Fixing 2 faulty XBox 360s I got at Goodwill (One had RROD & other no video)

[russell56443]

Forgot to mention I got my first 360 late last summer,Procrastination RULSE!!! LOL!

[russell56443]

Freakin Lucky!!!!

I have the E-74 Error,I did pretty much all the stuff you did and I still get the error at times :0(

It works Off and ON,did you have this and if so what did you do???

If you didnt have the error I will gladly send you mine and some $ for a working one so you can learn how to fix it too ;0)

[TheBladeJunker]

Yikes on that case dismantle. Leaving the old tape on, lazy. Yeah it kind of sucks how if you have a 360 under warranty as you can't open the case for routine dusting without voiding it even though dust will get in constantly. You should be able to find a cheap hard drive somewhere eventually. With much certainty I'm sure everything you're doing will make those 360s reliable since Microsoft botched it, band aids lol. Castlevania:God of War edition. ^_^ Great job Thomas, lookin' good. :D

[blizzofozz]

If you go to your local Sears they should have the hard drives on clearance. The one I work at has a few for really cheap. :)

[bray8916]

Good work as always. Thanks for posting.

[SPARKY832010]

keep up the good work man. the oily residue is most likely flux from a previous attempt at a reflow. ;)

[coachmillsblog]

well done.  Love the workshop!

[Bylga]

Another great repair!

[28steryan]

Did you have a look at that HackaDay website, it's pretty good.

[thomas3120]

@28steryan Yeah Steve, thanks a lot for the heads up mate :) Was checking it out last night. Some really cool stuff on there. Hehe, when I clicked on the XBox mods, first thing that showed up was a red 360 with arcade stick/buttons mounted to the top side :D

[InfernoV2]

@thomas3120 And the slim motherboard is known as Trinity I think. People claim the Jasper is more reliable than the Trinity though, because on the latter board they put the GPU and CPU into the same chip. Not a very wise decision IMO.

[WorthyouruniverseHD]

actually you can make a custom hardrive for the xbox360 i seen a few videos explaining you get a case housing for the drive, and use your own drive, fit it in solder the plug for that together, and it works just as great. one person i seen had a 1tb drive hooked up(jeez talk about die hard saves!)

[thomas3120]

@WorthyouruniverseHD Yeah was wondering about that Danny :) Somewhere I read that you need to flash the hard drive to work on the 360? Will look around for some videos or tutorials. Haha 1 Tb wow. Kinda funny, as I really wanted to get Skyrim, but don't think my PC will handle it (although does fine with Oblivion & Fallout 3) and then found the 360s.

[WorthyouruniverseHD]

@thomas3120 I own it on pc and ps3, the pc one is intense. I can only set it to High without it going " O_O Diiiie" I have a Nividia 240gt. but that thing is on its last leg.

[daafies2]

great job! ive never had a problem with my release xbox. sucks i just sold my spare hdd.

[thomas3120]

@daafies2 Thanks David, If I may ask how much did you get for the HDD you sold? And what size was it?

[KieranD212]

Thermal pads are those things on the ram, there isnt enough room for a real heatsink. I use Arctic Cooling MX-3 as its non conductive and the heat transfer is better than Arctic Silver 5, i never heard of the thermal paste that was like a epoxy thats interesting for things that dont have mounts and small.

[thomas3120]

@KieranD212 Yeah, I was looking at the top of the ICs but the heatsinks were in the way. Cool never heard of the MX-3 paste, will check it out.

Yeah mate the thermal adhesive/epoxy is awesome. Like you said, for small ICs or where there's no way of mounting the heatsinks...although it is permanent.

[OldSchoolNYCGamer]

Amazing score Thomas, you should do some follow up to these when you get a HDD for em. = )

[thomas3120]

@OldSchoolNYCGamer Thanks Sid! :) Yeah, really can't wait as there is one game I want to get..Skyrim hehe :)

[FritoFredrik]

I do have som 360's laying around needing fixing. Also nice job fixing these 2 XBOX 360's :D

[thomas3120]

@FritoFredrik Thanks Fredrik! What are some of the symptoms that your faulty ones have?

[Padoca85]

You should mod them to custom firmware, so you can use any 2.5 hd on it, i think Retrogametech made a vid on it. By the way, you should also do a contest and give one of these out ;)

[thomas3120]

@Padoca85 Ahh, yeah Martin's channel and videos are awesome :) will def. check it out. The connector looks proprietary though :/

[Padoca85]

@thomas3120 you can buy a x360 hd shell and place a 2.5hdd inside :)

[shock25sr]

Epoxy thermal past...hhmmmm!Good to know such a thing exists :D! The 360 always felt like a rushed job! Microsoft knows how to make "stable" software,not hardware!I`ve always kept away from those things LOL! Awesome job as always mate! Those mini heat sinks look killer :)!

