The Xbox 360 came with numerous flaws. I have had every RROD (Red Ring Of Death) error you could imagine. I have even had a horrible hardware failure that was almost impossible to troubleshoot. If you too are having issues with your Xbox, look no further. I’m not going to get in depth as to the exact reasons the hardware is failing. I will show you how to fix and prevent any problems you are experiencing. If your Xbox is under warranty DO NOT OPEN IT. Instead you can send it to Microsoft (if you trust them) and have them fix it.
Since the Xbox 360, like most things is made in China it’s a piece of shit. Well, it’s actually a pretty sweet gaming system but the people who assembled it couldn’t give a flying fucking monkeys ball sack if it will be functioning at optimum performance in a few years. They just want to get their 3 cents for the day so they can buy food for their starving family, and really… can you blame them?
So, assemble the following tools:
- A tiny Flathead screwdriver (for prying, popping, loosing- you’re not going to use this for screws at all. )
- A Torx set (Just go to Radioshack and splurge on the interchangeable set. You’ll need it eventually anyway.)
- One of those metal tools to pry meat from crab legs or a heavy duty skewer-metal preferably but wood is OK. (You will use this instead of the small screwdriver if you have trouble getting the two gray “grills” off- you’ll see.)
- A couple small dishes to put screws in. (DON’T LOSE ANY SCREWS)
- A large clean table to work on. Someplace where you can leave things setup for awhile.
- Thermal Paste
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Stack of old school wheat pennies (these are real copper and will be helpful- you’ll see why)
- Electrical Tape
- Q-tips
- Another pair of hands for a couple stages just in case
- A camera if you want. (To take pictures of each stage in case you forget how to put everything together.)
- Beer or Soda on a different table than you are working on to quench your parched throat.
OK, if you have ANY of the RROD you might as well bust this XBOX 360 open and just fix EVERYTHING. Then you don’t have to worry in the future about some other stupid error. Trust me, tonight I have my Xbox spewed out in pieces like a freaking corpse dissection gone wrong. Why? I didn’t fix the problems the first 5 times I had this thing open. Trust me, it’s not fun to take it all apart and put it back together so just do this right the first time.
For those of you worried about breaking something, don’t be. If you are that worried about it, I’m sure you are going to handle each piece with care and they can take a lot more of a beating than you could ever do to them. If you don’t give a shit and just want to rip it open while drunk, wait until you are sober and have a calm and organized friend who is interested in electronics help you. This will keep your Xbox from being mutilated.
The hardest part really is just opening the case and getting the motherboard out.
HOW TO OPEN YOUR XBOX 360 OUTER SHELL:
1 – The Untouched Console
Make sure there is no disc in the drive, and the power is off.
2 – Remove The Facia
Hook your finger inside the USB port door, and ‘pop’ off the facia. It will come off no problem.
3 – Remove The Grills
You now need to remove the top and bottom grills. Pull the front of the grill out away from the console, it should come off with a little effort. The grill is then held in place by the four remaining clips, which can be seen if you look through the little holes on either side of the console. These can be unclipped with a small screwdriver.
If you have trouble releasing the last clip, you may need to pull back the rubber foot next to the grill, which will reveal a small hole. You can then push the screw driver through there.
4 – Undo Front Case Clips
This is now your last chance to back out of opening the console before breaking the warranty sticker on the case!
The four case clips shown in the image below now need to be unclipped. This can be done with a fingernail or screwdriver.
Once you have undone this clips, you can now lift up the top half of the case. You need to keep these apart now, otherwise they will clip back into place.
5 – Undo back Case Clips
This for me is a bit of a pain – not particularly difficult, but I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to be doing when I did it the first time!
Once you have the case open, you’ll see how the clips work.
You will need something flat and strong for this (a flathead screwdriver probably won’t fit). There are tools around specifically for this (check out ebay) but I just use an old pair of tweezers because they are just thin enough.
You need to push your implement through each of the seven slits until you hear a ‘click’ that means the clip is undone, and you can move onto the next one. Once they are all undone, the bottom part of the case will completely come off.
6 – Remove The Eject Button And DVD Bezel
The button is clipped onto the DVD drive. You should be able to get a small Flathead screwdriver round the back, and pry it off.
