing else.
Is there a way to interpret the red lights when pushing the sync and cd eject buttons? (it cycles 2 lights, 4 lights, one light)
Any other suggestions of what to try?
Post by: mem0001 on September 01, 2009, 09:39:00 PM
i went to lowes and got the heat gun. i took the heat sync off the gpu and turned the motherboard over. i covered the bottom of the motherboard with aluminum foil and left only the gpu uncovered - that way i didnt heat anything else. i used low heat, about 6 inches away, for 1 minute (exactly), while moving in circles to heat the bottom of the gpu. afterwards, put the heat sync back on and plugged it up - GREEN LIGHTS EVERYWHERE!
by the way, i heated ONLY the bottom of the gpu.
i played a game with no trouble and plan to leave it on for a while just to make sure its fixed. i've looked around the internet for a while and couldn't find a definite answer of what the cause/solution to this problem (e74) was until i got here. THANKS TO YOU ALL!
Post by: gr0wism on September 16, 2009, 01:11:00 PM
Did i not do it correctly?
Post by: soldave on September 29, 2009, 02:52:00 AM
Would this mean it's just my A/V cable that's duff?
Post by: sirpyke29 on October 05, 2009, 07:27:00 PM
Post by: EnemyBritBomber on October 20, 2009, 09:48:00 PM
Post by: Gallion-Beast on November 26, 2009, 04:02:00 PM
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could try to fix it?
Post by: Cpt Chronic on December 27, 2009, 11:23:00 PM
Looking forward to trying this out tomorrow..
My only question is; I havent received an E74 error yet but im sure its coming! I had 3 red rings a few months ago and used the x-clamp fix and its been great until a couple of days ago. Now, after a while of playing i start getting blue and yellow colours coming all over the screen. Ive included a couple of screenshots to show you what im on about..
When this first happened my mate who i was playing with told me to switch the xbox off and on again, i did this but when rebooted i just got a black screen.. i could still hear sound through my turtlebeach headset but none through the TV. I ripped the xbox apart and applied new thermal paste to both heatsinks and whipped it all back together.. it worked!!
I was over the moon but then, after a while of playing again.. i got the same problem! It seems to only happen when the xbox has heated up a little, it can sometimes go after i play through it but it always comes back within a minute or 2. Switch it off and back on after the problem and get the blank screen, if i leave it a while it boots up fine and soon after that im hit with the same problem again.Now im just wondering if its worth me trying to use this fix or is this a different problem??
Sorry for the long post but i wanted to make sure i gave you all the info
Thanks in advance for your help
Zac
Post by: xyber3364 on February 02, 2010, 11:36:00 PM
Just fell upon this forum because of this thread and this is a cool place.
One of my friends had his Halo Elite Xbox with the E74 (H)ANA chip problem,
so we did the heat gun and a hybrid x-clamp fix with a heat gun that did 600 F and 1000F
My friend is a very neat person so we covered everything with foil, and did 1 min on low power and 3 min on high power. We did both sides with 40 minutes break in between each time. Worked like a charm after that, I will report any other findings as soon as they come up, keeping fingers crossed.
Just as a general consensus how effective is this method, and for how long?
I am pretty sure the answer is not 100% effective and permanent but a high number would make me happy.
Post by: p4r0l3 on February 08, 2010, 11:29:00 AM
Booted and is playing games fine!
Post by: madmax22 on February 13, 2010, 09:43:00 PM
Post by: mic-b on April 22, 2010, 02:38:00 AM
I've got a shoutout and a link to this thread, and I hope what I've posted can maybe answer a few random questions that are laying around here or help someone with a step in the process. Anyways, a big thanks jimwross. Your a life saver.
Mic-B
Post by: Claart on May 01, 2010, 07:04:00 AM
i previously heated chips before assembling heat sink, (the same way i tend to fix the dreaded RROD, tried 3 times, xbox would boot up then the screen goes fuzzy within a couple of mins.... i was almost ready to bin it, so i gave your method one last crack put cleaned chip & heat sink,,, repasted,,, screwed back to motherbord,,, whacked my heat gun on area as you pointed out,,, let it cool down...
Then blow me down with cotton socks,,, back online playing CODMW2 for last 7 hours,,, & its still running sweet...
cheers man
Post by: bobsaget0706 on June 06, 2010, 01:17:00 AM
Post by: MadMaxGR on June 07, 2010, 12:19:00 AM
QUOTE(bobsaget0706 @ Jun 6 2010, 10:17 AM)
The problem with my Xbox is that i have video but i can still here the sound. Someone earlier said that putting pressure on the ana chip will fix this. so i took my xbox apart added pressure to the chip and my xbox worked. Is there any way to keep pressure while i close my xbox so the problem does not return
The best is to reflow the HANA/ANA chip.
