Fixed Red Rings o' Death with Lemon Pledge! Wanna know how?

Discuss LEGAL mods for your game systems, and turning them into portables!

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threedog
Posts:52
Joined:Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:36 pm
Location:South Korea
Fixed Red Rings o' Death with Lemon Pledge! Wanna know how?

Post by threedog » Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:31 pm

So I scored a free Xbox 360 from a friend. Like all free Xboxes, it was broken. It didn't display the red rings consistently. Sometimes you'd get the rings and a blank screen, sometimes the console would boot up and display the welcome screen, or dashboard, whatever it's called. But it wouldn't load a disc. Hmmmm... I cracked open the console and opened up the DVD drive. As suspected, the motor that's supposed to spin the disk was rather gummed up and wouldn't spin freely. This is a pretty easy fix, as long as you're careful with all the tiny ribbon cables. Just remove the three tiny screws that hold the motor bracket, remove the motor/bracket assembly, then pull the plastic spindle that the disk rides on straight out of the motor. It's a small, powerful permanent magnet motor, and the armature just sits inside, retained by the magnetic pull. Now here's where things got just a little bit interesting. I'm staying in a hotel at the moment, and I have very limited access to useful tools and supplies. The first step was to scrub all the crap off the armature of the motor with a Q-tip soaked in alcohol. Then I swabbed out the hole where the armature goes with more drunken qtips. At this point, I would have loved to put a little dab of WD-40, or maybe some sewing machine oil, but the only store within walking distance doesn't stock any of that stuff. Well, believe it or not, the next best thing is some good ol' lemon pledge. That stuff made my pinewood derby cars zing back when I was a cub scout :) Slapped it all back together, and amazingly, it worked. So even if all you have is an unkempt hotel bed for a workbench and no proper tools, there's -always- a way! (I -so- wish I'd taken pictures.)

I doubt anyone on this forum hasn't fixed their own share of RROD, but I figured I'd share this rather unique method.

Harlequin
Posts:182
Joined:Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:20 am

Re: Fixed Red Rings o' Death with Lemon Pledge! Wanna know how?

Post by Harlequin » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:41 am

FWIW I dont believe that a disk drive failing to spin will cause a RROD..

If there was no disk in it, it should have still consistently brought you to the dashboard.

threedog
Posts:52
Joined:Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:36 pm
Location:South Korea

Re: Fixed Red Rings o' Death with Lemon Pledge! Wanna know how?

Post by threedog » Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:49 am

I dunno what FWIW means, so I'm going to assume it's the most vicious insult imaginable. How dare you! Anywho, does the Xbox try to boot from the dvd drive when you first start it up? If so, that could explain a connection between decrapitated drive motor and RROD. At any rate, the machine gave me the Rings o' Death about 60% of the time before the fix, now it never displays them. Maybe I just scared it :D Anyway, I was crazy excited and thought I'd share how I fixed it, for what it's worth (Ooooohhhhhh, I see what you did there, Harlequin)

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Sun-Wukong
Posts:225
Joined:Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:58 pm

Re: Fixed Red Rings o' Death with Lemon Pledge! Wanna know how?

Post by Sun-Wukong » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:48 pm

I'm pretty sure it means "For What It's Worth". That's all I have to add here...
Chapel wrote:Ah shucks, I was really hoping to make an SNES encased in a 19 pound glob of hotglue and duct tape. :lol:

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