Repair Guide - XBOX 360 – Three Red Lights On
WARNING : Proceed at your own risk, this information was obtained from the internet. Please send feedback on your experience to verify the procedure described below:
Table of Contents1. Reasons why this works2. Getting prepared3. Opening the case4. Removing the motherboard5. Removing and preparing the heat sinks6. Fixing the heat sinks7. Check point 18. Check point 29. Other tips and tricks
Reasons why this works.When Microsoft designed the 360, they chose a slightly unusual way of mounting theheat sinks to the processors. When the console is running, there is a tremendousamount of heat build up inside the case. This causes the motherboard to flex against theX-Clamp support plastic (see picture 1) which in turn can cause the soldered joints onthe processors to come away from the motherboard itself. This results in the Red Lightsof Death.
Due to the inefficient design of the heat sink clamping method, this is a very largeproblem. Although Microsoft haven’t (as of yet) come up with a decent design fix. On thelatest ‘Elite’ versions of the console they have used epoxy resin to ‘glue’ the corners ofthe processors down to stop the flexing that causes this error (see picture 2). Whethertheir fix will stand the test of time remains to be seen.What the modification contained in this manual achieves is to alleviate board flexing andapply uniform pressure to the processors. This uniform pressure is enough to ‘remake’the faulty joints resulting in a working console. Also, because the pressure on theprocessors is uniform the heat sinks do a much better job of dissipating the heat buildup.
Getting preparedTo perform this modification, you require some tools and some specific screws andwashers. If you have purchased this document as part of the repair kit, you will haveeverything you need to perform this modification.
List of Tools and Supplies http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_hi/105-0262952-5687642?url=search-alias%3Dtools&field-keywords=t8+torx&x=15&y=19
T10 Torx Screwdriver , T8 Torx Screwdriver5mm Flat washers (B&Q avf-064968) 5mm x0.8x10 machine screws (B&Q avf-069918) Arctic Silver Thermal Compound Thin Terminal Screwdriver Wooden Skewer or similar (must be THIN)
Do not substitute the screws/washers with a differentbrand or size. The size of these is crucial for the modification to work as intended.
Opening the caseFirstly, remove the front face plate from your Xbox: Take a look at the front of the Xbox360 and insert your thumb into the door that covers the two USB ports on the right of theunit. With your other hand squeezing the upper and lower sides of the face plate, pull outthe face plate with your thumb. With not much effort, the face plate should come awayfrom the unit with ease. I wouldn’t force it however –if it doesn’t want to come off easily itwill be catching on something. You don’t want a trashed console case after all yourefforts.
After the face plate has been pulled off you will see a silver Microsoft sticker coveringboth halve of the case; remove this – goodbye warranty! There are four clips locking thetop half of the case to the bottom half. Do not attempt to wedge the clips out at this point,we need to remove both grey plastic endplates first.With care, gently bend outwards, the right grey ventilation shield on the right side of theunit so that you can see a bit inside. You will notice that the grey side piece attaches toboth the bottom and top white chassis. Look through the holes on top of the unit tolocate the areas where the grey side pieces attaches to the white housing. What youneed to do is take the thin skewer and push down, through the white holes (located onboth the top and bottom of the Xbox 360) where the clips of the grey side piecesconnect. Slowly pull out the grey pieces away from the unit while unlocking the clips andeventually it will release itself. You will find that once the first couple of clips are releasedthe rest come away quite easily. You don’t have to use a wooden skewer for this. If youhave a metal rod (or the inside of a BIC type pen) this will work too.
Removal of the left side piece is identical to the first except you need to remove the harddrive (if you have one) before it will release. Also, one of the holes (where you’re goingto put the skewer is covered by the Xbox’s rubber foot. Remove the foot to reveal a holeso you can release the clasp holding the side piece to the unit. Once both side piecesare removed, we can open the white body of the case as follows:
1. There are 6 retention slots on the rear of the unit and 4 clips on the front ofthe unit2. Unlatch the four front clips first using the terminal driver.3. Once all 4 are undone, gently lift up the front of the case about an inch4. Locate the six slots on the rear of the unit5. Using the terminal driver, push gently but firmly inwards on each slot in turn6. If done successfully, you will hear a click each time.7. Once all 6 are unclicked, we can lever up the rear of the case and removethis half completely.
