How to fix RROD (Three Red Rings of Death)
Tools needed:
- as5 silver thermal paste (ebay-£5 or pc shop in town, cheaper stuff-£3.50)
- 8 M5 10MM screws (12mm from rowlets- 80p for 10)
- 28 5MM flat washers (10 for 35p at rowlets)
- total cost: between £5 and £6.50
Time taken: approx 30 to 45 minuites
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Now lets remove the motherboard from the metal casing. Look at the powerswitch in the front. There are 3 Torx8 (T8) screws that you must remove. One of them is concealed by that white light diffuser. Memorize the position it is attached, so that you don’t accidently clip it on wrong, just to find out your 360 won’t turn on AFTER you reassemble it.
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After you remove the T8 screws, simply pull out the chip and set it aside. In some versions of the 360 there are a bunch of T8 screws that hold the motherboard from the bottom of the case. Unscew those, and your motherboard should come out of the metal casing.
Flip the motherboard over and face the culprit that has plagued your 360. Microsoft’s ingenuis Xclamps design. These Xclamps are the reason why your Xbox 360 gets the 3 red lights. My guess is that somebody got really stoned one night and decided to hold in these brackets by pressure, instead of the logical, conventional… screws. Instead of evenly distrubiting the pressure, it pushes down on the back of the cpu and gpu chips. When the 360 gets hot, the motherboard flexes. The combination of that and the xclamps pressing down on the chips causes the cheap bga solder connections underneath the chips to break. This is why the towel trick temporarily fixes this, it reflows the solder to create the connections again, but the xclamps are still there to screw it up again.
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Indulge yourself in prying those pieces of **** off the motherboard. I used pliers to get them off, but be VERY cautious not to damage the motherboard itself while you’re at it. You must pry off 2 out of 4 ends before they pop off.
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After removing the Xclamps, flip the mobo over to remove the heatsinks from the CPU(left) and the GPU(right, 2 chips; 1 big 1 small). Now stop, and lets take a moment to applaud to microsoft’s awesome thermal paste job, it looks like very few of it actually ended up on the CPU/GPU to conduct the heat released from the chips to the heatsinks. Great job microsoft.
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Use a 1/4″ socket to remove the screws from both heatsinks.
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Lets get the screws ready before we apply the thermal paste. I recommend putting 1 washer on the screw and then 2 washers between the motherboard and the heatsinks so that in case you tighten the screws a little too tight the heatsink won’t crush the chip. Now you are ready to apply the Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.
But before that, I would suggest that you scrub off Microsoft’s thermal paste off the heatsinks AND the chips, be careful though not to actually damage the chips. Now put some AS5 on the CPU and on both chips of the GPU. Apply a reasonable amount of this stuff, don’t drown the chips in it because it might actually all get squeezed off the chips(just like it did for MS) if you apply too much pressure when screwing back the heatsinks.
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Top image is the GPU(2 chips)
Bottom is the CPU
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Now it’s time to put the heatsinks back on the CPU & GPU with the thermal paste on. Like I said before it is best to put 2 washers between the motherboard and the heatsinks.
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The tricky part is to actually screw in the screws onto the heatsinks without flipping the motherboard over. For the obvious reason of course. What I did was simply lift the motherboard up with my hand and turn the screws clockwise until they firmly held the heatsink in place. If you find that a little difficult you can slide the mobo over to the edge of the table just so you can screw them in. Don’t screw them in too tight, just enough so that it holds it in place.
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You should have something that resembles the picture below. Once again do not overtighten the screws, and don’t let them hang there too loosely.
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Now plug the front panel(where the On button is) back on, and also the fan. Do not put the heatpipe or the DVD rom in place yet though
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Plug the Xbox in to the power supply and the AV cable
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And turn it on using a remote or your controller. Most likely your 360 will still have the 3 red lights, and the reason for that is because the solder connections are still broken. Let’s fix that…
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And by let’s fix it I mean let’s let it fix itself. Turn the 360 on without the heatpipe so that it over heats and resolders the connections. If you get 2 red lights that means the screws are too loose. Correct that and let it stay on for about 10 minutes, until the fan gets to full power. I just let mine overheat until it turned itself off not to fry the CPU/GPU. After it goes off(or you turn it off) let it stand for about 10 more minutes without touching it(otherwise you’re screwed if you move it after it resoldered the connections).
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Now turn it back on and it should have green lights. If the AV cable isn’t plugged you will get 4 red lights, if it is plugged in to your TV, then you probably squeezed the thermal paste off the CPU and GPU while readjusting the screws. My first time repairing the 360 I had to take out the mobo from the metalcasing about a dozen times to make sure everything was done correctly, so if your first time isn’t a charm either try the above process several times to get it working.
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After you get the green lights, take it a part again(last time I promise) to tighten the heatsinks’ screws. Play around with your 360 before closing it up, make sure it works properly.
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AND THERE YOU GO YOUR DONE NOW YOU SHOULD NEVER AGAIN I PROMISE GET THE RED LIGHTS OR RROD!