You don’t actually need any tools to remove the bezel, a fingernail will do. I have turned the console upside down to get a better angle, but this is not necessary.
The bezel needs to be pulled away from the DVD drive at the bottom to release two clips. Once the clips are released, the bezel will slide off.
7 – Undo Case Screws
Once you have the bottom of the case of, you will see the following
Red- Torx 10 Motherboard screws
Green – Torx 10 Case screws
Blue – Torx 9 Heat sink screws
You need to undo the six green case screws. Take off the top section of the case. You will now be able to see inside the console:
8 – Remove The DVD
Unplug the power and SATA cables from the back of the dvd. They should come out with a bit of a tug.
You need to peel back the silver tag just below the bezel, and then you will be able to remove the drive.
9 – Remove Fan And Fan Guard
The piece of metal above the fan needs to be bent up slightly as shown in the picture. With a bit of ‘wiggling’ the cream fan guard will come off, and the fan can be unplugged and removed.
10 – Remove The Ring Of Light
The cream plastic cover is clipped into the circuit board at the top and bottom. You can unclip this and remove.
There are then 3 Torx 9 screws on the circuit board which can be undone, and the ring of light can then be removed.
11 – Remove The Motherboard
You can now turn the console upside down. Whilst making sure the motherboard does not fall out once free – unscrew the remaining Torx 9 & 10 screws from the bottom of the console.
Once you turn the turn it up the right way, the motherboard can be gently removed from the casing.
OK, all that crap is over with. Now do you see why I said you need to fix everything while you have it open? Who cares if it’s not broken, it probably will break eventually if you don’t address it now.
First thing to fix are the 4 small GPU chips from overheating.
Look closely at the motherboard. The underside has these little white things that look like band-aids. That’s exactly what they are- cheap band-aid fixes from China. Microsoft realized that their GPU chips get hot and overheat so they used these piece of shit band-aids to soak up the extra heat. Trouble is, they don’t work and will fail eventually. Pull them all off and throw them away, burn them, feed them to your pet Mastodon, whatever you want- just get rid of them. They are worthless.
Get out your wheat pennies- Set them up in 4 stacks of 3 pennies per stack. Most guides will tell you to use ANY penny- ignore them and use REAL COPPER WHEAT PENNIES if possible, also USE 3 PER STACK, not 2 like most other guides say, finally USE THERMAL PASTE in between each penny. What all of this does is give you more heat absorption from the triple layer, thermal paste helps move the heat along through the pennies, the pennies pushing on the metal case (once back together) will help further disperse the heat. The pennies being wheat pennies means that they were made out of real copper as opposed to zinc. Copper is great at heat absorption and thus the wheat pennies are a better choice than your standard worthless currency. It will be a fix that Microsoft tried to perform for thousands of dollars that you fixed for 12 cents per Xbox 360. Microsoft may throw money at problems, but sometimes some common sense is all it takes to solve a problem. Anyways, enough ranting about Microsoft’s incompetence.
After you have the 4 stacks of 3 pennies apply a very thin layer of Thermal Paste and then wrap the 4 stacks in a very thin layer of electrical tape making sure not to leave any of the copper pennies exposed but not putting the tape on too thick. Apply thermal paste to the 4 GPU (Graphical Processing Units) and set each stack of wrapped pennies upon the chips. Next tape them all down to the motherboard with electrical tape.
Your GPU fix is done. If you had a horrible RROD this might be your first fix! Also your Xbox will run longer without experiencing graphical problems in the future. Congrats! You did this all by yourself! What a great feeling to know you solved a problem that would have cost you hard earned money or wasted time mailing your Xbox to Microsoft to fiddle around with and not really fix.
The next thing you will do is take a look at the bottom of the motherboard. See those 2 X’s? Use a small flat head screwdriver and gently pry at the ends of those to get them to peel back from the circular mounts that come from the heat sinks on the other side. They should pop off fairly easy. Just work slowly and gently. If one is stuck skip it and move to the next and work your way around. They will come off and the heat sinks should fall right out of the motherboard through the other side. Now look at the GPU and CPU chips on the TOP side of the motherboard. They are probably COVERED in nasty gray Thermal Paste which was put on haphazardly. What a freaking mess! Who does this??
