RROD & E74 How To Reduce Likelyhood

Dooney · 03-17-2009, 10:51 AM

Hello All,

I work for a UK service center which repairs consoles for 1 of the top 3 console vendors (Sorry can not say which one) but can confirm its not Microsoft

Anyway, thought id would share some wisdom with those who do not already know or people who maybe damaging their consoles without actually knowing.

Things you must ensure

1) Good ventalation around the xbox 360 with no added heat sources from external devices near it.

2) Power cycling : Ensure that you never switch the console on / off without allowing a substantial cooling time. If you wish to change a game use eject button, instead of powering off.

The reasons behind most problems on the 360 are heat & soldering related, the GPU & Memory are all BGA devices and since the introduction of RoSH and therefore Lead free solder heat & stress have been a massive problem for manufacturing electronic devices, especially BGA devices.

There are many videos on Utube of how to repair the consolse yourselves but the best way is not to get in that position in the first place.

There is no 100% guarantee that this will totally stop the problem but will massively reduce the risk.

If anyone has any questions, just fire away (Just don't ask anything about who I work for

)

Blain · 03-17-2009, 07:35 PM

I agree about prevention being the best policy, and funny-lie enough I have fixed a E74 tonight for a friend, although it will most probably need a re-flow sooner rather than later, my console has ran for the last 10 months after E74 with no re-flow so hopefully he is as lucky

I have four 15mm plastic blocks which sit on the rubber stoppers under the console to disperse the heat better, also two words 'whisper fans' now my console is practically icy

Dooney · 03-17-2009, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blain View Post

I agree about prevention being the best policy, and funny-lie enough I have fixed a E74 tonight for a friend, although it will most probably need a re-flow sooner rather than later, my console has ran for the last 10 months after E74 with no re-flow so hopefully he is as lucky

I have four 15mm plastic blocks which sit on the rubber stoppers under the console to disperse the heat better, also two words 'whisper fans' now my console is practically icy

Hi Blain,

My first failure went back to MS and they swapped it, the one i have now has lasted almost 2.5 yrs.

I have repaired 3 for other people, 2 were fairly simple reflows. The other one, well that was another story we ended up re-balling the GPU, and what fun that was without a reballing machine or stencil much tweezer work lol.

I should really know when to call it a day, it would have saved me hours of ball ache, excuse the punn.

Dooney · 04-23-2009, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dooney View Post

Hello All,

I work for a UK service center which repairs consoles for 1 of the top 3 console vendors (Sorry can not say which one) but can confirm its not Microsoft

Anyway, thought id would share some wisdom with those who do not already know or people who maybe damaging their consoles without actually knowing.

Things you must ensure

1) Good ventalation around the xbox 360 with no added heat sources from external devices near it.

2) Power cycling : Ensure that you never switch the console on / off without allowing a substantial cooling time. If you wish to change a game use eject button, instead of powering off.

The reasons behind most problems on the 360 are heat & soldering related, the GPU & Memory are all BGA devices and since the introduction of RoSH and therefore Lead free solder heat & stress have been a massive problem for manufacturing electronic devices, especially BGA devices.

There are many videos on Utube of how to repair the consolse yourselves but the best way is not to get in that position in the first place.

There is no 100% guarantee that this will totally stop the problem but will massively reduce the risk.

If anyone has any questions, just fire away (Just don't ask anything about who I work for

)

In addition to this, (I just got back 1 of my repairs)

3) Don't sit the xbox on top of a speaker, especially one thats running.

XxB3asti3xX · 04-23-2009, 06:56 PM

I had been very sceptical about purchasing a 360 until the RROD problem had been resolved but then around november of last year I found an article about the newer systems that were being released. The article described the main problems that had been occuring and noted that to resolve these issues they had made the new systems so that they use a power supply that only sends 150W instead of the 175W by others. There were also other changes made but this was one of the most noted. My question is will this really prevent the red ring? My console is one of the newer ones but has shown several signs of damage such as random freezing and once even showed the red ring but it went away when I power cycled.

