I been reading alot of ppl removed the thermal paste from the GPU and CPU on 360. Because of the screen freeze at startup and in game play. After i fixed mine thats what mine does now all the time and gets real hot fast.

I was wondering what is thermal compound? And how can you take off the heatsink. I can't seem to figure that out yet. It looks like a screw some sort, but can you take it off?






Thanks guys
Gary

I used a simple radioshack brand and got similar results that you are saying on your post. I added a couple small fans (two 1.5in fans about $4.00 per) and im fine now. try that.

Thermal paste is a "goop" that helps heat transfer between two objects; in this case, the CPU/GPU and Heatsink.

People didn't remove thermal paste entirely. IF it was the paste with the foil over it, they removed the foil and cleaned the heatsink, then reapplied with Arctic Silver or some such brand of paste. If it wasn't the one with foil, it was a case where there was entirely too much thermal paste, so they removed it and reapplied a correct amount of new paste.

While I haven't done it on the 360, IIRC there are eight Torx screws holding down the two "X's".



EDIT: ClawedUp, it sounds like he hasn't replaced the thermal compound yet.

I already took those 8 torx screws that what hold the mobo to the metal case too. But their is 8 silver type screws in red circle that holds the heatsinks on. Those are weird looking screws. Look in between there is nut in there too. But is hard to get to.

The Arctic Silver is a paste form? Not solder type? Can i get it at radioshack?



Thanks

Alright - first the clamps on the bottom of the mother board (X) needs to be gently pried away and up. There is a tut on this on the forums somewhere. - They are not screwed down.
Artic Silver is a thermal paste and is AWESOME for transfering heat. You can not get it at Radio Shack.

This to clean and prepare your surface:


Then this is the Thermal Paste - only use a little bit (about the size of large grain rice)


Hope this helps!
SuDDeN

Thanks for the link for the thermal paste. Does anyone know the link to the tut for the how to do on here?

Thanks

don't waste your money on artic silver cleaner, all you need to do this is some old credit cards (or the ones they send u in the mail to apply), some ~$1 99% rubbing alchol, and some q-tips/paper towels. these get the job done pretty damn good at half the price (plus w/ more uses).

I just took those x braces off, and my cpu and gpu the thermal compound was about gone. I going to get some
Arctic Silver thermal compound soon. I hope this fix the freeze problem.

Do NOT use too much thermal compound. Using too much thermal compound can have the opposite effect of what you are trying to do. It only takes a very small amount to do the job.




Do NOT use too much thermal compound. Using too much thermal compound can have the opposite effect of what you are trying to do. It only takes a very small amount to do the job.

About how much I should use? Has anyone made Tutorial on this yet?




thanks

Just a small dot (I would say, 1/8th pea sized) on the surface of the CPU/GPU. Enough so that when it squishes out, it covers it evenly (do a test "squish" first). Some people like to spread it out, but I find that you get less air bubbles if you just let it squish. Of course, everyone has different techniques.

dude, all i did to take off my thermal paste was scrape it off with my fingernail. then i got the rest off with some goo gone. works better than ever

Does anyone put back that alum foil back on the GPU? When i took GPU heatsink the foil torn, so I threw it away.

Alum foil thats what gave me problem im sure, i removed the foil from heat sink& buffed the gpu/cpu chip & HS applied artic white added a fan to gpu HS 60hrs+ now, before i got 3mins then it would freeze

I replaced the thermal paste with some I received with PC GPU fan upgrade. That worked for a while.

Look at my tutorial here for better airflow.

Cool thanks, I'll give that a try.