How to Repair Xbox 360 - The Cause: II

Welcome back, friends. In order to learn how to repair Xbox 360 consoles, you first need to know what causes the problems. Yesterday we talked about the X-clamps and motherboard. We'll wrap it all up today so that we can start ripping things to bits. I know how much you love doing that...

Finally, the cooling system. The Xbox 360 has two exhaust fans at the back and... oh, that's it. There's a fan shroud (big, ugly piece of plastic) that really wants to direct the flow of air over the heatsinks, but it's pretty dodgily designed as well. The idea of a heatsink is to have a large surface area so that moving air can pass through it, carrying the heat away with it. The shroud used in the Xbox 360 leaves huge gaps - paths of lesser resistance to airflow - so a lot of the air moved by the fans never goes near the heatsinks.

To top it all off, M$ have tried to make the console "quiet" (note the virtual sarcasm) by throttling the speed of the fans relative to the internal temperatures. This is common practice and makes good sense when done properly. Of course, they didn't do it properly. The fans run too slowly for any given temperature. Bugger...

Now for some maths. It's like being back at school...

Motherboard Flex + Weak Solder + Too Much Heat = RROD!!

The solder gets reflowed by the excessive heat and, under the flex caused by the X-clamps, solder joints break and cold solder joints form. You got it, components effectively get de-soldered from the motherboard! Ouch... No wonder we get our "general hardware failure".

Consider yourself informed. Don't forget to grab your copy of the Xbox 360 Red Light Fix: Pro Gamer Edition. Now we can get into the nitty gritty and learn how to repair Xbox 360 consoles. Nice...