How to heat gun/reflow your 3 RROD Xbox

I'm gonna show you how to possibly fix an Xbox 360 with the 3 red lights. I say possibly because it doesnt always work, and if it does work its never guaranteed to last that long.

Step 1. Get yourself a heat gun, the one I use is a Wagner dual temperature heat gun, it does 750F and 1000F, this is more then enough. Also get some electrical tape, some mylar if you can get it*, some arctic silver 5 (regular thermal paste works too) and some aluminum foil.

Note* If you cant get mylar find some old anti-static bags that electronics come in.

Step 2. Take apart your Xbox 360.

Step 3. Remove the two heatsinks that are on the board.



This is what the thermal paste looks like from the factory, Microsoft cares so little about quality control that they are breaking the first rule of building a good computer: Never EVER put too much thermal paste, its more likely to overheat that way.

Step 4. Clean off the CPU and GPU. For this I use 91% alcohol (available at Walgreen's) and cotton swabs. Dont worry about being a little rough around the resistors, it takes a lot to break 'em off the cpu and gpu, unless your using steel wool or something (DONT DO THIS).




They should be nice and shiny when your done.

Step 5. Follow this step to a T. Take the tape and the mylar/anti-static bags and go around the cpu, gpu, and the hana/ana chip if you want to (I mainly just do the cpu and gpu) make sure that you only outline the parts you want heated and also make sure that all of the components on the board are excluded from the heat. You do not want a capacitor blowing up in your face, you will go deaf for about 30 mins, TRUST ME... and also if anything gets overheated it will ruin the board and you will be f*cked.



The picture explains it all.

Step 6. Now take the aluminum foil, pull out about 4 feet of it and double it over twice, i.e, fold it in half lengthwise once, then fold it in half lengthwise again, you should have a good size piece of 4 layer aluminum. Take this aluminum and do exactly the same thing you did with the mylar/anti-static bags but this time your going to outline the inside of the plastic. After you finish this step you should have a 5 layer heat shield; 4 layers of aluminum and then 1 layer of mylar/anti-static bags on the outside.



The foil goes in the inside then the mylar goes on the outside.

*You will also notice that I included the ram chips when I did this one, its not required but it is recommended.

After you have prepped the board place it on a stable surface. Turn your heatgun on the lowest setting (for me it was 750F) and let it warm up. After the gun has warmed up start about 7-8" from the BOTTOMof the board and constantly move the airstream around the entire thing for about 5-7 mins. This heats the entire board up and prevents it from warping when it cools down later.

Now your ready to heat the top part of the board.

(I dont have pictures of this, its kind of hard to heat gun and take photos at the same time.)

*NOTE: DO NOT move the board during heat gunning, the solder gets pretty soft and if you move/jar the board some components could come lose.

Take the heat gun at the lowest setting and start 8" from the top of the board, keep moving it around the components never letting it sit in one spot for a long time. You will start to notice the smell of cooking electronics, this is what we want. After about 10 mins at 750F your going to want to turn the heat gun up to its highest setting (1000F) and keep doing what you were originally doing but this time your going to be 6" from the board, once again, never leave the heat gun in one place too long. After another 10 mins go ahead and turn the gun off and walk away from the board.

After the board has had sufficient time to cool, at least 20 mins, you can put it back together and test it.

*NOTE: DONT forget to put new thermal paste on the heat sinks!




Hope this helps anyone who has this problem, if you need any help let me know. Happy Modding.

Thanks alot I actually have Two RROD Xbox360 systems so I will try this out and let you know how it goes

Good luck, its pretty straight forward just make sure you do not move the board while your heating it or you risk all of the surface mount components sliding around and then your really screwed. And also make sure that you only put a small amount of thermal paste. Tip: put a half of a grain of rice sized amount on the center of the die and spread it around with a credit card.