Gaming I decided to go on the cheap, and I need some advice.

redrampager

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I decided to take the 360 head on with very little knowledge about how it works. Maybe a mistake, but these things are how we learn what to do and what not to.

So. I bought a RROD 360 Premium off of ebay for 60-something. Not important. What IS important is that it came without the RCA video/audio cables, a power supply, and a hard drive. The first two of these I've already bought and they're on their way... they will help me with fixing the RROD (no I will not be doing the towel "trick")

How important is the hard drive in backing up and playing backup games on a 360? How necessary is it?
 

War

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Not really "necessary", but it is recommended. You won't be able to save your games, get DLC, install to hard drive... in fact, I don't even think you'll be able to get the NXE.
 

redrampager

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But I can get the processor cleaned, thermal compound applied, and drive flashed without the hard drive? So I can hold off on the HDD for a little bit?
 

Hardcore Gamer

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You don't need a hard drive, a memory unit will do. A 64mb memory card used to be ok, they come with an arcade, but the new NXE is 100mb so you need at least a 128mb card to get that, if you only have a 64mb card you'll just keep the old dash.

Your profile is about 2mb, save games about 1mb so getting on live without a hard drive isn't a problem.

I bought a rrod and fixed it but I got a hard drive and 3 months live from microsoft for £20 by going here http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/ , basically it's for people who bought an Arcade with a 64mb memory card, MS are giving them one cheap as an apology, I think in the USA they are giving away 512mb memory cards but I doubt it will work for you as it's for arcade user only I think.
 

Hardcore Gamer

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redrampager said:
But I can get the processor cleaned, thermal compound applied, and drive flashed without the hard drive? So I can hold off on the HDD for a little bit?

Yes, you can play games without one, you just won't be able to save your game.
 

redrampager

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Sounds good. I'll work up the fundage while I'm in the process of hacking it. Thanks a million!!
biggrin.gif


Now let the topic die. XD
 

playallday

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Hardcore Gamer said:
I bought a rrod and fixed it but I got a hard drive and 3 months live from microsoft for £20 by going here http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/ , basically it's for people who bought an Arcade with a 64mb memory card, MS are giving them one cheap as an apology, I think in the USA they are giving away 512mb memory cards but I doubt it will work for you as it's for arcade user only I think.
I just went to that link but I'm a little stuck! My Arcade 360 has RRoD so I can't load up the dashboard! I can't get to mine Console ID! What can I do??
 

Hardcore Gamer

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playallday said:
Hardcore Gamer said:
I bought a rrod and fixed it but I got a hard drive and 3 months live from microsoft for £20 by going here http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/ , basically it's for people who bought an Arcade with a 64mb memory card, MS are giving them one cheap as an apology, I think in the USA they are giving away 512mb memory cards but I doubt it will work for you as it's for arcade user only I think.
I just went to that link but I'm a little stuck! My Arcade 360 has RRoD so I can't load up the dashboard! I can't get to mine Console ID! What can I do??


No idea. Have you done the towel trick? I got a RROD xbox and stuck it in a plastic bag, turned it on until the 3 red lights changed to the overheating 2 red lights (about 20 minutes), let it cool down (another 20 minutes) and it worked for about 5 minutes.

What error code is the rrod of light giving? Mine was a 0102 error and the problem was the heatsink not sitting on the GPU properly. I took it off, cleaned it up, put some new thermal paste on it and screwed it on fingertight with 4 nuts and it worked.

To get your error code.

QUOTE
The specific type of hardware failure can be determined by a "hidden" error code

* Turn the xbox 360 on, and wait till the 3 red lights are flashing.
* Press and hold the sync up button (the small white one), while holding that button press the eject button.
* The LEDs will now blink the first number in the code (as described below).
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the second number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the third number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the forth number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will go back to the 3 red flashing lights.

You should be able to determine the difference between the 3 flashing lights and the error code lights by the rate in which they flash.

