Hardware Non-permanent RRoD?

[puss2puss]

I did. When I first plug it in its yellow, it isn't red until I press the power button on the console.

Ok, might be a short, look carefully everywhere you think you think you could have dropped some thermal paste...the thermal paste's kind of a d'oh of metal powder..so, it conduct..

And yes, metal washers are okay, as long as you take the right size and not larger, or else it could conduct a nearby circuit.. there was a good tuto on 360iso*com a long time ago, not sure if you walked near it..

Also, did you modded the fan's wire for 12v? If so, make sure no wires ends touch the board,,

Anyway, other then a short near the cpu, i dont really see what else it could be (well..other then the block but it would be a hell if a coincidence that the block dies right at that time)

Just some details: make sure there's no metal pieces at all anywhere on the board, also dont forget to plug all the wires before powering it up..and just to make sure, when you first disassembly the console, did it still have the warranty sticker?

 

[CIAwesome526]

Ok, might be a short, look carefully everywhere you think you think you could have dropped some thermal paste...the thermal paste's kind of a d'oh of metal powder..so, it conduct..
I probbably did

And yes, metal washers are okay, as long as you take the right size and not larger, or else it could conduct a nearby circuit.. there was a good tuto on 360iso*com a long time ago, not sure if you walked near it..
Well the washers go over the little circles a bit, but I didn't think that those curcuits were exposed. Maybe I'll put a circle of paper or credit card under them to make sure they make no contact.

Also, did you modded the fan's wire for 12v? If so, make sure no wires ends touch the board,,
I didn't do the fan mod.

Anyway, other then a short near the cpu, i dont really see what else it could be (well..other then the block but it would be a hell if a coincidence that the block dies right at that time)

Just some details: make sure there's no metal pieces at all anywhere on the board, also dont forget to plug all the wires before powering it up..and just to make sure, when you first disassembly the console, did it still have the warranty sticker?
I did plug in everything and it did have a warranty sticker.

^answers^

Also, if I dropped any it would be under the heat sinks. If I lift the heat sinks, I need to Apply new paste, right? These issues wouldn't permanantly break anything?

 

[puss2puss]

^answers^

Also, if I dropped any it would be under the heat sinks. If I lift the heat sinks, I need to Apply new paste, right? These issues wouldn't permanantly break anything?

For the washers, dont put anything under them it will change the size between the board and heatsinks.. its ok if the washers touch the round metal cirle around the hole.

As for the thermal paste, you keep the one you applyed, just use a toothpick to remove ţe paste from the chips and under the heatsinks, and reuse it after. (if you need to make a redlow or anything, you can keep the thermal paste, just remove it before heating the console..)

Remember, friction alchool with a q-tip is pretty good to remove thermal paste in circuits.

 

[CIAwesome526]

For the washers, dont put anything under them it will change the size between the board and heatsinks.. its ok if the washers touch the round metal cirle around the hole.

As for the thermal paste, you keep the one you applyed, just use a toothpick to remove ţe paste from the chips and under the heatsinks, and reuse it after. (if you need to make a redlow or anything, you can keep the thermal paste, just remove it before heating the console..)

Remember, friction alchool with a q-tip is pretty good to remove thermal paste in circuits.

I think they go a bit out of that circle. And little slips of paper under all of them will make it not work?

 

[puss2puss]

I think they go a bit out of that circle. And little slips of paper under all of them will make it not work?

Well, you've got nothing to loose to put some paper.. but i doubt it is the problem..unless the washers are really bigger then supposed to..

Make sure to clean all the thermal paste off the chips's tiny composents on the top..you know..these small square batteries or conductors or resistors whatever that are near the cpu,, you probably got some thermal paste around those..

 

[CIAwesome526]

Well, you've got nothing to loose to put some paper.. but i doubt it is the problem..unless the washers are really bigger then supposed to..

Make sure to clean all the thermal paste off the chips's tiny composents on the top..you know..these small square batteries or conductors or resistors whatever that are near the cpu,, you probably got some thermal paste around those..

you can't even get them on the tiny bits on the cpu chip? When I opened the Xbox the paste already applied covered the things on the cpu chip. You can't get it on anything but the die?

