I recently aquired an xbox 360 and would consider myself to be a newbie with this, but not with pc's (over 20 years in technical and teaching).
The xbox 360 had the rrod and looking at some of the guides I managed to fix it.
From a pc technicians point of view I found that some of the guides left out really important parts with regard to opening up and working on the xbox.
In all essence the 360 is a really fast computer and should be treated as such.
I have not really seen one guide mention an antistatic strap, plenty have pictures (and videos) some have the mainboard out completely with nothing on it.
I did notice that someone already mentioned the use of the spring washers, where do people get their ideas from? This just wrecks the mainboard and can cause other problems.
My main concern is how the thermal paste is being applied.
On some consoles I have seen the thermal paste is all over the cpu and gpu chipsets.
Just wrong and likely to cause more problems.
Anyone who wants to apply the paste themselves should look at the guide here that looks most similar to the 360 chips
The main problem with applying the paste wrong is that arctic silver, is metal based, this means it conducts electricity. So if it is applied anywhere other than the core, it can cause short circuits.
Recently I got 2 more 360's that were supposed to have been fixed already. One by someone who claims to have fixed over 30 consoles. On opening them up I can only say that they looked like someone used a hammer and chisel to fix them.
Both 360's had different screw lengths on both chipsets. Both had varying amounts of washers, some with nylon some without.
The guy who claimed to have fixed over 30, his was the worst. One of the heatsinks had a stripped thread. The screws were wrong, he used spring washers and the thermal paste was everywhere. All over the tiny resistors on the top of the cpu, some was even over the surrounding mainboard.
On top of this it looked like both cases had been opened by someone using a crowbar.
So, if you are thinking of fixing your rrod, take you time and look at several guides, including pc techincal ones.
If you've already had your 360 fixed maybe worth checking before it dies forever.
There is no absolute fix for the 3RROD, take it from me ive tried all the methods and worked on over 64 over 2 years, the best you can do is try to reflow the solder underneath the GPU BGA chip ( 95% of the red ring problems are due to this)the solder under there becomes damaged with exessive heat either by long hours of play, the console being enclosed not receiving proper ventilation, or through playing graphics intensive games( the GPU works harder and becomes hotter)or a mix of all 3 which some would argue is "normal use" for a video game system. So the most common "quick fix" is replacing the X clamps with machine screws and creating space with washers as well as changing to a higher quality thermal compound that the cheap crap MS slatters on there but at best this will only fix it temporarily a couple of months maybe a year depending on:
1. how many fixes the console has had
2. If the fixes are done correctly
What the xclamp fix does is as you tighten the screws down on the heatsink it pushes the damaged solder connections under the chip down so they make contact again but this eventually does more harm than good as the connections will get damaged again soon.
Also you can try and reflow the chip but thats more harder and requires a solder rework station but it gives slightly better results as instead of squishing up the damaged solder you liquify it again with heat then it solidifies and this fixes any cracks ect that caused the loss of connection under the chip.
Again these things are temporary fixes because the xbox 360's design doesnt allow the GPU to get proper ventilation ( the DVD drive is on top of it) and among other flaws it will be afflcted by the hardware problem again. I haven't opened a newer model xbox 360 but 05, 06,07,08 xboxes all catch the red lights rather easily.