Take rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips, gently clean it all off of the chips AND the two heat sinks. Let dry. Apply a thin layer of thermal paste to the chips, replace the heat sinks, the giant X clamps and make sure all is snug.
***UPDATE***
I determined that the tiny aluminum heat-sink that goes over the main GPU creates a huge amount of heat, literally ON TOP of that is the DVD drive which adds additional heat. Look the the plastic piece that directs the airflow into the Xbox. See how most of the air is directed at the CPU heat-sink while the GPU gets only a small fraction of the air? Take a piece of cardboard and look at the motherboard. There should be a couple diodes or transistors you can slide the piece of cardboard between. You basically need to create a direct path for the left fan to blow air ONLY on the GPU heat-sink and not redirect it away to the CPU heat-sink. I have found that some Xbox units were so poorly designed that they still overheat even with all these fixes. In that case, put the Xbox back together but leave the plastic shell, the plastic grills, and the top off. Don’t even bother screwing in the Motherboard. You can just set it inside the bottom half of the metal case. **WARNING** (Do this at your own risk- I am not responsible for you electrocuting yourself or causing problems to your Xbox.) I have left my Xbox open and it ended ALL the overheating issues. It doesn’t look that cool anymore… well- depends on if you like the exposed electronics look… but it makes it ten times easier to clean or apply other modifications (like flashing your DVD drive).
***END UPDATE***
Follow the steps backwards to put your Xbox 360 back together.
Next plug in your Xbox 360 and wrap it tightly in 6-8 towels or coats. Let it overheat for about 15-20 minutes. Then check to see if it automatically shut down. If it didn’t try a little longer. If it still doesn’t shut down just turn it off. Unplug everything, and let it cool off until no heat is coming off the Xbox 360. Then plug it all in and turn it on. It will have overheated which kicks it into default factory settings- you must do this to reset all the BS you just did and get rid of any other error codes so it will load normally and give you a fresh start. Why Microsoft didn’t just give you a reset switch somewhere we will never know.
Now you should be able to plug it in and rock and roll! Congrats on your cleaned up and fully functional Xbox! You spent 1-2 hours and 12 cents! That beats anything Microsoft could have done for you!
Happy Gaming!
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I dont have one of those but if I need to fix one for a friend I will know now. Thanks Jonathan! I like how you introduce the project to the reader.
Great no nonsense article. I like the way you explain to the reader.
Thanks Todd! That was the longest blog article I have ever written, but I really hope it helps people having problems with their Xbox 360. I know this article is drawing a lot of hits to the blog, so if any of your new visitors have any questions please feel free to ask! Your first comment will be subject for approval, but after that you are free to post as much as you would like on NERDTREK.com!
Thanks for visiting and check back often for updates and game reviews!
UPDATE:
If you own an Xbox 360 that is the oldest model (you can tell if it only has component cables and no HDMI) and it keeps having reheating issues even after you have applied all of these fixes you might be out of luck. Or are you? Try this – Take the Xbox 360 completely apart again and set it up on a small table where you can push the side where the hard drive plugs in up against a wall or another solid surface. (You need to find a way to hold the hard drive in without falling out). You are going to have the electronics exposed. Basically take the entire plastic case off including the top of the Xbox 360. It will look like a skeleton 360. Having the internal components exposed will help ventilation and this will stop the overheating problem for good. Of course your Xbox will look a little silly, but honestly- if it works, who cares?
Would I be correct in assuming then that the only way for me to truly solve the problem would be to do the thermal paste (again) and remove the top and have a fan running while I play? My box is one of the oldest and I just replaced my thermal compound and had it running well for a few days, but my gpu has again taken a shit on me.
I will be honest with you- the older Xbox 360′s in the white case without HDMI (component only) will start having those problems eventually. After you fix the thermal compound issue it will work for awhile… then the gpu chips will overheat. Then you do the penny trick by careful not to screw the motherboard back in too tight. THEN it will overheat again, you can then setup the cardboard to position the air from the fan to blow more on the GPU. Then again it will eventually overheat… at which point you can play with the whole Xbox 360 taken apart.
