my Xbox 360 has just started crashing, it is showing no red lights, just crashes in menue somtimes but normally mid game useually after a couple of seconds playing. Here are some images of the screen when it has crashed.
Just been looking at it more closly and it seems to be when it gets hot could this be similar to 'the red lights of death' an overheating problem has anyone opened theres up and changed the thermal compound.
Sorted out the problem, I rebeded the two heatsink the thermal compound was completly dryed out there was very little of it still on top of the processor, (a small circle in the middle of the processor) but this did not sort it.
So I went to microsoft and it said make sure your clock is set to the right time I thought what the hell but I'll try it anyway, so I checked it and it wasn't (I'd been on holiday and left it completly unpluged, still don't think it should of lost the time)I put the right time in and hey presto it's working like when it was brand new.
Just played it for 10 hours with a couple of breaks but left the console on the whole time no problems, yay me (an maby microsft a bit)
these will show how exactly what you will need to.
if you sorted the heatsinks out yourself then you obviously know how to remove the board so that is half the battle dude.
NOW a few words of caution m8......
if you do this wrong and apply to much heat to the wrong part of the board you will kill it.if you have a look at some of the other vids on youtube you will see people blasting there whole boards with the heatgun (one moron wraps the thing in tin foil????).DO NOT do that. alot of people after have found that after blasting the whole board that the 360 won't boot anymore unless you unhook the dvd drive.
just to make sure you fully understand this is only a temperary fix and you will end up back to sqaure one at some point in time. it is very difficult to say how long it will last for . for some people it has lasted for months and others only a week or two but if done right you should be ok for a while.i have done a few now with this method and all are still going ok with no fried boards at all.
know the tools i use are not as good as the guy in the vids but they work just fine. set your baord up so that you can get to BOTH sides of the board without moving or even touching the board.to start with i use a standard hairdryer on both sides of the board for a few minutes to warm the area up a little(to stop the board heating up to fast) then swich to a standard 600w heat gun, again on both side of the board for a few mins( no more than 30-40 seconds on one side without switching) then go back to the hair dryer again for a few mins and this will help stop the board from cooling down to fast.then leave your board to cool down for while (1/2 to 3/4 of an hour) and then but it all back together again and you should be good to go.
and to finish ,as the problem is caused by bad solder which cracks after time the only permanant fix is too have all that nasty solder removed and replayced with better stuff but you need to be a soldering god to do this and is well outwith the skills of most people.
