Pretty good idea, and doesn't look too bad.

Can't argue with results- good work! But it ain't pretty no more

IMO the popular cold-solder joint hypothesis (a manufacturing defect) contradicts with the inefficient cooling by design hypothesis (a design defect) though. Part of the popular x-clamp fix involves allowing the GPU to overheat in a controlled way, and the Xbox will throw out a temporary Q1 and Q3 signal. My little experience supports this - 6 successful fixes out of 8 Xboxes. So you cant argue with results, but IMO I do not really know if I'd agree your fix as much chased away a 3RROD condition, or you maybe fixed it by reseating the heatsink over again.

When the Xbox 360 runs too hot, it begins to reheat the solder and some joints loosen on the GPU or CPU or both. That is the reason the Xclamp fix works, is because it puts more pressure back down and straightens out the motherboard, therefore making the lose solder connection make contact. The towel trick also works because it re flows the solder on the chips.

If you are going to have the disk drive external, you should see if you can find an XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on to house it in. People who bought them just for the laser may still have the casing somewhere.

Edit: you've been hackadayed

so then does the cpu have anything to do with rrod

I think if you do this Crazy mod, you should do it when You first get your 360. Or if your 360 is crapping out, and you cant get better parts. then yeah do it. seriously if you are going to go through all that trouble then you should use a Fan that is actually Cooling the whole heatsink. like this. http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=130 they have a newer one called the JET series.

It blows air equally all over the GPU heatsink. I used to have one of these back in the da on my Socket 939 amd chip. the have a JET series also. At least make the mod look Pretty, Damn.

They also Make Thin Fans, but not that thin that you can put the DVD drive back in. like this Link

Can't happen. In order for that chip to get hot enough to reflow the solder it would fry the chip. Also with the towel trick you would have to let it get hot enough that it would fry caps and many other thing inside the unit. Towel Trick = Very bad option and causes more damage than good. Xclamp fix only works on 4 out of 10 xbox's I have done.

Great hack, did it about 5 months ago to my own, even bought a sweet vent cover for the hole in the top :d (Got a nice cut from the sheet metal too)

Question is, how did you power it? I've been using a molex power supply for powering up external hard drives (Came with my IDE-to-USB adapter) to power the fan, Any hints to your secret would be appreciated

I did something very similar, replaced the GPU heatsink with another CPU one, using the original fans of the xbox360, and a modified fan shroud the xbox360 runs fine now



Duct-tape holding the 2 half shrouds together xD

i do not mean to offend in any way, but half of these "fixes" seem ghetto or halfassed.
there is absolutely no reason to have to use cpu heatsink on GPU, cut holes in your case, move dvd drive, add more fans, or reflow the board (using a heatgun)

the 360's worse enemy is heat, so why would you use a heatgun?

there are two flaws in the 360, the X-Clamp, and HEAT (which is an irony because the xclamp flaw produces heat). the combination of both can be quite frustrating. if both of these flaws are affecting your 360, you could be getting redring even after one fix or the other (and you might think you didnt fix it!)

this is what i do on a regular basis, and is a permenent solution, that has never failed, it doesnt look ghetto, funcionality does not change, and (almost) anyone can do it.

-Stock 360 fans are rated for 12V, and they run on 5V. So yes, find a 12V source on the board, its very easy, there are perfect donors on the DVD drive cables, some on the mobo, just use you voltmeter! get your fans 12v power and they will be keeping your 360 cool.
Red+Brown on the fans is +, else is -. do not cut the negative wires, keep them on the plug, and leave them plugged into the motherboard, makes things easier.

Doing this is the easiest, quickest, and MOST effective FREE mod you can do (given you have a tiny bit of wire and shrinktube)
I do this to my box's and the amount of airflow is insane. My box never gets hot anymore, and exhuast air is never even warm. this SOLVES the VPU heat issue.


XCLAMPS, REMOVE ASAP, get m5 .80 pitch screws with 16 1MM thick washers, and 16 1MM thick nylon washers, remove clamps, clean processors and add new thermal compound. I use arctic silver ceramique, i have my reasons.. But when it comes down to it, thermal compound is thermal compound. just make sure you get some to take the heat =)
youtube xclamp fix, many vids online on how to do it.


The combonation of these two eliminates all threats to the xbox (except MUCH more remote errors, which are quite uncommon compared to E74 and 3 rings)

sometimes going into it with patience, pays off.
sometimes adding 13 fans, changing heatsinks and destroying your box, is going way too far


again not trying to bash or talk crap, just trying to explain that some of these things are completely unnessacary.

sorry for the spelling.

-R

After installation, everything worked fine for a couple of weeks.. now, I’ve got no audio and video with either a black screen or gray vertical lines.. It’s strange because buy levitra online it comes and goes.. If I power it on and off it works for a couple of hours only to return later.. I re-disassembled my 360 and tightened the screws thinking the GPU wasn’t stable enough.. that worked for a couple of days but the no video/audio issue has returned, sometimes with a noise.. any ideas? thanks in advance!

Your X/HANA IC is starting to lift on one of it's BGA pads...

NO ONE, SHOULD PERFORM THIS HEATSINK MOD. Besides, you can not put the drive back in ^_^

You would rather off do a top mount fan. Kind of like computers. You want cold (room temp) air to pull or push the hot air off of the heat sink. In the photo above, it is just sucking it barely off of the top of the heatsink.

Microsoft can not design hardware for [insert swear word here]...

reflow the gpu.
if that fails, the (h)ana or northbridge

also, the guy 3 posts up is a complete idiot.