I played with my Xbox 360 at one point with no case- just the motherboard and pieces set on a table next to the TV. I had my DVD drive sitting outside the box so it would be more ventilated over the GPU to keep it cool. You can use a new SATA cable to extend the length and move the DVD away from the unit.
That is the last ditch effort and then your machine will burn out. What you can do then is pull out the entire motherboard and watch a video on youtube on how to use a heat gun to flatten out the board and fix broken solder. You’ll see what I mean when you watch it. This may fry your Xbox, but what do you have to lose?
Let me know how it works out. I love to keep in touch with my bloggers. Please bookmark NERDTREK.com and also PLEASE take the time to visit our FORUM and signup at http://www.nerdtrek.com/forum
Thanks!
Dude thank you so much. I used 4 pennies, instead of 3 to be extra safe but it actually worked. With my xbox, I had to disconnect the AV jack’s to allow it to over heat. I also kept turning it on and off and waiting about an hour. It works fine now and I really hope she lasts. Once again, thank you so much.
No problem man! You have no idea how good it feels to get some feedback from someone I helped. 99.9% of people read articles and never post so you have no idea if anyone is using your advice. Thanks for the feedback!
Be careful not to have the screws too tight that hold your motherboard in place. You don’t want the board to warp from the 4 pennies by putting too much pressure when screwed back in tight. I just mean the screws that hold the chassis and motherboard together. Did you use wheat pennies? You don’t have to, but copper holds heat best and modern pennies are mostly zinc and don’t really do much at all.
Do me a huge favor and if you appreciate this advice please share this on Facebook with all your friends and encourage them to check out my site. If they all tell their friends I get more free promotion and that keeps me writing great articles like this to help people.
Thanks Nate!
-Jonathan Nerdtrek
Followed this to the letter, and it seems to work great! Could not find wheat pennies, so instead I used 4 US Dimes (which are like 90% silver) for each chip. Noticed it was a little thick, so I didn’t screw in the MB too tightly, just enough to feel solid.
One thing, in step 6, you explain how to remove the DVD bezel, but this is not possible until after the upper half of the case is removed (in step 7), so you may want to move the bezel instructions to after the upper half of the case is removed.
After getting it all back together, I turned it on, and was able to play for a while before getting 2 red rings. Turned it off, waited a bit, turned it back on and now it’s working great! I think the heat was needed to seat the thermal paste properly or something. Also, I was using the unit in an un-airconditioned room, and in Florida it can get over 100′ in the room itself, probably caused my problems in the first place (and I probably have a ticking time-bomb waiting in terms of the health of the solder given it was 2 years in an un-airconditioned room). Anyway, I am using it in an air-conditioned room from now on, by the time it dies hopefully something new will be available
Thanks a lot for your detailed directions and pictures, they helped out tremendously!
Thanks James! I’m so happy to hear that it worked for you. One of the things I have noticed about this fix is that it is temporary. You might have a few weeks, a few months, or perhaps even a few years… but it will eventually bite the dust. There are additional ways to fix it should it be a break in the motherboard solder or a problem with the X-clamps not giving enough pressure to keep the heat sinks tight on the GPU & CPU. I can get into those if you want, but let’s wait to see if your xbox 360 keeps working. If not, feel free to come back and I’ll try to help you out!
Thanks for the heads up on the incorrect order on my list. I will fix that ASAP!
A metal piece was clinking around in my Xbox and I have no idea where it goes in the system. I( just know before my Xbox stopped working all together it got very weird. It looked as if there were shadows all over the screen half the time when it came on and then the other half the Xbox turned on but no picture or sound came out. I tried switching the A/V cords but no luck. If you could help me out that would be amazing! Thanks
Take a picture and send it to us or describe exactly what it looks like in detail. I know the inside of the Xbox 360 like the back of my hand.
Thanks!
http://i54.tinypic.com/2wqhglx.jpg
That piece goes on the front left or tight side of the DVD drive. Don’t worry it’s not important.
Magnificent web site. Lots of useful information here. I am sending it to a few buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious. And of course, thanks for your effort!
No problem! Thanks for the positive feedback!
Just finished the repair and this worked for me! I haven’t played any games yet, so not sure how long this will last. Thanks Jonathan!