Post by: spicydeath82 on June 15, 2010, 04:17:00 PM
QUOTE(madmax22 @ Feb 14 2010, 05:43 AM)
Old thread, same problem... Xclamp fix, can I just over heat it like you would doing a 3RROD fix with xclamps or do you HAVE to use a heat gun?
You need the heat gun. just letting the console over heat will not reflow any solder. heat guns are cheap, just get one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Post by: jrw on June 20, 2010, 04:57:00 PM
QUOTE(wllazer17 @ Apr 13 2008, 12:13 PM)
I told my brother how to do this over the phone to fix his xbox.
It already had the xclamp mod that I did to it... So took off the heatsink of the gpu and tin foiled around everything except the blue area in jimwross' picture below:
He had an old heat gun that only had low or high setting so I told him use low.
He heated in circular motions around the blue but focused most of the time on the red square, all for a total of 3 mins. Hooked it back up after an hour and it works! Did not need to heat the top.
Thanks everyone I think this is the best fix for E74 errors!!! Hairdryer on ana chip is only temp fix
If I did it I would have taken pictures but I only told how to do it over the phone so I don't have any, sorry.
I just did this to my launch 360 (oct 2005 build) and it worked! I was getting E74 error, I tried xclamp fix,pennies, towel trick, regreased gpu / cpu and still no luck, So finally I tried doing exactly as described in this post (only did bottom, removed gpu heatsink,cleaned off gpu grease before using heat gun). I also put foil around the blue outline areas just in case.
Not sure if this is a longterm fix but still must say Thanks for the info
Post by: Syn201 on June 20, 2010, 05:15:00 PM
7 hours playing cod jesus man take a break ..
Post by: spicydeath82 on June 28, 2010, 09:21:00 PM
Post by: coldengrey on July 26, 2010, 08:08:00 AM
Initially, had E74 with 2 or 3 red lights (forgot by now)- did the xclamp fix.
When I hooked back up to test, I had just 1 red light E74.
Does this mean I didn't achieve correct even pressure with the bolts and washers (over tightened perhaps- the board seems a little warped when placed back in steel cage I/O's not lined up really well)
BTW just how tight should those bolts be torqued down???
I tried the heat gun method after got the 1 red E74 but nothing- have repeated a few times- perhaps not getting quite hot enough?
thanks for any help in advance,
Jason
Post by: djdavirus on August 12, 2010, 10:12:00 AM
worked for me
Post by: tinbie on September 18, 2010, 12:41:00 AM
Now the problem is I have sound but no video/picture whatsoever.
I can hear the dashboad launching so the E74 error is gone.
Anybody knows what it could be ?
Post by: ReViZeD on December 08, 2010, 10:05:00 AM
post # 6
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=638861
Post by: jfig04 on December 17, 2010, 11:22:00 AM
Post by: bretterism on December 26, 2010, 11:30:00 PM
Post by: knightsgamingrepair on December 27, 2010, 08:57:00 PM
Get your system fixed right by getting it reballed. Reball is where you lift off the chip off the board clean the old solder, place new lead based solder, then resolder the chip back on. Not sure how to do this?
We do it.
Dustin
Knights Gaming Repair
Post by: ICanFixAnything on January 02, 2011, 11:37:00 AM
QUOTE(knightsgamingrepair @ Dec 27 2010, 09:57 PM)
99% of the time any problem that comes up with the xbox 360 (expect for drive issues) is GPU.
Get your system fixed right by getting it reballed. Reball is where you lift off the chip off the board clean the old solder, place new lead based solder, then resolder the chip back on. Not sure how to do this?
We do it.
Dustin
Knights Gaming Repair
How much do you charge?
Can we just send you a motherboard?
What is your web address? (Or is posting this not allowed?)
Also, do you provide the upgraded GPU heatsink with added liquid cooler extension?
Post by: jrw on April 16, 2011, 12:00:00 AM
QUOTE(jrw @ Jun 20 2010, 02:57 PM)
I just did this to my launch 360 (oct 2005 build) and it worked! I was getting E74 error, I tried xclamp fix,pennies, towel trick, regreased gpu / cpu and still no luck, So finally I tried doing exactly as described in this post (only did bottom, removed gpu heatsink,cleaned off gpu grease before using heat gun). I also put foil around the blue outline areas just in case.