 

[puss2puss]

you can't even get them on the tiny bits on the cpu chip? When I opened the Xbox the paste already applied covered the things on the cpu chip. You can't get it on anything but the die?

It conducts.. so of course there shouldnt be any left on those small pieces..
Use a toothpick to crass out the thermal paste between the smal pieces near the cpu, then take a q-tip with friction alchool, use the q-tip to sponge the thermal paste between those small pieces.

 

[CIAwesome526]

It conducts.. so of course there shouldnt be any left on those small pieces..
Use a toothpick to crass out the thermal paste between the smal pieces near the cpu, then take a q-tip with friction alchool, use the q-tip to sponge the thermal paste between those small pieces.

Ok, once I get back to the xbox I will clean it.

 

[Deleted User]

Don't waste your time, just sell it for what you can get and get a Jasper(phat) console and you will be fine.

 

[CIAwesome526]

Well I messed around a bit and I got it to turn on only for it to overheat. I found that it refuses to power up if I overtighteb the screws the hold down the heat sinks. Now when it overheats the fans go full speed then get cut. The heat sinks don't warm up. I found out that the cpu heat sink wasn't making contact with the chip and thermal paste, so I put some more paste and used thinner washers. I turned it on and got the red liggt since I overtightened it. Im in bed now and won't be able to do Smyth my until the morning. If it does power up after a loosen the screws, I will removed some thermal paste, since I think I now have too much. If it doesn't work I will get rid of the washers on the cpu heat sink and replace it with something even thinner like cardboard, which will get crushed to below a mm thick with the pressure applied by the sinks. The gpu heat sink appears to make contact with the gpu since you can clearly see the mark made by the chip dies in the thermal paste on the heat sink. I will tell what happens in the morning after I finish.

 

[CIAwesome526]

I've got good news and bad news....

Good news:
It isn't over heating.

Bad news:

Spoiler

It returns....

Edit: I checked the secondary code and it says bridged solder point. Since that wasn't there before and I just applied more thermal paste I'm going to try to go in a clean it again. I don't know if I have time to do it now.

This is what the error is:

Details for Error code E08/0020

Description:

This error is caused by a bridged solder joint under CPU, GPU or one of the RAM bricks.
This effect can also be caused by tin whiskers leading to shorts and if the GPU was taken off the mainboard this error will also show up.
It can also be power related(the CPU/GPU or RAM isnt getting enough power). Can also be a component that is missing or damaged so look for missing and bridged parts near the GPU.
If the console was jtagged and the resistors and cables are still connected it will show 0020, the parallel port can stay as long as no PC is connected.

Fixes:

1)If you worked on the mainboard recently(soldered or so) remove these wires because you might be drawing too much power from the GPU
Also look for missing/bridged components like capacitors/resistors
2) If you jtagged the console remove wires and resistors, the parallel port can stay as long as no PC is connected.
3) X-Clamp replacement
4) Flush with alcohol, let dry, begin Relow with flux like below
5) Reflow GPU (and RAM if this fails) area
6) Reball the GPU and RAM, for bridged solder

Source: http://xbox-experts.com/errorcode/E08/0020/

 

[puss2puss]

Soon you'il have a good door-foot holder!

Anyway, With this error, i'm thinking you either scratched a circuit or a little component off the board, or you may have to reflow again..are you sure you dont have a heatgun nearby?
Also, dont use too much thermal paste! A small grain of rice is more then enough.

 

[CIAwesome526]

Soon you'il have a good door-foot holder!

Anyway, With this error, i'm thinking you either scratched a circuit or a little component off the board, or you may have to reflow again..are you sure you dont have a heatgun nearby?
Also, dont use too much thermal paste! A small grain of rice is more then enough.

what do you mean, i fixed that error! or did i not ppost that.... well, i fixed it, i just had some more thermal paste on the board also now im gettig either the no power error (which seems to happen when to much pressure is applied to the cpu) when i tighten the screws too much, or the overheating error, probably because of how much paste i used. and for some reason, one of the fans refuses to turn on.