8. Flip the unit over and you will see 14 silver screws and 8 black screws.Remove these using the T10 Torx driver and the T8 Torx driver respectively.9. Once all the screws are removed, turn the Xbox over and you can lift off thetop part of the case.
10. To remove the DVD drive, simply lift upwards. Disconnect the power cableand the Sata cable from the drive (or the motherboard – doesn’t matter)11. The white fan shroud which leads to the GPU and CPU can be removedagain by lifting upwards. There is a retention hook at the rear but this shouldjust pop out when you lift the shroud.12. At the front of the unit you will see a daughter PCB where the power buttonwould normally be. Unclip the white bezel and using the T8 Torx screwdriver,remove the three retaining screws.13. Unplug the daughter PCB We can now remove the motherboard from thecase. It should just lift right out. At this stage take extra care as the motherboard is very delicate.14. Removing and Preparing the Heat SinksThe fixing method used by Microsoft leaves a little to be desired, mainly because of theundue pressure it puts right beneath a small centre point on each processor. We’regoing to reaffix the heat sinks using a more ‘traditional’ method that will give moreuniform support. First we’ve got to get the X-Clamps off.
1. On the underside of the motherboard PCB you will see two silver x-shapedclamps. Using the terminal driver, pry off each corner of the clamp.2. It’s somewhat easier here to do two corners along the same side first. Thatway we can just wiggle the other two fixing points loose.3. Once both clamps are removed, flip the board over and you’ll be able togently lift up and remove the two heat sinks. The low-profile aluminium one isthe GPU heat sink.4. Using a suitable spanner or pair of pliers, remove the four fixing bolts fromeach of the heat sinks. We don’t need these anymore, but if you ever intendto put your unit back to how it started, hang on to them.5. We need to clean any residue of thermal compound from both the undersideof the heat sinks and the top of both processors. Firstly, get rid of any excessusing a plastic scraper (you should have one that came with your thermalcompound). Be careful when cleaning the processors!6. Once the excess is gone, use Isopropyl alcohol with a lint free cloth to bringthe underside of each heat sink up to scratch. There should be no evidenceof ever having thermal compound on them.7. On the processors, again use Isopropyl alcohol to remove the residue. Only alittle is needed and with a little bit of effort you can get the tops of them to amirror finish. We want them as clean as possible.8. Apply a little thermal compound to either the top of the processor orunderside of the heat sinks in accordance with the manufacturer’sinstructions.9. Re-fix the heat sinks in accordance with the diagram below.
10. When tightening the screws, do top left, then bottom right, then top rightfollowed by bottom left. At this stage do not over tighten the screws. Just usea finger and thumb on the screwdriver and stop when you can’t easily turn itfurther.11. Once all four screws on each heat sink are done up as per step 9, tighteneach screw one more quarter turn.
Check Point 1At this stage, reassemble everything back into the case but don’t screw anything down.Reattach the RF daughterboard to the front of the motherboard and plug in the videoand power cables. Press the power button….You will almost certainly NOT get 3 red lights now as we have fixed the compromisedjoints on the processors. If you get all green, you’re good to go and reassembleeverything back into the housing. Make sure all screws are done up tight (you don’t needthe 8 small black Torx screws that used to hold the heat sinks now) and don’t forget toclip the Ring of Light cover plastic back in place.
Check Point 2Once everything’s back together fire the console up again to check you’ve still got allgreen and away you go.
Other tips and tricks: If at any of the two stages above, you didn’t get green lights, there are a few other thingsyou can try before sending the console off to us. We are not responsible for any furtherdamage done to the console with any of these methods, including the main fix.
1. When reaffixing the heat sinks, only use one washer on the underside of themotherboard. This forces the clamps down harder onto the processors. This canalso be achieved by using a shim or similar between the heat sink and processor.
2. Double-check that your heat sink screws are tight. Don’t be afraid to tighten themup with quite some force, but don’t break the processors either. If you follow thetightening tips earlier in this document they should be tight enough however.
3. Just before check point 1, before the heat sink screws are fully tightened, youcan attempt to ‘reflow’ the GBAs under the processors by running the consolewithout the fans attached (and without the cover attached too) - Turn the consoleon and you will get three red lights. After a few seconds the processors will beginto overheat because of the complete lack of cooling and the 3 red lights willbecome 2 red lights (overheating). Leave it in this state for 60 seconds then turnthe console off and tighten the fixing screws on the heat sinks.
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