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[Allenm]

My son has just fixed his with a simple kit he got from Ebay.
Going to fix another this weekend, his stopped working altogether.
Can get the info for you if you want? I don't know much about them it's just what he beeen telling me about them.

Mick

Post a link to the ebay item - sounds interesting! thanks

[Marks DTM Calib]

I suspect you are right.

This might be worth a surf on some xbox forums. I ignored all advice regarding towels. But mine did seem to last longer before it went like that if I stood it on its side...

that actually works temporarily

I have seen a number of references to towels on the xbox forums, but none saying what it is.  Is this just blocking the vents to fry the thing?
will this guarantee the 3 flashing red rings that will prompt MS to fix it for free? :-?

The towel trick is to very seriously overheat the CPU and GPU (mounted near each other) in the hope that the thermal stresses will make contact again.  Obviously, its never going to be permenent fix.

Its possible you could cook it enough to get the red ring, thus changed under warranty.  Have you anything to lose?

As for standard repair costs, they can be bought brand new for under £100, complete with12 month warranty

So if I understand this correctly, the thermal paste has ceased to function between the cooling and the chip (CPU, GPU) causing it to overtemp and exhibit the problems in the picture in the first post.

If this is correct, then isn't the best approach to buy a tube of thermal paste and renew this on the contact points?

or am I missing something?

Nope.

Both the processors are 1mm BGA items.

They are mounted on a cheap PCB which is poorly supported and then a heavy heatsink is clamped to them.

The result is stress on the solder ball contacts which, over time, start to fail.

So, the fundamental issues are;

1) Poor board layout
2) Cheap materials
3) Very poor mechanical practice.

Having the unit on its side will do two things

a) Improve natural convection cooling
b) Change the stresses on the solder joints caused by the chuffing great big heatsinks.

The towel trick just causes the poor thing to seriously over heat, this will do one or two things

1) It will stress the solder contacts (unlikely to get hot enough to reflow the solder though!)
2) VERY seriously stress the internal silicon (which will be many 10's of degrees hotter than the case temp)
3) DEFINATELY shorten the life of every other component on board!

If your lucky, it might give a temporary reprieve by making the solder blls make a physical contact for a while

[TheBoy]

Having the unit on its side will do two things

In my case ensure the DVD doesn't eject

[Allenm]

I suspect you are right.

This might be worth a surf on some xbox forums. I ignored all advice regarding towels. But mine did seem to last longer before it went like that if I stood it on its side...

that actually works temporarily

I have seen a number of references to towels on the xbox forums, but none saying what it is.  Is this just blocking the vents to fry the thing?
will this guarantee the 3 flashing red rings that will prompt MS to fix it for free? :-?

The towel trick is to very seriously overheat the CPU and GPU (mounted near each other) in the hope that the thermal stresses will make contact again.  Obviously, its never going to be permenent fix.

Its possible you could cook it enough to get the red ring, thus changed under warranty.  Have you anything to lose?

As for standard repair costs, they can be bought brand new for under £100, complete with12 month warranty

So if I understand this correctly, the thermal paste has ceased to function between the cooling and the chip (CPU, GPU) causing it to overtemp and exhibit the problems in the picture in the first post.

If this is correct, then isn't the best approach to buy a tube of thermal paste and renew this on the contact points?

or am I missing something?

Nope.

Both the processors are 1mm BGA items.

They are mounted on a cheap PCB which is poorly supported and then a heavy heatsink is clamped to them.

The result is stress on the solder ball contacts which, over time, start to fail.

So, the fundamental issues are;

1) Poor board layout
2) Cheap materials
3) Very poor mechanical practice.

Having the unit on its side will do two things

a) Improve natural convection cooling
b) Change the stresses on the solder joints caused by the chuffing great big heatsinks.

The towel trick just causes the poor thing to seriously over heat, this will do one or two things

1) It will stress the solder contacts (unlikely to get hot enough to reflow the solder though!)
2) VERY seriously stress the internal silicon (which will be many 10's of degrees hotter than the case temp)
3) DEFINATELY shorten the life of every other component on board!

If your lucky, it might give a temporary reprieve by making the solder blls make a physical contact for a while

You would think from the noise of the damn thing that the internal fans would be keeping the temp down to about zero!  I certainly wont be forcing an overheat on it,  I will let them keep playing it, if it red rings then MS can have the bugger back to fix, if it keeps on going too long, then I will just reflow the solder, I can't imagine that it can be too complex in there!  

[Marks DTM Calib]

Unless you have BGA re-work capability, you wont be able to re-flow the solder!

[TheBoy]

allenm - its the old thing with small fans, rev the tinkers as fast (and as noisily) as you can to get enough airflow over their tiny blades.  Much like 1U servers making a hell of a racket compared to 3 or 5U servers.

The airflow isn't actually that good - stick you hand by it, notice airflow is minimal.