We are the game debaters. We debate about games.... thus the name of the site..... Duh!
Red Ringed 360? Don’t Go to Microsoft! Do it y’er damn self!
But before I start blogging a DISCLAIMER:
This is a hobby project I decided I would give a shot. Of course you may do the same but don’t blame me if you screw up your system. I bought this defective unit for practically nothing and I suggest you do the same before attempting this on your own, main unit. Having some knowledge of assembling and fixing PCs helps and for God’s sake wear an Anti-static strap on your wrist and discharge yourself by touching a metal door knob before you do anything!!!
Anyhow……
So had I had a friend who I knew was selling is Red Ringed 360. Originally he wanted 90 bucks Canuck Monopoly money for it. I said “Good luck”. I check last week and he’s gone down to 40 bucks. I told him I would pick it up the following day. Why you ask? Because I’m going to try and fix it myself and see what else I can do with it. I figured for 40 bucks if I fuck it up who cares. It’s only 40 bucks and the least I will have gotten from it is a lesson and some other form of education. But I decided, wait…. Much like Doc brown… if you’re going to create/fix something why not add a kick onto it? So I got me a Talisman Silent Blue LED exhaust fan and a Zouzen toolkit (which I always wanted) from Llama as well as an RRoD repair Kit. As you can see below, the 360 was clearly a sick puppy… but beside it are the friends to make it better:
Now you may notice I have some LED strips that I was going to put in the unit as well but decided against it at the last minute due to airflow concerns.
I used a guide I found through rapidshare with some Videos to assist me in doing this. I watched the videos yesterday and read the PDF twice. Here’s the patient from the inside:
and without the DVD ROM drive:
Now I didn’t document me taking out the heatsinks and X-Clamps because I had my hands full. As well a word of the Wise: Use a Thermal compound removal solution & bag your screws! No matter how careful you are, they can always roll off your desk and fall on the carpet and get lost. Trust me.
Kinda looks like the bags you would use for your various recreational drugs.
As for cleaning the thermal paste off the chips and the heatsinks, rubbing alcohol didn’t do shit! Thus, use the removal solution.
So about a half hour later I installed the new screws and washers that replaced the x-clamps and also put new thermal paste on the CPU & GPU. After, as per the guide, I let the unit red ring until it got 2 red rings and after a minute I disconnected it and tightened the screws on both heatsinks a bit more. Once that was done I let it cool down for 30 minutes and re-assembled it… now keep in mind this is a second 360 unit I got, My main one has a 120gb drive in and sits in my entertainment unit (comfortably). I slapped my old 20gb on this one and powered the sucker up…. and lookie here:
and the new healthy blue glow coming out of the back as shown here:
This fan is about 90db quieter than stock one and was a cinch to install.
All in all, this took me a bit over an hour to do and I will state that I will NEVER EVER send my 360 to MS again to get it fixed and wait 6 weeks to get it back!
Next Project:
Changing the housing and fixing the hinge on my Girlfriend’s Nintendo DS. The damn thing is falling apart physically. God I love launch units. I should be doing that one in about two weeks when the parts come in.
Subsequently, I might also try to put this 360 I just fixed into a clear Crystal case instead of that boring white one it comes in. We’ll see.
Parts used Tally:
1 x RRoD’d 360 Console JUST the console no cables or anything – $40CDN ($32.94US)
2 x Xbox 360 Red Light Fix Kit for X-Clamp Repair ROD – $9.30 US
1 x Fan Upgrade Talismoon Whisper Fan Blue LED – $23.99US
1 x Access Pro Toolkit V2 by ZooZen (A MUST HAVE!!) – $16.99US
Yes! This is in fact, my FAVORITE trilogy of old school, side scrolling Beat ‘em Ups for the SNES. I had very fond memories of these games. I remember the first time I played it and that was actually “Rushing Beat Ran � Fukusei Toshi” which of course I met initially as “Brawl Brothers”. I played this with my Friend Ariel (yes that’s HIS name) and I must say it is the most fun I had playing a 2 player game since Street Fighter II at the time. Now I do not recall if I played “Rival Turf” aka “Rushing Beat” first. I also do not recall when I played “The Peace Keepers” aka “Rushing Beat Syura”, maybe 1995 or so. Anyways, but it was not until many years later in the late 90s that I found out these were a trilogy in Japan. I played “Brawl Brothers” until 2002 on my SNES straight from 1995 when I acquired it from the same Blockbuster that I rented it from initially for $14.99. I bought it with my allowance which was paid as a lump sum as we were in Germany that summer for over a month so I collected my weekly allowance (which I had forgotten about cause of all the summer fun) and saw it in the used games bin and bought it without thought. I do not know where this original purchased game is (nor my Street Fighter 2 Turbo) but once I do I will make a video on these “Lost Games”. As there are about 3 of them. Anyhow here is the Video! Enjoy!!!!
PS I know that I spelled the URL wrong. I’ve since re-edited this vid but did not re-up it as it has been embedded in some other sites I still need to find.
Add your comment