Broken Xbox

[ben7]

I just received an Xbox, my friend complained it would freeze when you would start a game.

It is out of warranty, so I opened it up. Upon inspection, I saw a few barely bulged rubycons! I fired it up with the cover off, and the red ring of lights flash on and off together, the fans run, and the heatsinks inside start to get warm after 5 minutes or so.

In conclusion, I am not quite sure if this an overheating problem, or a bad capacitor problem.?? I will post a few pictures later today. I will also check the voltages too later today.

-Ben

 

[blueroomelectronics]

XBOX 360's are notorious for overheating.

 

[cobra1]

you will most likely find that it has in the past overheated and the balls that the GPU sit on are degraded. This is like having a dry joint, this is the most common for 3 red lights, if you have any other red lights flashing then it can be other things, try the ANA chip normally putting a small weight on top of it can solve the problem.

 

[Mickster]

Looky here:
**broken link removed**
......and here:
**broken link removed**
......for Xbox troubleshooting help.

HTH.

 

[gabeNC]

I had my 360 reflowed and the heat sinks changed.The older machines (pre jasper?) have the infamous x-brace heat sinks which basically pull itself apart. The person who did it has a pretty nice reflow machine with the correct sized "shields/nozzle?" to protect the gpu. Anyway, $30 and a year later I'm still shooting bad guys. Borderlands is a great game.

 

[ben7]

Ok I just checked the lights, the red ones are all flashing together once per second, and the middle green light is flashing at twice the speed of the red ones!???

As of right now I can't find my camera. xD

And the bulging caps are Rubycon MCZ series which according to the web, can be bad.

 

[ben7]

I had my 360 reflowed and the heat sinks changed.The older machines (pre jasper?) have the infamous x-brace heat sinks which basically pull itself apart. The person who did it has a pretty nice reflow machine with the correct sized "shields/nozzle?" to protect the gpu. Anyway, $30 and a year later I'm still shooting bad guys. Borderlands is a great game.

Yes this one has the x-braces on the back of the board.

 

[cobra1]

wrap it in a towel until it shuts down and see if it fixes it, if it does you know you have a badly seated gpu

 

[ben7]

wrap it in a towel until it shuts down and see if it fixes it, if it does you know you have a badly seated gpu

Honestly, I do not think that is a good idea!

For it to fix a bad solder joint, it has to be hot enough to melt the solder, which is plenty hot enough to burn the towel.
Also, that temperature has to be less than the temperature of the wafer in the chip(since it is producing the heat), which will easily cook the silicon!!!

 

[cobra1]

i have done this hundreds of times, it helps to diagnose the fault, probably not the most proffessional way but unless you happen to have an xray machine handy it works a treat

 

[ben7]

i have done this hundreds of times, it helps to diagnose the fault, probably not the most proffessional way but unless you happen to have an xray machine handy it works a treat

I guess I will think about that.

So how long do you have to keep it in the towel for it to overheat?

 

[cobra1]

until the console shuts itself down, i used to unplug the fans aswell just to let it heat faster, essentially what you are doing is reflowing the solder under the gpu, but as the solder is not lead based its kinda crap and becomes brittle with heating and cooling

 

[Mickster]

Honestly, I do not think that is a good idea!

Me too.

Especially since there are 4 red lights flashing.

If you go to the 1st link provided before, 4 red lights points to a possible AV cable problem. If you can borrow another known good one, or try this one on another console, you can pinpoint it to the cable, or rule it out. Only then can you start looking deeper, but the "towel trick" is not advised.

 

[ben7]

I found my camera and finally took a few shots

4 red lights points to a possible AV cable problem. If you can borrow another known good one, or try this one on another console, you can pinpoint it to the cable, or rule it out.

I will borrow one soon from a friend.

BUT, the xbox does not have any AV outputs!!!! (or is there a weird cable that you need :?)

The only cable plugs I recognize are the cat-5 and usb sockets!

-Ben

 

[ben7]

Only then can you start looking deeper, but the "towel trick" is not advised.

I was just thinking that when the GPU and CPU need a lot of power, the bad capacitors let excessive ripple leak into the [GPU/CPU] power and cause one or both to freeze.

That is most likely the case, and it will be a easy fix

-Ben

 

[Mickster]

BUT, the xbox does not have any AV outputs!!!! (or is there a weird cable that you need :?)

You just need to try a substitue cable, the same as that which ships with the Xbox.