Hardware Xbox 360 Slim: Freezing then Red Dot

[titanix]

Hi people. There was about a month since I last played on my Xbox 360S, I was busy at work and school so didnt had time. Today I decided to play some Forza, so I turned my game on and started playing. After a few minutes the console crashed with the screen being screwed with a checkered pattern. Well it happened in the past, so I did what I always do: turn off the system then turn on again. But today when I turned it on again, the TV displayed the No Signal message and the Xbox Led went red, it didnt even inicialize the controller by flashing the 4 circular lights. And thats it... After a while I managed to turn the system on again but after a few seconds it crashes again the same way and it wont turn on right after the crash since the light goes red.
I made all the checks and tests I could: unplugged the cords, the HDD, cleared the system cache (on the few times the system stayed up before crashing again), tried with another AV/HDMI cable, tried going offline, checked the cooler, tried logging off but the results were all the same. Everything is OK and working, no overheating, also. I just couldn't check the power supply since I don't have a spare, but I think its ok, since the led color doesnt change anytime and it isnt overheating (It couldn't, everything crashes within seconds
I took some pics too:
The Red Led: http://i.imgur.com/hDxaeUT.jpg
Crashed at launch: http://i.imgur.com/fel0VgB.jpg?1
Managed to enter in a game for a few seconds before crashing: http://i.imgur.com/ayMzblk.jpg
Im starting to think its some GPU failure, don't know what to do. Tried help at the Xbox official board, but people there are braindead. Anyone else have experienced this before? Possible fix hints?

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Sounds like your GPU has failed given what you have said with "screen being screwed with a checkered pattern"

Thats normally a good indication the GPU is borked. Time to contact Microsoft to get it fixed if your still covered

 

[DinohScene]

^ exactly that.

you can try and reheat the chips but it won't be a permanent fix.
Get it reballed, or send it to MS if you still have warranty.

 

[titanix]

Warranty expired long ago. I wonder how this happens. The console was alone for over a month, turned off, resting on his place, free from dust and everything. Then I try to use and come to this... Can I reball my console at home myself? It costs too much to fix this here where I live, and I dont trust people who do this, they always screw your console so you need to get back to them in near future so they get paid twice.

 

[DinohScene]

Reball, no you can't DIY that.
I then suggest selling it and getting a new one.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Warranty expired long ago. I wonder how this happens. The console was alone for over a month, turned off, resting on his place, free from dust and everything. Then I try to use and come to this... Can I reball my console at home myself? It costs too much to fix this here where I live, and I dont trust people who do this, they always screw your console so you need to get back to them in near future so they get paid twice.

Hint is in what you said
"console crashed with the screen being screwed with a checkered pattern. Well it happened in the past, so I did what I always do"

It was failing already you just got unlucky and it died when you came back to it, If you dont trust others to reball it, time for a new one. I doubt you would have the precise instruments at home to reball a gpu

 

[titanix]

Thanks a lot for the help people. I will see what gets cheaper, send to Microsoft or try to reball it somewhere, I saw the process, its definitely impossible to do at home, it requires some expensive specific machinery, but its hard to find someone reliable among the gangster over here.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

maybe just buy another and put your hdd in the new one

 

[DinohScene]

Aye good luck~

 

[MrJellyTurtle]

Thanks a lot for the help people. I will see what gets cheaper, send to Microsoft or try to reball it somewhere, I saw the process, its definitely impossible to do at home, it requires some expensive specific machinery, but its hard to find someone reliable among the gangster over here.

Hope this isnt to late, but oh well it might help for the future. I have had the exact same problem as you for about 2 months now, more notebly when watching any form of video... and less often during games/dashboard. Now ive had this problem in the past but I passed it off by getting a new hdmi cable.. making me assume it was video related. Now its back and im starting to think that it may not just be the xbox but also the tv.. my tv is quite old and im pretty sure the hdmi ports aren't in great shape. So I swapped them around and occassionally while streaming movies i would get the checkerboard but still hear the movie and controller stays connected.

Anyway sorry to babble on, in the long run im pretty sure I've fixed the problem by using one of the original xbox 360 (white) Av/Hdmi cable... the one with a hideous amount of coloured cables that still outputs decent HD. Been running xbox fine now with no freezing to date.

Hope this helps, maybe if you are still having the problem you can at least try it.

 

[steveroo]

what's the odds of this happening to a slim? I bought a refurbished one and hope I don't have a problem with mine.

 

[Joe88]

very low
the slim has built in protection against overheating, it will just shut off and a blinking red dot will appear, and will stop once the chip has cooled down
thus in turn prevents the problems that the first gen 360 has, the regular one did have overheat protection however the thermal sensor was only on the cpu side and completely ignored the gpu chip

as too why it happened here?
might have been a defect, or simply another cause, but its rare for it to happen on the slim in any event