First post updated with a few new codes and some general clean up

Update..

Xbox 360 : R.I.P
time of Death 3:15 AM sunday dec 3rd, 2006

Ok.. when last I had posted.. I had experienced the dread 3 RED LEDS.. with code 0102. with alot of tinkering.. and problably none of it actually having any effect, the box was usable again for about 2 weeks. Maybe slightly less. it locked up graphically.. but would come right back.

well.. tonight.. a few hours ago I was invited unto live for some GOW.. and sure enough.. Poof. 3 RED LEDS.
Let it sit for a bit.. tried again.. 2 RED LEDS. interesting. Error code I got was 0012, Overheating.

I had hope at least that this error would give me some hope. For awhile it did.

I decided it was time to get serious.

I opened the box.

removed the heatsinks..

OMFG.. there was NO compound on the chip or GPU. there was however some lovely scorch marks.
fuck!

So.. I cleaned up as much of the carbon as I could.. applied the only thing I had handy, some AS5.. then tried to boot it again.

I got it to boot. yes.

then it died again. great.

overheat error. yay.

so.. I removed part of the cage.. (just a rectangle) directly underneath the position of the heatsinks.

put er back together.. booted.. yay.. booted twice.

died after a few minutes. Getting somewhere maybe?

ripped 'er apart again. screwed around with fans, the plastic fan duct.. etc. lost of shit attempts here. even reversed the fan direction at one point. some things worked for a few minutes.. to a maybe 5 minutes and then poof.. either checkerboard pattern.. or full blown 2 or 3 LED of death.

At that point for shitz and giggles I reheated the legs for a number of key components with no real change.

So.. i'm done.

walmart is about to make itself cdn 400$ on a 2 game core. or.. Futureshop or BB 500$ for a 4 game Premium depending on the currentl bundles in canada.



This day officially sucks. first 360 that has gone the way of the do-do. i miss it already.

Hey guys, I have a flashed 360 Asian version. I use a 1500w Servo Motor AvR for it, I use a 2nd gen nyko intercooler and an electric fan faces the bottom (I use the console horizontally). the last update I did was a game update from Need For Speed Carbon (original)...

I use my 360 for 2 hours at a time, i take great care of it...

one morning, I was charging my controller with an official PnC, and i decided to shut it down while charging, and there was it... 3 red lights, with the error code 0020.

I wonder what caused this... will heat gun work for this code?

Ok well here's my story. I purchased my 360 on ebay brand new still in orinal box with receipt in may 2006. Never had any problems until Friday night. I was playing wwe raw vs smackdown and the game froze. i turned the system off and on again. it booted up and started playing. a few minutes later a strange checkerboard pattern appeared and the game froze. so i gave up and turned the system off for the night. Well yesterday i booted up and tried palying rainbow six vegas and it froze at the start screen. rebooted again and thats when i get the 3 red rings. i disconnected all the cables and all that. I send ms a email explaining the problem. (yet to get a response). i really dont want to send it to get repaired since ive read that u do not know what shape the "new" unit will be in when they swap them. i also dont own a heat gun and since the system is only 7 months old these problems should not happen. so i'm screwed.

we fixed the "three red light" problem adding some material under the cross-shaped metal that is SUPPOSED to hold the heatsink in contact with core. (I'm talking about the GPU). I read somewhare that tightening the heatsink screws would solve the problem, but it does not... those screws secures heatsinks to the frame NOT to the motherboard and core, the x-shaped metal plate is supposed to do that, but atleast in our case it failed to to that...

I got a 360 off of ebay and it worked great for five months then the day I come home with GOW and boot up my 360 it just gave me the ROD! I got error code 0020. So I opened my console and applied AS5 to the cpu and gpu. Didn't work. Researched the forums for a while and decided to try the heat gun fix. All I had was a hairdryer but I heard that worked for some people so I tried it. Didn't work. Got a real heat gun last night so I'm gonna try that tonight. Will post results. Can't wait to play GOW!!

Here is a thread that every heat gunner out there should read:

AT LEAST BE SURE TO READ THE POST ON 11/13/2006
Reflowing a BGA Video Chip on an I-Book

It's my unqualified opinion that the ubiquitous youtube video is a little misleading, through no fault of the author. I think many people who are not grasping the principles have simply emulated the look of it without truly reflowing the solder and thereby achieved only a temporary solution. Even the towel trick, which of course cannot reflow solder, works on a temporary basis. So thermal expansion without reflow can move the broken joint around a bit and restore connection for a while. When I read someone say "after the 4th or 5th heat gun session, you start to...." then I think something is probably wrong with his heat gun technique.

