I have a jtagged zephyr 360. A few nights ago I was playing Splinter Cell Convictions and the graphics became fragmented with green/black bars and blocks. figured it was a game glitch since it only lasted for around 15 seconds then was back to normal. Played for another 2 hours with no problems.

Last night however it happened again. This time it never went away. Powered down the 360 then turned it back on. I noticed the Dash was grainy. Tried Convictions again. Same thing. Tried Earth Worm Jim, didn't notice anything. Then I tried Mass Effect, same effect as convictions. Power cycled the 360 a few times. Nothing worked. On my last cycle I got a 1 flashing red light E74 error then that's all it would give me for a few more tries. That's when I gave up and decided to find something better to do.

This afternoon I powered it back on and the dash loads with the grainy effect and Convictions still has the fragments. That's when I snapped these shots. I need some help on what I should do next to resolve this issue.

This problem and variations of it have been happening since 2006 so there's an abundance of postings about it on the net.

Methods of lowering temperature and reducing motherboard flex...
Do X-Clamp replacement.
Apply Arctic Silver 5.
Make a divider that fits under the fan shroud and runs between the fans and heatsinks so 1 fan works on 1 heatsink (standard setup has both fans drawing air from easiest path which is maybe 80% through the larger CPU route & 20% through the smaller GPU route).
Run fans at full speed.
Cut out the back of the plastic console case and the steel inner case so there is no impediment to airflow.
Remove the dvd drive from a JTAG console and fit a CPU heatsink onto the GPU.

I'm not going to explain in detail how to do these things, do some research yourself and have a go.

Another option is to send it to a well respected forum member who has the experience and specialist equipment to do BGA re-flows / re-balling.
A hot air/paint stripping gun is NOT specialist reflow/reball equipment.

Cheers

As those pictures were taken while it was still cool, I assume the GPU has been compromised. This unit has already been BGA re-flowed but apparently not well enough.

"still cool" as in the heatsink? that still could mean the GPU isnt contacting the heatsink well enough and its overheating anyway. Do what hes said and everything will be fine. you might have to get it reflowed again though.

I thought this is the ana chip?

what error code are you getting?

Exactly the same problem I had on my falcon.

Flexing the PCB get rid of it or putting a massive electric fan to cool the whole PCB down. Eventually I started getting the E74 and couldnt get further than than.

Got the heat gun out and apply some flux, reflow the GPU and all been fine since. I also increased the fan to 70%.

You don't want to reflow the GPU and CPU with a heatgun if you don't have to.

It was my only option so I went for it. I pretty much got fed up having to open/close the case, get the big fan out, knock it here and there, unplug the cables, remove the HDD and PSU, wait for a few mins before it fires up. 9 out of 10 tries it wont work.

I put up with it for a few months and it got worst and worst.