I posted a while back about the graphics problem on my Son's Xbox 360
http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1235073856Well since then, it decided to red ring of death and not boot at all, E74 was the error code.
After a lot of searching for info (this isn't covered by the extended warranty - you need 3 red lights for that!) I found a number of suggested ways to fix, and I thought I would share with you the one that actually works!
There seems to be 3 options available.
1. Towell fix - This involves wrapping the xbox in towells to overheat the thing and either temporarily get it working or produce the 3 red lights that MS will fix. DON'T do this if you want a working xbox, it will just fry the insides.
2. X-clamp replacement 1. This involves replacing the x-clamp with 4 machine screws and securing them to the m'board to the case. This MAY work but is fundamentally flawed. The case is not flat and you end up with different stresses over the surface of the board and therefore the chip.
3. X-Clamp replacement 2. This is the one I opted to do and it worked. This replaces the x-clamp with 4 m5 machine screws and basically replaces the tension on the heat sink without the tension being focussed on the middle which is what causes the damn thing to fail in the first place.
Both 2 & 3 also mean you have to overheat the unit, but in a semi-controlled way (unless you have the proper kit to reflow solder!). The fan is removed and aimed only at the CPU so that the GPU overheats sufficiently to soften the solder enough to remake the joints. (not perfect, but seems to work!)
Having just completly stripped the xbox down, there are a couple of obvious design / manufacturing faults with this console.
1, the x-clamp, by design it causes warping on the PCU underneath the CPU and GPU - when you are playing for a long time and it all gets very hot, the solder joints will soften and when it cools down they will harden again but in line with the stress, over time this ruins the joints.
2. The machine is impossible to open without voiding your warranty - this means you can't get in and blow all the crud and dust out of it. So over time this builds up and reduces the effectiveness of the cooling.
3. The monkey that assembles the box clearly has no idea how thermal paste works. you only need a very thin layer over the chip, this had so much of the gunk on it there were big blobs of it that had oozed out of the side all over the m'board! Another reason these things overheat!
So if you end up will a red light fault (error 74) and you machine is over a year old - I would suggest you give option 3 a go - you have, after all, nothing to lose!.
Cheers
Merv
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Topic: xbox 360 - ring of death - FIXED (Read 689 times)