Notice the difference in the technique used in the foregoing link. (Ignore that rubbish about the propane torch) It does not concern itself with board-wide heating. It starts by masking the entire board with loose foil, except for the one part in question. The heat gun is started 12 inches away from the board and lowered very slowly until a few little pieces of solder left on top of the chip begin to melt, then heating is continued for another one minute approximately. Then the heat gun is backed away slowly and the board allowed to cool.

The most inventive thing is the solder chips being used for an ad-hoc "temperature sensor". Even if you prefer to shoot the entire board at once all willy-nilly, a little solder chunk on each component will at least tell you exactly when the surface temperature is correct. You will need to go beyond that to reflow the underside where the possible fault lies. But if you never even melt the solder chunks on top, you can be sure you've done nothing significant down where it counts. And if you only lick over the component enough to barely melt that chunk, you've surely not heated enough to correct the underlying fault. It's a dangerous business, and I think most of the failures have erred on the side of caution.

My 360 got the ick on Sunday, and the towel trick works great. Well, until I turn it off and let it get cold again. I now have to get it hot to "jump start" it every time. So I'm a good candidate for this fix. I will do each component individually, since I don't have the guts to melt all those components at once. I'll try to post back for posterity.

@juoksuhuuli

You have increased the pressure on the GPU? This is very much the way the fellow with the intermittent I-book determined where his fault was; he pressed on the chipset and it would work. It's my understanding that the 3-light error is not heat related. Aren't the heat-related errors indicated with two lights? This makes me think you've "solved" your problem by physically pushing down harder on the GPU, forcing a better connection underneath it. I truly hope it lasts for a long time for you.

Heat gun worked for my 0020 code!! Just played 2 hours straight of Gears of War! Nice! Lets see how long this fix lasts. I will post updates.

Hi,

Out of interest how long did you heat the chips up for and did you heat just the underside of the board or the top of the chips as well?

Thanks,

Nick.

Alright, so my friend told me his 360 wasn't working - I managed to get a better insight into it specifically. This thing is real oddball.

We've tried rebooting the system with the hard drive in and the hard drive out, doesn't make a difference. Just to eliminate as many variables, it's tested with the HDD always out and the TV switch on Standard TV instead of HDTV. Here's the findings so far:

The majority of the time the system does the Three Red Lights of Death. Error code 0102 almost every time, with the exception of once turning up 0103. So that's:


Then, we started dealing with the One Red Light of Death. First it turned up E79, a hard drive error, yet there wasn't a hard drive in the unit. Next it managed to get E71, supposedly a dashboard update problem, even though the system has been running fine until today with the latest dashboard error.


It's also managed to make it to the dashboard once and then crash, and make it to the boot logo once and immediately crash. This thing is really confusing - anyone have the slightest clue as to what this thing's deal is?

Given the multitude of different errors, many of which seem quite unlikely, it sounds like something may have shorted or burned out inside, or it has the common poor soldering problem. It's possible that one problem could cause a dashboard error, hard drive error (which could be a problem with the HD-related innards or software), and error 0103 since we don't know what it means. The odds of this are unlikely though and since error 0102 means it doesn't know what exactly is wrong, the most likely issue is that the CPU is quite confused, which would probably mean a poor connection somewhere (be it a short, burned out component, or bad solder joint).

Absolutely wonderful. I'm going to tell him to call up MS, it's a 2005 unit, and if he whines enough they might do something. Otherwise I'll wind up parting it out.

Just make sure it hasn't been opened. If that little sticker on the inside is gone, so is your free replacement. (I think... AFAIK it's a warranty extension, and opening it voids the warranty.)

It worked! (and saved me $150) Thanks juoksuhuuli for the toothpick trick. I shimmed both heatsinks.

I did all the components at once after all, but used solder chunks to tell me when I was close to the right temperature. The heat gun wanted to blow them around, so I smashed them out. I now have no doubt that each component has actually been reflowed and not just superheated.

Another curiosity. My box's label says it was manufactured in Oct 2005, but some internal parts were dated Feb 06 and I purchased it from Target in April 06. And that was when there were none on the shelves, so it never sat around. It also had an adequate thermal paste application when I was expecting to see the foil. It makes me think they used an old case or sticker when they made it in March 06. It was a premium.

Sounds like someone bought a second unit, opened it, swapped the label onto their defective one, and returned it.

i got the 0020 code. no idea what it is, but if i leave the system off for an hour, it will play again for a few minutes before it goes to a black screen again. after that, it's 3 red lights again until i leave it alone for another hour.

I was getting the 3 red lights, and the error code is 0102. I took my SMD hot air rework station and reflowed all of the bga ic's and it has been working great for the past two days so it seems to be a good fix for this 0102 error.

I just flashed my ms25 samsung drive, and about 30 minutes into a game I'm getting 3 rings, and the tv screen goes black.

Is this a hardware issue or because of the flash?

Ugh, I am now sick to my stomach. All of a sudden I have a good old Error 0102. Looks like my day off will be filled with alot of reading. God damn..