Not sure if this is a longterm fix but still must say Thanks for the info
Quick update, This fix lasted 9 months before RROD (E74 again) so I'd say the heatgun trick is fairly effective, It ran flawless for those 9 months no crashes / freezes, I used a heatgun again and it's back up and running.
I noticed when I took it apart the gpu heatsink bolts were a little loose so that may of been part of the issue this time around, but I used heatgun just in case.
2005 launch day unit still in action lol.
Post by: freakgrad45 on May 17, 2011, 02:17:00 AM
Post by: KaptinKrunK on July 19, 2011, 10:51:00 PM
QUOTE(pimpmaul69 @ Apr 8 2008, 02:05 AM)
e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.
i hope this works im goin to try it with a heat gun tom, ive been trying the way llama tells you to reflow. its possible your xbox might need reballin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/muhaha.gif) ill let you know how it goes for me, i have taken a very close look under my and notice that one of the things under looks black, if it doesnt work tom ill show you
QUOTE(pimpmaul69 @ Apr 8 2008, 02:05 AM)
e74 has nothing to do with the ana/hana chip. i have fixed it everytime (100% of the time) by reflowing the gpu.
Post by: ShiZor9 on July 23, 2011, 11:09:00 AM
Post by: samoranj on September 30, 2011, 10:09:00 PM
I've also ensured that I only added only enough arctic silver to cover the tops of the chips with a thin layer prior to reinstalling the heat sinks...
Will going through this whole process again fix this issue? Help!!!
Post by: protivakid on January 26, 2012, 07:24:00 PM
One 360 was fixed after the first try with the heat gun, another took 5 times. Eventually all 3 went back to E74 after 1 - 6 hours of gaming on them so I repeated the steps and got them working again. Re-testing all 3 now by playing games on them to see if they stay fixed.
One thing I will add is DO NOT do the other method some have suggested of unplugging the fans and letting the unit overheat to try to fix the E74. You will only further damage the console.
Post by: GlassOnion on March 14, 2012, 10:27:00 PM
However, I am having one strange issue.
After putting everything back together, I notice that the ring of lights on the console doesn't work at all. There is also no light in the center showing that the console is on.
On top of that, I can't sync any controllers wirelessly to the xbox. If I sync them on the play and charge cable then disconnect the cable, they work fine on wireless.
I wouldn't mind too much, except that I can't sync any of the wireless guitars or the drumset. I've tried holding the sync button on the console, every order I can think of (controller/console/both) and nothing seems to work.
I even ordered a replacement ROL card (the card with the lights that plugs into the front of the console) and it has the same problem.
Any ideas of what I should try?
Thanks for the awesome E74 fix!!
Post by: scientwist on July 29, 2012, 04:23:00 PM
Have one I fixed for a little bit with the xclamp fix and I might try this to see if I can bring it back to life. its way more dead though worth a try.
Wish I could have my Error420 nick (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
This post has been edited by scientwist: Jul 29 2012, 11:29 PM
Post by: scientwist on July 29, 2012, 06:34:00 PM
Just tried my Hot Butter Knife trick on one that basically had no signs of life other than 3 red lights of death and nothing at all would show up on the screen not even a error message. The second one I tried this on had the xclamp replacement already done and that only lasted a few months before it died hard. Its been dead and in the attic for years, which is great because it hasn't been updated for years. Think I might try to get some homebrew going by JTAGing it. Just thought I would share what I found. Others have probably already done this and just haven't read about it.
Post by: scientwist on July 29, 2012, 07:57:00 PM
Gunna let this sucker run for awhile and see how it doe's. Gunna have to pull my Sammy outta another box that has a totally different issue and get the firmware for this box back on it, the thing still has blades
Post by: xboxhaxorz on August 13, 2012, 08:42:00 PM
in the past i did flows on them and they worked for a while but e74 is an issue with the chip not the board
for example if you take a e74 gpu and put it on another console it will give it e74
Post by: Avinitlarge on August 17, 2012, 04:29:00 AM
QUOTE(xboxhaxorz @ Aug 14 2012, 03:42 AM)
e74 is a bad gpu, i supply thousands of GPUs online as well as use them in my shop and we sometimes get e74 on them which is fixed by putting a new gpu on it
in the past i did flows on them and they worked for a while but e74 is an issue with the chip not the board
for example if you take a e74 gpu and put it on another console it will give it e74
I am starting to think this too. Reball or reflow, a few days later/weeks later, E74.