Dooney · 04-23-2009, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XxB3asti3xX View Post

I had been very sceptical about purchasing a 360 until the RROD problem had been resolved but then around november of last year I found an article about the newer systems that were being released. The article described the main problems that had been occuring and noted that to resolve these issues they had made the new systems so that they use a power supply that only sends 150W instead of the 175W by others. There were also other changes made but this was one of the most noted. My question is will this really prevent the red ring? My console is one of the newer ones but has shown several signs of damage such as random freezing and once even showed the red ring but it went away when I power cycled.

Honest answer is no, the new design from MS is still S***. The biggest issue is because the mechanical design engineers at MS are chimps and decided to give the GPU no room whatsoever for a half decent cooling system, this is not helped by the draw backs of lead free solder. If the console was mechanically twice the size you could fit a much better cooling system / heat sync distribution system inside preventing the GPU from becoming a hot plate.

Until MS can ensure the GPU runs much much cooler they are stuffed hence the 3 yr warranty extention for RROD & E74, since they have no choice with all the law suits filed against them because it does not take any brains to link the failures to the heat inside the machine. If you remove the plastic duct at the rear where the fans are and switch on within a few minutes the GPU overheats and you get error codes on the front ! Now thats what i call hot stuff.

My suggestions will deffo help since the heat / vibration is better controlled. Better still have the xbox in a room with aircon so the ambient room temp can be lowered and therefore allowing cooler air to pass through the xbox's limited cooling system.

**Disclaimer** none of these views expressed are by anymeans views of easyxbox360achievements.com they are all mine !! :P to MS.

Dear MS
Additionally, not that i am telling you what to do, if you can't increase the size of the 360 then use your brains and reduce the size of the DVD Rom from full size to Laptop style, i mean come on give yourselves a fighting chance, its a bloody great console but it was rushed

Dooney · 07-16-2009, 08:55 PM

Just thought id give everyone a little more information, on the RROD stories....

Before i do you`ll need to go back in time, not long after the 360 launched. Originally the xbox 360 did not run 1080p, the maximum resolution was 1080i. The PS3 launched claiming native 1080p, well MS were never going to be beaten so in a vain effort to rival the PS3 they did a firmware update which enabled the 360 to display 1080p (natively) cough cough !

Im not going to bore you with the heat / bga rubbish all over again, but running 1080p causes the GPU to get hotter (now bet you didn't guess that)

People will naturally think that 1080p is better than 720p and technically that is correct, but to be honest most people would not notice the difference. BUT your console will notice the difference, so just trust me anyone running 1080p wind it down to 720p and if you really feel you must have 1080p buy an upscaler.

Everton · 07-21-2009, 03:18 PM

As the new arcade version with the jasper chipset is available for about a hundred quid, I would have thought it makes sense to own a spare machine. Then if worse case happens you just swap the hdd over whilst other one is in repair

I appreciate a hundred pounds is quite a lot of cash but its worth it imho to not miss out on a few weeks gaming. Anything is better than having to revert to using the Pissy3 and that horrible controller which apart from the incessant firmware upgrades is my major complaint about Sonys machine.

For the price of 2 - 3 games (for those of us that buy them) I think its a worthwhile backup.

Crymson Ghost · 11-10-2010, 06:36 AM

About every 2 months I unplug my 360 elite and wipe it down with a damp cloth and spray it out with a can of compressed air. Just curious if this is a good habit or could I be doing more harm than good? I do let it sit for a few hours before hooking everything back up and powering on so I make sure no moisture got in there.

Dooney · 11-10-2010, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crymson Ghost View Post

About every 2 months I unplug my 360 elite and wipe it down with a damp cloth and spray it out with a can of compressed air. Just curious if this is a good habit or could I be doing more harm than good? I do let it sit for a few hours before hooking everything back up and powering on so I make sure no moisture got in there.

So long as its done without too much disturbance to the board its a good idea. Dust on or around the heat syncs only adds to the internal temperature.

I also do mine every now and again, the only thing you'd have to watch out for with a damp cloth is not to get any moisture on the PCB itself as copper (tracks) and water don't like each other very much, and over time the water (moisture) would eat through the copper, but the air compressor is fine.