I didn't really know where to put this, but my parents old Xbox 360 died the other week. So I took to tubin and learned how to fix them. It's really easy, the hardest part is finding the right size parts - I know I need 5mm x0.8x10 machine screws, but I can't seem to find them for sale here in the UK (online).
However, I can order 'kits' on eBay, so I went and did that.
I took the machine apart and removed the mountains of filth that had built up in there (thinking all the time, man, no wonder this thing is over heating).
Anyway, getting to the nitty gritty of it - when I lifted the heatsinks of the GPU and CPU it was quite amusing.
On the CPU, there was only a thin layer of thermal paste residue. There was a lot of paste, but barely any was still on the unit it's self, instead it had all melted and smudged away to the side. The X-clamps had little to no 'pull' on them.
Er, just incase you don't know, the X-clamp is a 'design idea' that M$ execs must have been in love with. Imagine if you were tied to a wall around each wrist and ankle, and on the other side of the rope was a weight on a pully. So with enough strength you could theoretically have your back against the wall and raise both of your legs and arms.
That's pretty much the gist of it, instead of a weight there's a heat sink pressing on a processing unit.
http://www.sleepygamer.com/wp-content/u ... clamps.jpg
Anyway, as the unit over heats and the solder starts to fall, the board warps. Bending the X-clamps out of shape. Thus there's little to no contact with the heat sink, causing the paste to melt.
A couple of replacement parts later, some new paste and a lot of alcohol stings in a cut i gained from the X-clamp, my parents old Xbox now works and I'm flogging it on ebay for cash
Just wanted to share my success story over the RROD