Take it with a grain of salt, but perhaps the gentle abuse of opening the case has accelerated a component separation. A drive flash should not cause a latent problem, but an immediate one. 30 minutes sounds like an adequate time period for the board to heat up, expand, and break continuity on a loose connection. If it were my machine, I would reflow the board.

Just wanted to chime in as another person having the 0021 error. I've never opened the case so I've obviously not flashed the drive, so in no way is it some mysterious dvd-console sync problem. I've been messing with it for 3 hours now, and my only problem is how to get the savegame files off before i exchange it at BB with my 2-year warranty. :x

My 360 was running flawlessly until I plugged in a 3rd party HD-VGA cable (made by Sector 7). I played it for about 20-30 minutes, then shut down to do some errands. When I got back home, I powered up, and got the 3 red lights. Have no clue what error, cause I get no signal to my LCD TV, even if I use the standard AV cable that came with it. Could this cheap ass 3rd party cable have caused a problem?

This worked perfectly!!! My Xbox 360 is Alive once again. Clearly MS uses cheap materials/solder. I only wish I had known about this before buying a new motherboard on ebay a month ago. Same damn problem, but know I know the solution. A very time consuming solution, but still a solution. I really love my xbox, but wish MS would get their crap together. So much do I enjoy it, I was ready to buy either another mobo or buy a brand new one. Hopefully the latests batches in the stores are not going to have these issues.

Also of interest and possible somehow related to my original issues this go round, after I did the heat gun trick, it booted right up.then was freezing and acting flakey. I rememberd reading something about not tightening the screws too tight, which I did not to begin with, but I went around to all the screws and slightly loosened them all..guess what..my xbox 360 is now rock solid, seems to be snappier too in the menus! I am thrilled and hope I can atleast get a few months out of this fix :-(

The Toothpick TRULY does work, give it a try people

Alrite guys here is my problem.. we have the 3 red lights.. but the thing is when we turned the xbox on side.. upsidedown and stuff.. the light turned with it.. just as if it wanted to die? I dont know, but yea, we are workin on the toothpick trick as i speak.. but we have our doubts this will work.. any info anyone would have on this?
I will probably rarely check this.. so if you know anything, please take the time to send the info to my Email m25tolife@hotmail.com
Thx n merry Christmas!
Macc

Now I have again 3 red of death and code 0102, I`m disassembled xbox, disconnect a cooler and turn on xbox, wait 2-3 min, then turn off xbox, connect a cooler and turn on then xbox work fine all night!!! Today I`m tested him again!!!

Try this, maybe help you...

Hey guys I just recently worked on an xbox with a 0102 error code. I did the heatgun trick, but used a hair dryer instead and, not the xbox is booting up fine.

Me too....Figured it was my best shot, shimmed both and been working 4+ hours. Before either couldn't boot or
stopped within 1 minute.

Thanks juoksuhuuli!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i did the tooth pick thing to just like his picture, only not whit tooth picks. and i only did the one he did and it works fine for me so far thanx juoksuhuuli

plz!! help
i was playing Ghost Recon Adv Warfighter and all of a sudden it froze, so i eject the game and then get the Ring of death

how could G.R.A.W have affected my system??

Happy new year!
hey just want to ask ~
you are testing in TV or computer ?
i think you are using computer!!
to test ?

I'm still a little bit in awe that this worked, but here's my story. Not necessarily suggesting it to anyone, but here it is.

Got the 3 red lights when the system froze playing COD3. 0102. I have no warranty due to me opening the system to do the firmware hack on my Hitachi. I tried the toothpick method on both the heatsinks, but to no avail. As a last ditch effort, I turned on the 360, wrapped it in a blanket, and let the sucker overheat for about 20-30 minutes (probably a lot longer than I should have, but I got caught up in the bowl games )

I turned it on, and it booted! I couldn't believe it. 48 hours or so have passed since then and it still works. I'm just amazed... saved myself 300 bucks. Whoever had the crazy idea of the blanket, thank you!

It won't last. Sorry, bro. I wanted a magic bullet, too, but I found that I kept needing the towel to "jump start" the thing, and it continued to get worse and worse. Your problem has been developing for a while before your actual error, and that problem has not been addressed by the towel trick. It will continue to progress and next you'll be looking at the heat gun fix. If your heat gun technique doesn't actually get the chips hot enough to remelt the solder underneath them, then it's essentially the same as the towel trick - just getting things really hot. This is why people think the heat gun fix is temporary, because of the many people who are going through the motions (watching that misleading video) without understanding the principle. Remember that when you get to your next heartbreak.

hi thanks for the tip
YES i was wrong !
i see you point and i did what you say and repair more and i think you!
yes i was the one (watching that misleading video) without understand ing Full principle Y . !!!
hey thanks for pointing out my misteck !!
and i do thank you again
hey have a happy New year~

is there a tuto about that toothpick trick ?

