I was reading yesterday it’s expected to clear $1 billion worth of repairs…
What exactly happens that causes this red ring of death? I read in same source that it was a “general Hardware failure.”
it’s a problem with cold solder points on the underside of the peripherals on the board…
“it was determined that a substantial number of the
solder joints beneath the BGA and CSP devices appeared to be of questionable quality. This was
especially noticeable towards the centers of the main CPU and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit),
both of which are plastic BGA components, and both of which include additional integrated
components mounted to the top of the device. The additional mass of the main chip on the top of
the plastic BGAs appears to have prevented sufficient heat from reaching the solder joints closest
to the center of each device. This phenomenon is usually an indication that the time and
temperature parameters, used for reflow soldering of the motherboard at the point of original
manufacture, did not provide a thermal profile sufficient for complete and thorough reflow at all
points beneath the BGAs and CSPs on the PCB.”
basically they fucked up soldering it.
And it cannot be re-soldered at home??
Edit: I guess it would be a motherfucker to try and find all the cold solder joints and fix them.
The original “free repair” recall ended in January 2007 but in July 2007 MS announced a warranty extension (3 years from date of purchase). They’re even retroactively reimbursing people who paid for repairs before. Here’s their statement on it:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/resources/warrantyupdate.htm
these solder joints are not standard board solders… they are actually an accumulation of solder inbetween the board and the devices, which is not even visible from the other side of the board… it’s all top soldered…
i have a huge PDF on the into, problem and solution if youre interested
i’ve heard that they re-did the warranty so it covers all xbox’s. just send it back and they will send a new one, why try to do some stupid trick that will only work short term then really be screwed with the warranty
WOW. Have you tried troubleshooting at all? I’ve gotten the red ring 4 times and NONE of those times has been a major issue. It can be any number of things. My first two were due to bad A/V cables that came with it, the other one was because the video wire wasn’t plugged completely into my A/V selector. The most recent one was because of a disc read error on one of my games (Table Tennis), where there was a deep scratch on the disc, it would play, freeze, then I’d get the red ring. There’ve been multiple people I know of who’ve had this problem and it’s an easy self-fix.
If you know of someone else with a 360 that’s having NO problems and swap out everything you can think of to swap out and see if you can get it to work fine. If it doesn’t, then yeah, it’s probably the console itself. If not, then perhaps you have an issue with one of the smaller components that can be replaced instead of waiting for weeks on end for a new one.
actually i’m not a dumbass and can successfully plug in component cables.
if that’s directed at me, i can assure you my troubleshooting skills are up to par.
note the post that indicates that i have 2 xbox 360’s and it is surely an issue with heat and the issue that has been outlined in this thread.
some people are void of warranty outside of this issue, thus the searching and attempts at fixing it. if it’s a genuine xbox that broke, i would unquestionably send it back to get it swapped out with a new one, unfortunately it is safe to assume my warranty is void.
Woah, back off with the attitude buddy. I wasn’t insinuating you didn’t know shit about it, nor was my post directed at you.
I was trying to let the OP know that it COULD be something other than a heat issue. I thought the same thing the first time I had the issue until I was reading up on it and found that there were other causes for the red ring.
well…the towel trick fixed it…for now hahaha
prob going to trade it in for store credit, or cash, then maybe buy a new one or idk, keep doing the towel trick
Personally I would trade it in for credit, they released new xbox’s actually, with the hdmi port, and they are upgraded internally to stop this from happening. My friends couldnt be fixed and they sent him one, M$ even told him all of that.
nothing is upgraded internally to resolve the issue, they are just soldered better… i have a new and old and they are almost identical when looking at the boards.
They did re-design the heat sink setup and modified the x-clamps. All new manufactured ones come like this and 99% of returns from warranty service have this change now.
weird… my x clamp and heat sinks appear to be identical to my old xbox?
Then yours is pre-change-over. They have been using these heat sinks in repaired units for quite some time. Well before they extended the warranty. But new units were using up old stocks prior to the change over. Yours sounds like one made during the switch.
awesome… hope it fails too :rolleyes:
not getting red lights but Im getting constant lock ups. Ill be playing halo and just walking around it will freeze up. think I hear a slight clicking inside the xbox
any ideas?
they say sometimes if you place your power brick off the floor, it will run better. I dunno if there is any truth in this, I never had a issue with my xbox yet. (knock knock)
Clicking is a mechanical noise. So that means either A. DVD Rom drive or B. Fans
A bad DVD rom would lock up while reading data. Could be a scratched disc or failing DVD lense.
A bad fan would cause an overheating condition and potentially lock up the GPU (what can cause the 3 RRoD lights)
Does it seem especially hot when it locks up? Does the disc keep spinning? Will it lock up while at the dashboard or playing arcade games (doing stuff with it that doesn’t need a disc)