Hardware Preventative Maintenance

[PityOnU]

I recently purchased a modchip for my original version (phat?) Xbox 360. As I'm going to open the thing up to install the chip, I was wondering if there was any preventative maintenance I can do while I'm inside the housing in order to reduce the chances of the RRoD these units are famous for?

 

[FAST6191]

Granted it is about now I would start to expect to see them but the newer models (I guess you already know but jasper and maybe falcon and things after those) do well enough here, that said it is about now I would expect to start seeing failures here.

Dust it would be the big one.

You can do the 12V fan mod if you want though if you are modchipping it for RGH/JTAG purposes then you might as well use the software options that do effectively the same thing. Either way be prepared for an increase in noise.

Some might argue for doing the penny fix ahead of time.... it can definitely work if you are trying to bring one back but for beforehand I am not so sure it is worth it. To save looking the idea was tape up a few pennies (three or four depending upon the guide) and shove them in under the ram chips (under the motherboard)- it helps redistribute force and prevents the creep induced problems that cause RRoD.

After this we head into silly things territory (I was never convinced by shroud mods) and expensive things (ripping it apart and redoing the BGA to use a nice bit of lead solder).

On the slightly less expensive end I guess you could add extra fans but I am not sure unless you are going for the large fan, remove the DVD drive and so forth mods.

You might think about redoing the thermal paste and it might help drop it quite literally about 2 degrees; a lot of hassle for not a lot of gain.

 

[PityOnU]

Granted it is about now I would start to expect to see them but the newer models (I guess you already know but jasper and maybe falcon and things after those) do well enough here, that said it is about now I would expect to start seeing failures here.

Dust it would be the big one.

You can do the 12V fan mod if you want though if you are modchipping it for RGH/JTAG purposes then you might as well use the software options that do effectively the same thing. Either way be prepared for an increase in noise.

Some might argue for doing the penny fix ahead of time.... it can definitely work if you are trying to bring one back but for beforehand I am not so sure it is worth it. To save looking the idea was tape up a few pennies (three or four depending upon the guide) and shove them in under the ram chips (under the motherboard)- it helps redistribute force and prevents the creep induced problems that cause RRoD.

After this we head into silly things territory (I was never convinced by shroud mods) and expensive things (ripping it apart and redoing the BGA to use a nice bit of lead solder).

On the slightly less expensive end I guess you could add extra fans but I am not sure unless you are going for the large fan, remove the DVD drive and so forth mods.

You might think about redoing the thermal paste and it might help drop it quite literally about 2 degrees; a lot of hassle for not a lot of gain.

Thanks for the info! I'll probably just redo the thermal paste and clean out the heat sinks then. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't some known shortcoming that I should patch up (like, for instance, the fans going bad over time or something like that).

Thanks again!

 

[wolffangalchemist]

get a second 360 CPU heat sink as well as some artic silver thermal compound and cut a hole in the top over the heat sinks and get a second xbox fan to fit to the hole you cut in the top then do the 12v mod on both it and the internal fan after replacing the GPU heat sink and both the gpu and cpu thermal paste with the CPU one.
then get a longer SATA cable and route your wires out near the back left by making a hole in the 360.
make a box to set the left of the dvd drive on and you are done.
This had the RRoD and a bad Cap after getting fixed once befor, after heat gunning it again and replacing the cap with the added improvments it has worked fine now for almost a year, my longest lasting fixed 360 yet.

 

[PityOnU]

it has worked fine now for almost a year, my longest lasting fixed 360 yet.

But at what cost!? Function over form, I know, but that poor thing looks like it would've been ready to die (like in the "please kill me" kind of way)

 

[wolffangalchemist]

But at what cost!? Function over form, I know, but that poor thing looks like it would've been ready to die (like in the "please kill me" kind of way)

yeah, i would have done something a bit more alluring for someone else if this was a fix for someone other than me, probably used a more lower profile set of fans and found a good looking way to mount and secure the dvd drive without restricting the airflow as well as a nice paint job.
On the plus side the dvd drive died once already this made it a cinch to replace!

 

[Joe88]

and that is why I have a slim now...