I could only use two pennies cause the motherboard simply would not fit when I used three. I most certainly would have warped the board if I tried to force it in with the screws. I used lighter fluid to clean off the old thermal compound and it came off in seconds. I checked on other computer sites and people said lighter fluid is ok as long as you do it again with rubbing alcohol afterwards.
I know there’s no permenant fix for this but I sure hope it lasts!
ps john can u somehow add more pictures i dont know alot of what you are sayin im not really all that techy but i have an iq of 141 so i figure stuff out quickly im stuck on the bit with the band aids i dont know what you were talkin about at that part…. im sorry if i sound stupid but pls it’ll help alot a few more pictures would be wonderful.. but if u cant tho no worries, u already done alot… thanks again
I recently replaced the thermal compound on both processing units in my old style XBox 360 (white case). Now I am wanting to try the penny trick. In my first attempt at trying A “PENNY TRICK” (now finding out there is more then one), I stacked about 10 pennies on top of the HANA chip. I wrapped them in electrical tape leaving the bottom of the bottom penny completely exposed with no tape on it. I placed it on top of the HANA chip, put the plastic white fan guard back on (which applied pressure to my stack of pennies), put the DVD drive back in place on top of the fan guard, and started it up with no E74 Error. Left it on for only about 5-10 seconds just as a test run, with no rrod and no error message… Don’t know if that really means anything but here are the facts:
1) The Xbox 360 gets an E74 error and 1 RROD
2) I can get the the console to actually start after getting the error and 1 RROD, by shutting it off, putting something in the way of the fan blades to stop them from turning, starting it up and allowing the 1 RROD to change to 2 RROD because it gets overheated (?), then allowing it to cool off for about 5 minutes.
3) This allows me to play for approximately an hour, before the picture on the game will have a reddish hue to it and then additional distortion with lines and eventually E74.
This lead me to believe it was the HANA chip due to the effects it would gradually bring to the video (the picture I would get on the tv).
Here are my questions:
1) Do I use the pennies on top of the HANA chip, to apply pressure from the top of the motherboard? Or to the chips on the bottom underneath? Or both?
2) Before doing this, I should apply some of my left over Arctic Silver to the chip and/or HANA chip, right?
I mean, am I making a small homemade heat sink for them or just something that is safe to apply the pressure? Ive seen kits that have little mini self adhesive heat sinks that can be placed on top of the chips that are on the bottom of the motherboard… Is that what I am doing here?
Is it the pressure or the heat dissipation or both?
Okay, please get back to me ASAP. I have it already taken apart.
Is there anyway I could just leave it taken apart and play like that without any further fixes or is the pressure needed to HANA chip in order to solve the issue?
Thank you for your time.
-Julie
Hello Julie,
Sorry I didn’t get back to you right away, I have a fairly hectic schedule these days.
I would recommend playing the Xbox with no case at all. Make sure you have it in a safe location and away from children or pets. You probably also want to warn your friends about touching anything, especially while it’s turned on. I ran an Xbox like this for about 3-4 months before more problems cropped up.
Be careful with the number of pennies. I have found that too little may not make contact, but loading up a ton of pennies may have the opposite effect intended and actually “squash” the video chips and cause all kinds of problems.
I have done everything you can imagine with Xbox 360′s including turning them into mini computers. The bottom line? Xbox 360′s suck, buy a PC or a PS3… or wait for the next gen consoles to come out. If you’re a die hard you can keep playing, but it’s a futile effort. It might buy you a few months, but eventually it will die. I’ve had 5 of them and have since switched to PC gaming (well, if I had time at least that’s what I would be doing!!)
If you need more help or hints please feel free to post here again. I can tell you about gently heating the motherboard to allow the connections to refuse. It’s risky, but it’s a last ditch effort if nothing else has worked and you don’t care if you ruin what’s left of your Xbox.
Have a great day!
-Jonathan
Hey johnathan I got an xbox with 1rrod light and when I have my hard drive in i start it ,it boots up the logo and then goes to 1 rrod light then shows E79 and I’ve looked at it and done this and nothing happened.. can you make a list of possible ways I can fix it and send it to my email please
Hello Eric,
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how to fix this error. Have you done a thorough search online?