 

[CIAwesome526]

okay, so like 8 am yesterday i fixed the xbox, i had it plugged in in the wall in my garage and after ike an hour of tinkering with the amount of thermal paste and the tightness of the heat sinks, as well as the type of washers. I got it to turn on with no overheating error or RRoD, but it doesn't actually turn on because there is no av cables.

I also had a problem with the fans as the gpu fan didn't turn on, so I spliced the wires togethor so they both run off of the cpu fan power circuit, so now they both turn on.

So I take it in with no disk drive or anything just wide open with only the essentials and it booted up.... But it froze with that same checkerboard pattern, and in the same part of the boot up animation, as the first time I got the RRoD. I turned it off and reset it and it turned on fine, I turned it off and restarted it one more time and it was still fine. So I put it all togethor (case and all) and plug it in again. And I get the RRoD 6 times in a row, with the same error as in the beginning (0102, cold solder joint). After that it turned on like 5 times in a row, and I started to play one of the few games I like that will run on the current firmware for like half an hour. Then another hour after dinner, and I power cycled it a couple times after to make sure it worked still. Then his morning I played for like half an hour to an hour, and that's all I played today. So other than that first wave of RRoD's, it's worked flawlessly.

My theory for those RRoD's is that since that error can be caused by overheating, is that the cpu's were just overheating until I let it run for 5 minutes with RRoD, which somehow "broke in" the thermal paste, since after those first RRoD's its worked flawlessly, but that's just my theory. But since my theory is probably wrong, should I worry this was all done for nothing? In which case I'll scrap it and sell the remains for parts.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

So anyway, I'll see how the Xbox behaves the rest of the week. So far it's looking like a success to me.

 

[CIAwesome526]

Ok, so the weirdest thing happened. I turned on the Xbox today, and popped in the only game that ran on the xboxs firmware, call of duty, and after the intro I popped the disc out and decided I was going to update the console, because I really wanted to Olay skyrim. So I pop in the disc and accept the update (no point staying really, it was jtag incompatible.), and it restarts the Xbox to begin the update and after about a minute of nothing it gives me a NEW RRoD. Code 0022, which means bridged solder joint under the Hana chip, which, from the info I gathered, isn't inside this Xbox. So I restart it, error, turn off hit eject, and it turns on on its own as it's supposed to, and shows a message on screen (which must mean the Hana/ana chip works, since it's like a video processer) and says that I need to put the disc in to resume the update, so I think, maybe this disc just has some bad update data! So j run up and get watch dogs and out that in and it shows the update progress screen and h bed me the error, so I put in the other watch dogs disc and it inches forward a tad and stops, so I put in the Antrim disc and it goes like a quarter the way, and I keep switching between watch dogs and Antrim and eventually coax it into updating, so now it's on showing me the screen that says it wants to give me a tour of my xbox.

So I found that strange, it seemed to be caused by the update, not an actual short, because Im pretty sure shorts don't magically spear when you try to update, then vanish when the update is complete.

Should I consider this a failed repair, or is it fine and I should keep on thinking I did a fine job, and this red ring was caused by a software errir?

 

[DinohScene]

Failed repair.

I don't know how badly you want to abuse that 360 but it deserves to die in peace now.

 

[CIAwesome526]

Failed repair.

I don't know how badly you want to abuse that 360 but it deserves to die in peace now.

It already did die, now im trying to abuse it back to life.

 

[puss2puss]

Well, if i where you AND would have the right tools,i would reflow the hana bridge..

Wait for halloween and drop it in a child's candy bag.. he'il be happy.. ..then disapoined.. than sad :/ ..

 

[CIAwesome526]

Well, if i where you AND would have the right tools,i would reflow the hana bridge..

Wait for halloween and drop it in a child's candy bag.. he'il be happy.. ..then disapoined.. than sad :/ ..

Well it's gone completely dead. Won't turn on at all.

 

[DinohScene]

RIP poor 360.