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Dude nice tut worked great for me and only cost 4.00$ And you can actually see the pictures clearly. You need to make more Tutorials.
Great Work!!
Thanks…glad I could help!
nice tutorial, i have a problem, whan i press the power button, eject button or the controller the power light flashes green for like half a second and the light on the power brick goes red do you have any idea what i can do?. i hope u can help thanks in advance
thanks!! so much man finally playing rock band and halo 3 again u the best!
thansk for the excellent guide mate tried this today and it worked first time
weve also tested it with cod5, and its still going strong, hope it lasts, youve made our day ,so to people who think it doesnt work are truly wrong you just havnt done it right or its a differnt problem
Thanks alot, I had a problem with the xbox that warranty would not cover so I crack the seal and fixed it.(dust build up on laser eye and opening mechanism for tray.) Three months later RROD. Thought I was buying a new one till I found this. You saved me alot of money. Worked exactly like you said it would.
Thank you so much!!! Got a 360 for free and thought I would give this a shot, worked a treat! Now I just need to get some games and a hard drive! Thanks again!!!
Fantastic tutorial worked first time. Many thanks
Hi,
Great tutorial, I used this and cross referenced a few others. All went to plan apart from switching it back on for the first time (not fully assembled / no air tunnel). I get the Left 2 red lights flashing almost straight away, so it doesn’t give me RROD and then 2 red lights once its over heated.
Any ideas to what I have done wrong? I’m experienced with building pc’s but this is my first time inside the 360.
Thanks in advance
Rob
Not too sure exactly what is wrong but I suggest you disassemble the Xbox again and use this way to get it to work. Im yet to see someone who has done it properly have RROD again.
Hi, I love this tutorial. The pictures are clear and I fixed my xbox with this method. I am currently in the process of fixing a friend’s with this method and am having one difficulty: when I attempt to overheat the xbox it gets incredibly hot, but will not register that it is overheating. I left it on for 6 minutes without the fan and the lights never switched from 3 to 2, and the heat-sinks were both very hot. what should I do?
Rob, this is because the cpu doesn’t think you have re-installed the heat-sink. I would advise tightening the screws a little more if possible, and if that doesn’t work, try removing the metal washer between the heat sink and the motherboard.
Hi, I tried a method similar to this and am having a problem. In his tutorial, i was told to leave the 2 red rings without fan or anything fan related in the xbox for 1 minute to overheat and solder etc. But the heat sinks never got hot, i then decided to try and leave it on longer, again did not begin to heat up. I plugged the fans back in and they start good but then go very hard and stop leaving 2 red rings and the heat sinks aren’t even warm. My screws are kind of big in the heads and i was wondering if that might be a problem, they are in pretty tight, but are sitting the mother board quite high, i even have to bend the board down and keep the cables plugged in to keep it even like it is supposed to be. Could that be the problem? If not then what else could it be?
You hit the nail on the coffin that is the problem. get yourself smaller screws so the motherboard sits more’snug’ in the xbox and this also should make the heatsinks get hot. Or just use my method =)
How long did it take for your xbox 360 to automatically shutoff? I had the 3 red lights and turned it off after about 10-15 mins of the fan fully being on and then I left it alone for 15 mins but I still had the 3 red lights. I’m going to try and leave it longer until it shuts off on its own but it seems like its working for everyone else.
@mark: You can also remove 1 of the 2 washers between the heatsink and the motherboard, it will give you better contact with the heatsink. see if that gives you the 3 red lights
Thanks very much! Also, i am trying to use Arctic Silver Ceramique instead of AS5. Will that make a difference?
See, this guide is great, but ive been haveing trouble getting my hands on thermal grease, so i tryed to put thermal plastic(cocking) and that had the same effect(nothing). insted of 3 lights, there was 2.. is there anything you can use besides the grease that will do the job? because this stuff ive used, kinda stuck on the chip, not really greased on it… kinda like a peely glue.
Any ideas…
Hey I have tried this. The problem that I am having is that the heatsinks will not get hot at all. The fans won’t spin nothing. I just have the RROD. I have used the screws like instructed. Any advice?
ok, well i found some.. but now i got another probelm. ive read the other post’s btw…
I turn on my xbox at set 16, and it right away goes to 2 red rings, but its not hot at all… and my fan goes on for like 5 secounds then shots off… ? help…please
Should the fans work when you do this correctly or after u let it overheat?
I swear to god man if this works for me ill bow before you! My 360 got the RRoD 3 weeks ago and ive literally dived into the net looking for good easy ways to fix this @#@!ing problem. I bought this 360 3 years ago its the 360 Pro 20GB and it fails now and i have a Nintendo 64 lying in a box somewhere that ive had for ten years. It just pisses me off!
I havent used anything else before but you definately cant use a glue that will be peeling. Heres a link to some AS Paste http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202847867&listingid=46390045
An above post from Jay gave a good way to sort this out
‘You can also remove 1 of the 2 washers between the heatsink and the motherboard, it will give you better contact with the heatsink. see if that gives you the 3 red lights’
Hope that helps
You need to tighten the screws they are too lose and are not able to conduct the heat aswell to make the connections happen.