Here is how you interpret the LEDs to get the code number:

* All four lights flashing - 0
* One light flashing - 1
* Two Lights flashing - 2
* Three lights flashing - 3


0001 power supply problem
0002 Network Interface problem
0003 Power problem could be the PSU could be the GPU/CPU, somehow the console isn't getting clean power from the power supply.
0010 over heating
0011 over heating - If you are receiving this error after disassembling your console make sure to all 8 of the heatsync screws are tightened securely to the board/heatsink holes.
0012 over heating
0013 over heating
0020 (Not yet known, possibly overheating)
0021 DVD Drive Time out - Can be caused by problems with a firmware flash. This is also speculated to sometime be caused by a problem with the southbridge chipset on the motherboard.
0022 GPU Error / GPU Overheating
0023 (not yet known)
...
0101 (not yet known)
0102 unknown error

* though it's most likely GPU related literally means the console does not know what is wrong. possibly a short or cold solder joint somewhere. So far there is 1 major theory for what causes most of these errors is that the Ram, CPU, or GPU are not soldered properly to the mother board due either to poor manufacturing or excessive heat up and cool down cycles that stress, weaken and eventually break the soldered connection.
There are two theories to fixing this one deals with the "X" clamps that hold down the chips. The other involves re-Heating the chips. DO NOT attempt either of these if your console is still under warranty. If your console is still under warranty return it to the store where it was purchased or call MS to have it replaced. I have also heard of limited success by simply switching the AV cable from "HDTV" mode to "TV" mode.

0103 CPU Error/ CPU Overheating - see solution for error 0102
0110 Memory Error / Memory Overheating - see solution for error 0102
...
0200 (not yet known)
...
1000 (not yet known)
1001 (not yet known)
1002 (not yet known)
1003 Hard Drive Error... It could be a problem with the Hard Drive itself or a problem with the internal connection to the hard drive, Try removing the hard drive and playing without it
1010 Hard Drive Error, Can be caused buy a corrupt or missing eProm.
1011 (not yet known)
1012 (not yet known)
1013 (not yet known) possibly a dashboard update error
1020 (not yet known)
1021 (not yet known)
1022 AV cable error... There is a problem with the AV cable, try using a different AV cable. (could also be a problem with the encoder chip)
1023 DVD drive not connected, connect DVD drive to boot
1030 (not yet known)
1031 (not yet known)
1032 (not yet known)
1033 (not yet known)
...
1444 and up There is no "4" in the error codes four lights is a "0" go back and check your code again.
 

playallday

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Hardcore Gamer said:
playallday said:
Hardcore Gamer said:
I bought a rrod and fixed it but I got a hard drive and 3 months live from microsoft for £20 by going here http://www.xboxstorageupgrade.com/ , basically it's for people who bought an Arcade with a 64mb memory card, MS are giving them one cheap as an apology, I think in the USA they are giving away 512mb memory cards but I doubt it will work for you as it's for arcade user only I think.
I just went to that link but I'm a little stuck! My Arcade 360 has RRoD so I can't load up the dashboard! I can't get to mine Console ID! What can I do??


No idea. Have you done the towel trick? I got a RROD xbox and stuck it in a plastic bag, turned it on until the 3 red lights changed to the overheating 2 red lights (about 20 minutes), let it cool down (another 20 minutes) and it worked for about 5 minutes.

What error code is the rrod of light giving? Mine was a 0102 error and the problem was the heatsink not sitting on the GPU properly. I took it off, cleaned it up, put some new thermal paste on it and screwed it on fingertight with 4 nuts and it worked.

To get your error code.

QUOTE
The specific type...........
I have not tried the towel trick. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me but I'll try it later, I'm not planning on fixing the 360 anyways, I just want a cheap hard drive.

I'll get my error code tomorrow and post it here.
 

Hardcore Gamer

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Prime said:
Hardcore Gamer: Don't suggest doing the tower "trick". It is a lot of BS. It does more harm to the consoles.

Ok, I should have said use at your own risk. I'll add that I got my rrod xbox for nothing so didn't care, if it didn't work it was getting thrown out anyway but I read up on the rrod and a lot of people were doing the towel trick and getting their xbox working for a few weeks. There's hundreds of youtube vids and thousands of web posts, I didn't read of one person permanently damaging their xbox.

It got mine working enough so that I could see what was wrong. My xbox, when working, would freeze the screen after a few minutes of play which meant that the gpu wasn't working properly. It turned out that the heatsink wasn't sitting right because if I pressed down on the heatsink while running a game, it wouldn't freeze. When I took my finger off, it froze. The towel trick helped me troubleshoot, I didn't do it as a permanent fix.

If your xbox is under warranty or you know someone who can fix them then I suggest doing that. If you're going to fix it yourself then how else will you get it to turn on? It's broke anyway, it's not working. It's a big paperweight.

Also, the xbox has a built in overheating detector and turns itself off when the cpu gets too hot. It will turn itself off after about 20 minutes with towels wrapped around it or it being in a plastic bag. All PC's have this too.
 

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