I'm not one to usually ask for help because there's never been a box i couldn't fix. Well it looks like i met my match with this abortion of a xbox. My story is in quotes, if you don't want to read the story then skip past the quotes to the bottom.
Quote:So 5 months ago I get the xbox and it has rrod 0102, so i do the xclamp replacement with as5, start it up and overheat it, and it fixes the error. I cut out the mesh, clean the fans and after 10 hours of testing I give it back to my customer. Yesterday he calls and tells me that now it's freezing, it has error 102, 103, and e79.
Well after telling him to clear the cache on the phone I decide it's probably better for me to fix it. So i told him ok bring it back to me it's been about 5 months since i fixed it so i'll look at it, probably doesn't need much work...boy was i wrong.
I turn it on and it goes straight to the dash, where's the rrod? So i turn off the xbox turn it back on, and it throws me a e-79 well that's a new one for me. I turn off the 360 again, take off the hard drive and keep getting e-79. I need to get to the dash to be able to clear the cache. So knowing that it has the freezing issue i'd rather do the penny fix now. So i rip the 360 all apart again, do the penny fix the old fashioned way and obviously the board is flexing. So i don't even try to power it. I try with 2 pennies this time and secure the board and heatsinks down to the tray and try to power the xbox. Now like i expected i get a 0020, the board is flexing too much. So i try one penny and poster puddy and i get the xbox to boot up. Go into the system settings to clear the cache, then i turn off the xbox then turn it back on. I start the xbox with the sync button pushed in until it loads the dash. This supposedly clears any bad updates that would cause a e-79 error.
So problem solved right?
Now it's time to fix the hardware errors...
I turn off the xbox and seperate it into sections so the gpu gets no airflow. I let it overheat for 15 minutes and then shut it off. Power it back on and it goes to the dash. This should fix any of the digital backbone or gpu errors this console is experiencing.
Now it's time to test...
My testing phase takes time, i don't want to give an xbox back to a customer and proclaim it's fixed if it just freezes again, what kind of a+ certified technician would do that? Anyway I play halo 3 for about 45 minutes or so till i get to the end of the first level. It goes to load the cinema for the last part and the video goes out, ok never seen this happen. So now i power cycle the xbox and it starts back up, I try to load a custom game and it freezes loading the last 2 seconds of it.
So now i get out my thermometer with the probe and overheat the gpu again. I let it go for a good 15 minutes and then let it cool down completely.
Just like i was expecting i got it to load a custom game now, but 2 minutes into the custom game it freezes. So i do something i've never done, i block all airflow to the gpu and let it overheat for a good 28 minutes. The top of the heatsink reads 185.2 F when the xbox shut off (i'm guessing this is the air temp on top of the heatsink, obviously the temp is way of compared to actual temp). Now I power it on it and plays the game and didn't freeze yet, but i'm pretty sure it's going to.
I think around 5:30 i gave up an went to bed.
So now my question is, with all these errors fixed (0020, 0102, 0103, e-79, and freezing issues) do you think i should buy a heatgun and infared thermometer gun, an do the heatgun fix? Or should i just take my chances and return the conole to the customer?
Also the first time i took this xbox apart i realized someone has already been in it and it's missing a couple components.
Here's some high res pics of that
Pretty sure this is the gpu side
You can see it's missing one smt component
It's nearly the same with the cpu also
I don't know if these missing componets would be the reason it's freezing, I've sold xbox's with missing components before and they all worked fine and are still working fine. I really don't get what's making this xbox freeze.
If any of you guys had success with using a heatgun i want to hear from you.
That is an ok tut, just do the heatgun fix. You don't have to be scared of it. I got a busted one on ebay for $40 shipped. They guy had already attempted to fix it and failed. Had the x-clamps on it and everything. No good. Used my heatgun for about 20sec on cpu, gpu, controller chip above the gpu, and memory chips. hold the gun over each chip for about 20 seconds about 2 inches away, while moving the gun in a circular motion so it doesn't concentrate the heat in one area. do this on each side of the board. Let it cool for about 15 min and do it again. then let it cool for a few hours. Put you xbox back together and enjoy.
Hey thanks for the advice, but it looks like what i did last night fixed it. After 3 hours of halo you would think it would freeze. Anyway i think i'm going to do the 12v mod with a switch and probably throw it back together (i spent enough time and money fixing this thing). If the xbox comes back to me within a month i'll for sure buy a heatgun and try it.
Hey, the problem that box is having sounds alot like mine... and I was in the exact same spot you are right now. Except for the fact that about 2 days later, the problems come back in full force, freezing followed by video artifacts and lastly no video with audio. That is of course if I let it get that far without heatgunning it... I'm going to try this "penny fix" but I'm skeptical of this because I'm sure my problem is with the HANA chip and I've read that it's not a chip that would be affected by pressure so, I dunno.... any suggestions??? I'm fed up with this thing!