Is a tutorial really needed? Just place the toothpicks just like the picture, and you're good.

anyone else notice that the gpu chip in question for both the xbox 360 and the apple notebook example.. both ATI?


I did the towel wrap to test it out..

sure enough.. it worked...


I did the toothpick dealio.. sure enough.. that worked faster than a towel wrap.. lol


I'd do the hot gun .. but i dont have access to one yet...

I'm a lil angry with MS... I've had 3 xbox 360's so far...

dont get me wrong.. i've enjoyed playing what little time i've had with it... (which according to my wife was too much lol)....


but 3 xbox's........ seriously!?!

This one is no longer covered... so i had absolutely no problems with opening it up for some.. LETS LEARN ELECTRONICS fun....

does the toothpick method last ? I mean is your xbox 360 ok now ?

Can only speak for me, but still rock solid. Kids playing hours upon hours, and no light issues at all. I can't say I am confident this is a long term fix, but to be honest its working better than I could have imagined.

It seems alot of people are having problems? is this something thats gonna happen to like most people who own 360's? hopefully not?

I believe its going to keep happening to more people unless MS addresses the issue. if they don't do something , the reputation will be tainted and the 360 will lose consumer confidence.

I think they'll eventually figure out (if they haven't already) what's wrong with it and change the parts or manufacturing process on the new ones.

whether or not they try to keep the owners of the early ones happy by fixing or replacing them , we'll have to wait and see. They've already extended the warranty to a year. but that's not going to help the people who've opened their box as a last resort to fixing it and then find out the warranty's been extended.

i believe both companies rushed their products out..

the xbox has issues with sodering jobs...
and I spoke with a microcenter employee about the PS3..

heating issues affect that one... he took me to the back and showed me a melted PS3..


I'm at the point where I'm of the opinion...

I WONT BUY A BRAND NAME COMPUTER..

SO WHY SETTLE FOR A BRAND NAME CONSOLE...



After hot air gunning the motherboard.. (and so far.. things are ok... )

I figure... its time to make my own modded case and have fun with it....


I'll make sure the parts are cooled..

and hopefully that will last me...



I guess i wont be able to trade in my 360 for the future generation systems

Just wanted to add my two cents for those suffering from the 3 lights of death...

Had previously opened console to do firmware flash and update thermal paste, so my warranty was gone. Was playing some GOW, console froze, started back up, 3 red lights with 2ndary error code 0102.

Opened the system back up and let it run in open air to make sure it wasnt an overheating issue. If I didnt get red lights on startup, console would last for a minute at most before freezing and going to red lights.

I had to do two things to get this fixed:

1. Heat gun trick. I didnt have a heat gun but a hairdryer sure got the mobo hot to the touch. Not sure if it actually melted/reflowed the solder. In retrospect, I wish I tried it before I went to step 2 to see if it did anything.

2. Toothpick trick. Check back a few pages and there is an image of some toothpicks simply jammed between the heatsink on the GPU and the motherboard (on the bottom). This pulled the heatsink down tight on the GPU and makes perfect sense if it is a solder/contact issue.

Between these two steps, my console has now been working flawlessly (and by that I mean no freezing, no red lights, no graphical errors, no overheating, no blanket trick to get it started; nothing but perfect gameplay) for two days now.

Long story short, seems like the toothpick trick is one of those things that is just stupid enough to work. Best of luck to everyone else.

Yeah! I just did the heat gun fix for err code 0102 and it works. Man I love my Wii60.

Here as I have corrected a code 0102 on Xbox 360
1) Have disassembled xbox, have pulled out motherboard, cut out from transparent box for CD of a lining for cooler GPU and CPU
2) Have inserted these linings (like this http://foto.mail.ru/mail/lukyanov_2001/xbox360/1.html) between motherboard and clips of a cooler (one for single clip and second for twice clips), have connected a power unit and a videocord, have disconnected a cooler and have waited for 2 mines
3) Have full assembled console, connected cooler and have established it VERTICALLY, more no failures are present!!!

Hi there.

I've a modded 360, and I'm getting the E 64. I've read all this thread but it seems that there's not a solution. Am I wrong????

Please[u]... I'm so desperated to play at leat for 30 min in a row...

Thanks

im gettin 1 bottom right red blinker and e71
secondary code is 1013.
anybody?

error 0003 indicates a problem with the high current power supply powering the GPU, either a short circuit (in which case you will hear a brief "buzzing" noise when trying to power on the 360), or a damaged MOSFET or controller chip.

I currently do not know if a short on the CPU power supply will cause the same error or not, the two supplies are independent of each other. Somebody could take an already dead motherboard and put a bridge on one of the capacitors under the CPU to find out.