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Step 9Testing, testing, three, six, tee...
Hook your 360's AV and power cable in, and plug the RF board(the circuit board that has the Ring of Light LEDs and) back into the 360, otherwise you won't be turning it on. :D
Turn it on without the fans plugged in, checking to see how fast the heatsinks heat up. Getting hot in less than a minute is excellent. Now plug in the fans and put on that plastic fan shroud. Turn it on again, and it should boot up normally, assuming you did the heat test(if you didn't plug in the DVD drive, the center LED will blink green).
If it goes RRoD instead, unplug the power cable, re-insert it and try again. If you cannot get the console to boot, press down on both the heatsinks with even force, and power it on again. If it boots, power it on with only one heatsink pressed upon. If it boots with that particular heatsink pressed on, power the 360 off, and keep re-booting until you find the problem corner(s) on the heatsink that need tightening.
The idea is to tighten any heatsink corners that aren't tight enough, in order to allow a good connection for that processor.
So if it boots up normally, and you can play a game for at least an hour without locking up, you've worked your magic, and the 360 can be re-assembled! Have a beer, rent a movie, eat some gummy bears, do whatever it is you do to treat yourself, because YOU DID IT!
The next step goes over some measures you can take to prevent overheating.
Turn it on without the fans plugged in, checking to see how fast the heatsinks heat up. Getting hot in less than a minute is excellent. Now plug in the fans and put on that plastic fan shroud. Turn it on again, and it should boot up normally, assuming you did the heat test(if you didn't plug in the DVD drive, the center LED will blink green).
If it goes RRoD instead, unplug the power cable, re-insert it and try again. If you cannot get the console to boot, press down on both the heatsinks with even force, and power it on again. If it boots, power it on with only one heatsink pressed upon. If it boots with that particular heatsink pressed on, power the 360 off, and keep re-booting until you find the problem corner(s) on the heatsink that need tightening.
The idea is to tighten any heatsink corners that aren't tight enough, in order to allow a good connection for that processor.
So if it boots up normally, and you can play a game for at least an hour without locking up, you've worked your magic, and the 360 can be re-assembled! Have a beer, rent a movie, eat some gummy bears, do whatever it is you do to treat yourself, because YOU DID IT!
The next step goes over some measures you can take to prevent overheating.
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Also, when I don't have the heatsinks on it flashes with 2 reds instead of three. When I put the heatsinks back on then it goes to 3 reds again. Maybe There is to much pressure or not enough? idk...
Also, the bit about using the right number of washers underneath the motherboard is essential. If you put the board back on, and press down on the board close to the screws and it moves down, this means that the height of your washers is not the same as the stays (those lumps in the metal case that the board rests on and that the long torx screws go through) and you need to add washers. This can be a pain, but you must get it right.
Don't use too much thermal paste--I only needed a glob the size of three or four pinheads on top of each to spread out to the width of a piece of paper.
Make sure before you tighten the screws that everything is flush. To be extra-cautious, I turned on screw four quarter turns, then went to the next, and kept going around like that. I tightened each until there was no resistance with a medium-strong amount of torque. The point is to get the heat sinks solidly on top of the chips, with the entire surface of the chips being in contact with the heat sinks.
I didn't give it a HUGE amount of time so I'll try it one more time tomorrow morning, but at this point I'm pretty confident something is still wrong.
OK dude check it out. Since I'm a robot I know how much we might moufunction. See I am Mega Man. So I know.
Anyways here is some instructions on how to fix an Xbox360:
(read all carefuly)
First open it up. (you've done this)
Remove Xclamps, than remove the heatsinks.
Once you've done this, use thermal paste remover.
(there are 2; one two remove old paste and one to put on new.)
Than add new thermal paste make sure is not too much or too little.
Spread it out 'till you cover the shiny part of the chip.
Put heatsinks back on. Use power tool to add screws to where Xclamps use to be. Or put Xclamps back on.
Make sure they are tight and don't move.
Leave Xbox open but connect everything back on. (This Isn't the last step!)
Turn Xbox power ON. (Be patient I know your Xbox still won't work.)
Leave it on for about half hour so the paste could melt. Try putting a external fan above so air can help keep cool while melting the thermal paste. 30minutes!
Turn Xbox OFF for another half hour.
Turn Xbox back on and YELL WITH EXCITEMENT!
Your Xbox is now active!
Read this next part carefuly:
(this is what I did)
After I put heatsinks on. The next step was to drill holes on it to put screws on to hold it tight. But I didn't have any power tools installed on my arm.
So I tryed to put Xclamps back on. I did so but one of the sides on the Xclams didn't go all the way in! My Xbox had one red light before all this but now it had two. I was patient. I thought what the proplem might be, and my suspicion was that the Xclamps need to be all the way in.
I opened it back up. Did all the steps all over again. This time I FORCED the Xclamps all the way in. Last time I was trying to be careful but since I hadn't used it in a while I had to risk it to fix it!
I did the next steps letting the thermal paste melt. I left it open and put a fan to hit exactly above it, so it could help it stay cool. Left it for half hour ON. Turned it back OFF for another 30 minutes. I turned my Xbox ON it didn't work still! I was thinking what could the problem be. I than left the Xbox on for another half hour this time without the exturnal fan. Than I let it cool down for another 30 minutes. I turned it the power ON... the little green lights went oround the ring... looked up at the TV screen and BAM! OMG OMG OMG
It was like a dream. Hope your Xbox comes back to life DON'T GIVE UP!
if you still need help send me a message. I'll be happy to help a human!
I checked the sinks and they are getting hot within 1 min., boot up goes fine as well. Do I need to just keep playing round here with tightening and loosen, anything else I could check?
I had to reduce the washers to 2 topside. any more and I was losing contact. I would also recommend using nylon washers for the GPU cuz there are traces that would be shorted otherwise. I also had to clip pieces out of the nylon washers to avoid components and the CPU washers. Nylon is MUCH easier to clip than metal too!
I tried the holding the screws with tape, but that was too clumsy for me. I just clamped the board to a table with one of sets of hole hanging over and inserted and screwed from the bottom. Much easier for me.
I tried the whole procedure up until step 9, after which I was still gtting 3 red fashing lights I played around with the heat sink screws, and now the system powers on...the geen lights cycle (as if the system is about to boot up)...but just then the fan blows at a high speed followed by 2 red lights. At this point, the power supply also goes to stand by mode (orange light).
I have tried many things now...like tightening and loosening the screws...I disassembled the heat sinks again. Cleaned the chipsets and re-applied the thermal paste...but to no avail.
I am trying to get the seconday code, by pressing the sync button and eject...this leads to all 4 flashing red lights. Any subsequent eject button push does not do anything.
Btw, while playing around with different screw tensions at one point the system did boot all the way that I was able to see the dashboard. But then I could not sync the controller with the console...and eventually, the 3 red flashing lights.
I have spent almost whole day with this thing and I am about to quit the effort. Any help/pointer will be highly appreciated.
Thanks!
Obviously, this did not work at all because the motherboard warping was not solved.
I snipped eight of them with pliers, reinstalled everything from step 7 onward, and it appears to be working. I am doing the "bake" right now, as the llama tutorial suggested (just in case), but it has already taken it seems.
I'm wondering if the #10 washers we got were the wrong size... or if perhaps our motherboards were different. My machine was a "Core" from 2005, waaay old. Mayhaps the bolts/schematics changed since then for all the newer console editions.