Ode to you mighty Falcon: How do you guys fix your RRoD 360?

TheGardenTool

2[H]4U
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Mar 12, 2006
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What RRoD fix methods have you guys used around here? My trusty Falcon system finally died after more than 7 years. It hasn't been used for more than a year when my prepaid Live expired and didn't feel like renewing it just to use it for Netflix, etc. So PS3 has been doing that duty in the living room quite remarkably so I never went back to booting the 360 even after the update came to not have Live a requirement any longer.

The short story is my UPS battery died the other day and haven't gotten around to replacing or finding a surge protector so I've only had the TV and DVR plugged into the outlet. I figured out the 360 had enough slack in its cables to reach another outlet so I tried it out. After doing the updates, it played roughly 90 seconds of a video before RRoD.

I have a few games I haven't even played on it yet that I bought so I would like to get enough time to finish those, so I'm not sure I'll be willing to do the towel trick. It's definitely not worth $200+ on a new one, and not sure I trust any of the 360s enough to buy a used one for any price. I did see IFixIt sells a kit for $30 that replaces the X-Clamps with screws, and has a few heatsinks to put on some other components and new thermal tape etc. Seemed a little expensive for $30 but I guess for a complete kit with the tools to do it might not be too bad to try.
 
I did the X-Clamp fix back in the day, I only got about four extra months out of the unit but it worked.
 
Take it apart , heat gun and about 10 minutes of careful re-heating. Worked a treat for my last RROD (my 6th 360 at that point). There are many tutorials on Youtube for this method.

I tried the towel trick on my first one and it worked but its really a poor mans version of using a proper tool like a heat gun. My console failed 5 days afterward.

To be honest once its RROD'd the odds are VERY much against you. Anything you do to "fix" it will only delay the end game. Mine is cracking along but I fully expect it to die.

Thankfully Microsoft FINALLY got around to release better versions of the hardware that no longer suffer this issue.

It makes me laugh when people mock the Xbox One for having a giant central fan to cool it down. What did they expect MS to do after its first fuck up? Pay another $1 Billion to fix Xbox One RROD's?
 
I did the x clamp fix which worked for a while. Then got it again.
The next time I used a butane torch and carefully heated the BGA contacts from the reverse side without unclamping the chips. That worked too, but alas, the thing just wants to die. now it runs intermittently for an hour or so when it wants. I have however, given up on 360 gaming. I may buy a new one some day but who knows.
 
I know mine is in the internal power supply circuits. sometimes it will work, other times it dies right away. i think if i ever get the itch to play one again, i'll just acquire a slim or -e version and be done with it.
 
What RRoD fix methods have you guys used around here? My trusty Falcon system finally died after more than 7 years. It hasn't been used for more than a year when my prepaid Live expired and didn't feel like renewing it just to use it for Netflix, etc. So PS3 has been doing that duty in the living room quite remarkably so I never went back to booting the 360 even after the update came to not have Live a requirement any longer.

The short story is my UPS battery died the other day and haven't gotten around to replacing or finding a surge protector so I've only had the TV and DVR plugged into the outlet. I figured out the 360 had enough slack in its cables to reach another outlet so I tried it out. After doing the updates, it played roughly 90 seconds of a video before RRoD.

I have a few games I haven't even played on it yet that I bought so I would like to get enough time to finish those, so I'm not sure I'll be willing to do the towel trick. It's definitely not worth $200+ on a new one, and not sure I trust any of the 360s enough to buy a used one for any price. I did see IFixIt sells a kit for $30 that replaces the X-Clamps with screws, and has a few heatsinks to put on some other components and new thermal tape etc. Seemed a little expensive for $30 but I guess for a complete kit with the tools to do it might not be too bad to try.

I would say use the $30 and put it towards a used slim version. I've gone through about 4 or 5 xbox RRODs. Unless you change out the type of solder on the BGA everything is just a bandaid fix. I've added fans, bigger heatsinks and in the end it always failed. On ebay I've seen xbox 360 slims as low as $80.
 
My seven year old unit was on its last legs as well. I traded it in to the MS store for a hundred bucks towards an xbox one. That promotion is ending soon so thought I'd add that here.
 
Sad thing is that this was a systemic design problem not only with the xbox360 but with a wide range of laptops, it has to do more with improper thermal design for the solder alloy used. The 360 suffered by the nature of it's use which cycled more between high and mid/low temps, and this expansion/contraction is what created the micro fractures.
 
Sad thing is that this was a systemic design problem not only with the xbox360 but with a wide range of laptops, it has to do more with improper thermal design for the solder alloy used. The 360 suffered by the nature of it's use which cycled more between high and mid/low temps, and this expansion/contraction is what created the micro fractures.

I had two laptops die (just out of warranty) due to solder problems on dedicated GPUs in the mid 2000s, it was a very unfortunate time.

Then I got rid of one of them by selling it for parts days before the class action lawsuit came through, ha!
http://en.community.dell.com/dell-b...hancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide

MS had a ton of consoles die on them, fortunately they handled it fairly well after the problem became huge.
 
Seems appropriate:

1381394472_FALCON-PUNCH-mapware3640-31563450-600-480.jpg
 
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