Repairing the Xbox 360 RROD

So a few months ago, a buddy had his 360 red ring on him permanently. Unfortunately it was a launch 360 and so it was no longer under the extended warranty.

Well last night we decided to go ahead and poke around inside it and see if we couldn't repair it ourselves (after seeing some videos / tutorials online).

We started by taking the 360 apart, which is by far the most difficult part of the project (or at least to us it was). We took it slow, not wanting to break anything. Getting it down to just the motherboard, it looks like this, and you can clearly see the heatsinks:



On the flipside of it you can see the x-clamps which are used to secure the heatsinks to the CPU / GPU:



Taking the x-clamps off was tough because we had to use a flat screwdriver to pry them off, while not wanting to bend / scratch the motherboard itself.

Now there are several tactics people have used to self-repair the 360 red ring, however living in alaska we don't have easy access (non-shipped) to any of the custom stuff designed for it, so we decided to go for the basic thermal grease replacement. As well as replacing the xclamps (which have been shown to dislodge the heatsinks) with screws. So we cleaned off all the old thermal grease from the GPU / CPU & both heatsinks, leaving us with:



Fortunately I had some Arctic Silver 5 around from my new computer, which we reapplied to all the parts and then clamped down the heatsinks with machine screws.

Then we reassembled everything (except for half of the case which wasn't able to fit as I'll explain later).

The final step in the process was to turn it on, and then force it to overheat by blocking the fans. We did this for about 20 minutes while we stacked wood for our furnace.

After 20 minutes, we turned it off..let it cool for a few then plugged it in and voila the Green light....rising from the dead:



All in all, the project took us about 3 hours..but most of that time was spent making sure we took our time taking everything apart carefully. It only cost us about 10$ for all the parts we needed to replace everything, which was great b/c otherwise he would have spent 200 on a new 360.

It was a good learning experience for me, and while I know not all of the 360's problems can be fixed this easily...it was still awesome seeing that green light instead of the 3 flashing reds.