I know this isn't even Nintendo related, but it's still super cool. I paid $5 for a really nice Xbox 360 that had the famous Red Ring Of Death. This unit was made in 2006.

Microsoft tried to push ahead of the playstation 3 and in doing so, crammed so much technology in a tight space without proper cooling. This lead to millions of units having the Red Ring Of Death.

I was able to repair this by tearing it apart and removing the very junky concrete thermal paste they used between the heatsyncs and the GPU and CPU chips. Lots of other people have done this method. After removing the thermal paste, I used a heat gun on low heat and did a pattern over each chip for a minute, which reflowed the solder. I added new better thermal paste to the chips and reassembled the Xbox 360. This is the result. From $5 to $50.




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While this is cool, be aware that reflowing the solder doesn't fix the root cause of this problem.

The actual problem with consoles from this generation is the low quality solder used. This is right after when lead free solder was made mandatory so the quality was very bad.

The only real permanent fix to those units is removing the chips and reballing the BGA chips with modern, good quality (preferably lead) solder. This is pretty hard to do without proper tools (can cost hundrets) though.

If it dies again you can try to buy some good quality soldering flux and let it flow under the chip. That will give it a way higher chance to survive longer or even permanently. Make sure to clean the flux off properly after you are done though with cleaning alcohol as flux can be a bit corrosive.
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Agreed. I didn’t have any flux on me or I would’ve used it. I’m not gonna hardly use this, but when I do, I’ll make sure it has plenty of airflow and in a cool environment to prevent it from overheating. At least it has better thermal paste now
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Welp, you were right. Despite the efforts, it Red Rings once more. Only this time, it'll power on like normal and last a couple minutes before doing so
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so ever since the day it would Red Ring after 2 minutes of use, the day after it never did it, and didnt do it ever again since. I didn't take it apart again, although I was planning to.

Console was fully updated to the latest software and can play any 360 game, play youtube, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon. Never had an issue with it since that one day it hiccuped. It's a great console!

Decided to finally bite the bullet and purchase a Halo 3 special edition 360 from ebay with the RROD. Can I fix it? Stay tuned.

Also, this time, I'll be adding flux to help the solder. It's got a newer board in it so it's got a tad less failure rate then the Xenon board, which is what the one I just fixed it. I think the board in the Halo one is a Zephyr.
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