Keep 'em coming Thomas!

Cheers!

[thomas3120]

@shock25sr Yeah, I found out about it a few years back, really great stuff :)

I agree, even comparing the first XBox to the 360. The orig. XBox is like a tank lol :)

[jboypacman]

Nice Thomas! Once more the master fixer. : D

Congrats on the 360.

[thomas3120]

@jboypacman Thanks Jboy! Btw, that's awesome you got the Game Boy adapter and disc for the Gamecube :)

[InfernoV2]

@thomas3120 Xenon - terrible, launch board, most prone to RRoD

Zephyr (Same as Xenon but has HDMI), still a terrible board.

Falcon - Average I guess, these tend to get video problems/E74 errors though. This is the board with the upgraded heatsinks.

Opus - Same as the Falcon but hasn't got HDMI - was only obtainable by sending a Xenon into MS and getting an Opus replacement back.

Jasper - The best of all the motherboards, very reliable but still not perfect.

[thomas3120]

@InfernoV2 Thanks very much for the info and reply :) really appreciate it

[jboypacman]

@thomas3120 Thanks Thomas.

[Sean3614]

Wow, I must have just missed you yesterday or you came in the afternoon.

I was their when they brought out the xbox 360's. Also, on ebay you can get a shell for the 360 cheap and you should have no trouble getting a harddrive but, watch out for fakes. :)

[thomas3120]

@Sean3614 Ohh booy... I have to watch out for fake hard drives lol :) Did you pick up anything good when you were there?

[RetroGameTech]

The heatpads stuck to the RAM on the underside of the mobo are actually quite effective. When the 360 is assembled they come into contact with the outer metal chassis and transfer heat away from the motherboard. They were added to later models of 360 to help reduce the chance of RROD. They also help to keep the mobo from warping which is a large factor in the cause of RROD.

IMHO I would keep them in place. I always fit them to faulty 360s if they don't already have them.

Nice work though! :)

[thomas3120]

@RetroGameTech Thanks Martin, ahh that makes sense. Probably see how it does with the heatsinks. If not, I could add those heatpads on the heatsinks.

[thomas3120]

@RetroGameTech Ahh, btw Martin, will check out your vid right now on fitting 2.5" HDDs. The connector is proprietary, right? And you have to flash the HDD to work, so probably will need to find the software... hehe, anyway, will check your vid out :D

[tb46667]

your the man Thomas. I have a hard time Repinning Nes's

[thomas3120]

@tb46667 Thanks Tom!  ohh..that's a pain though...tightening each pin on the NES connector

[vinnieblacklodge]

never found a good priced 360 at goodwill. nice grab !

[thomas3120]

@vinnieblacklodge Thanks Vinnie :) yeah, this is the first time I've seen them there. How's your NES collection going?

[vinnieblacklodge]

@thomas3120 going well getting back to finding games here and there but i will spend the next few years completing the last 150 or so games most likely

[Polaventris]

Yeah those bugglegum "heatpads" are totally useless! Love to see repair videos, so big thanks!

[thomas3120]

@Polaventris Yeah, Martin (RetroGameTech) mentioned they did conduct heat to the metal chassis, but yeah, does seem to be an afterthought... And np! :)

[whitejezz]

I know who to talk to when and if my xbox breaks now =D

[thomas3120]

@whitejezz Ahh man, it's really easy :) Initially I was scared to open it with all the clips but not bad at all hehe. There's like a billion videos on opening and fixing 360s

The only thing I would say is make sure where the CPU & GPU mate with the heatsinks is totally clean

[audiogamer]

very nice find, time to mod? look up xbins they will have what you need

[thomas3120]

@audiogamer Thanks :) Yeah, may try the original XBox first though. Cool, will check out that site, thanks for the heads up :)

[thomas3120]

@InfernoV2 Just wondering what you were saying about HDMI? Also, where do you find the mainboard name?

[InfernoV2]

@thomas3120 I deleted those comments as I posted the first one before watching the whole video.

The one with the added copper pipe and extra piece on the GPU heatsink, that was added to the Falcon and Jasper boards, but there were some non-HDMI refurb boards MS sent back out that had them as well. That's the Opus board I mentioned.

There's plenty of info on the internet on how to determine the boards. But I know for certain you have a Xenon and an Opus. :p

[thomas3120]

@InfernoV2 Yeah, I found a site that listed a bunch of different MB revisions (Falcon, Xenon, etc...) but didn't mention where to look on the MB. Do you know what revision MB is cons. worst or best. I think I also read the newer revisions had HDMI support?

As long as I can get Component vid. (what my TV has) I'll be happy :)