You want to not put in the heat pipe as of yet because that will draw the heat away. Turn it on without the heatpipe in and the should work
Thanks so much for this awesome straight forward tutorial. My 360 gave me RROD today and i found this, went to the hardware store and picked up the screws and an hour later my 360 is up and running again!
Brilliant guide mate – easy to follow, and works a treat. VERY happy with this, thanks a million!
Just wanted to say thank you,after reading your instructions i still got the 3 RROD but as i read the comments i found the solutions i removed one washer from both heatsinks and redid the process and its worked for an hour continueously. Thank you again my son is very appreciative.
So amazing!! This legitimately worked. I got it all put together on the first try and no red rings!! thanks a ton!
So I followed all of your steps here and it was still not heating up. The fan also did not spin. I removed all but 1 washer to get a better fit, but still no heat and no fan. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks for the tutorial.
I did this but i turn it on with the 3 rrod but the fan won’t turn on, its like only the lights go on, it never overheats
I’m not sure if you’re still looking at this, but after following your guide and repeating the steps several times, my xbox still has the 3 red rings. As I looked over your guide again, I noticed that my heat sink look different from the one in your picture. Mine seems to have a 2nd heat sink attached to it:
http://img.alibaba.com/photo/241754175/heat_sink_for_xbox360_parts_for_xbox360.jpg
Does this prevent your solution from working on my xbox?
Ive never seen heat sinks like that before. How old is your xbox?
Not sure, it should heat up alot
@Brian
These heatsinks were introduced by microsoft in the the 360 Elite & newer models in an attempt to prevent the RROD from occurring by giving extra cooling to the GPU.
Sir, I’d like to thank you for the work you’ve done on your site, and this article in particular.
I just came back from visiting an old shipmate, and he forced me to play a 1st person shooter game (Borderland) on his X-Box, and at 58, I’m back to deciding if I want to start saving my pennies to jump ship from my PC to the X-Box because of the playing style of the controllers on this platform. I thought I was well past buying gaming platforms when I upgraded to a PC in ’99. Well, live and learn. He also informed me of this 3RROD problem, and that he fixed his machine prior to getting to that point and the fix supposedly made it even a better machine.
I’ve just spent two hours investigating the 3RROD on the web, and all I could come up with are sites willing to charge me $30.00 for a video about it. Yours is the first site that has given me the information I need to be able to tell if I can even attempt to do the fix myself or not.
The photos are a godsend to someone whom can understand the language used to describe the fix, but have never SEEN the various components.
Still haven’t made up my mind if I’m going to attempt to fix it myself or not (I have some physical limitations), but I’ve both book-marked this article and copied it for some in-depth study later on.
Again, thank you for your work, and now if I could only find a way to fix the “X of death” for downloading photos……..
Respectfully, Tim Turner, Whidbey Island, Washington, USA
I got mine a couple months after the launch date of Xbox 360. After about a year, I got my first RRoD and had to send it in to Microsoft since I was still covered by the warranty. It’s been fine since they sent it back, but I recently god RRoD again. My guess is that Microsoft replaced the old heatsink (the one in your picture) with a different one (my picture). I’ll keep trying your method though, hopefully it works.
i tried this the 1st time i got red lights the after at the 2nd attempt i did not get lights or my wireless controllers were not able to turn it on just wondering what i did wrong
@Craig
Would you by any chance know if having this type of heatsink affects the success rate of the method provided above?
I did everything..but the only problem is that the screws for the heatsink do not fit the new one? It can only go like halfway. What size screw should I get for it?
Anyone know why my fan won’t turn on when I put it back in the case to overheat? It span for a few seconds and died. 3 blinking lights, no fan, not getting hot.
I cannot get rid of 2 lights, I thighned the screws as much as I could and still nothing. HELP!!
Okay I got rid of the two lights. The One washer method worked. However, I have the E74, and just like usual, one light will come on, then overheat to two lights, then I shut it off. But after turning it on after a half hour, I still have the red light. Anyone know why?
After searching the web for 2 hours and looking at 50 different ways to fix RROD your tutorial finally fix it. I never replaced the x-clamps (its 2am in the morning so im not able to buy the supplies) but i let it set without the wind tunnel on for about 5 min then let it set for about 5 min. turned it on and BAM! xbox 360 working again! i will probably fix the x-clamp and look into a few other ideas (ie water cooling) to make sure it doesnt over heat again, but THANK YOU SO MUCH for the tutorial!
Hey guys, I have a Xbox 360 that also had the RROD and I sent it into xbox like 1 year ago, and now I have it again. SO, I tried to do all the steps in this tutorial with no avail. I have tried over heating it and it started to give me 2 lights at about 8 minutes so i shut it down and let it cool for 15 mins and started it up… 3 rings still. So any help would be great, and i do have the Heatsink with the Extra thing sticking out of it probably what they replaced in it the first time. As of now im going to try again to loosen the bolts a little and try again, and just try a bunch of different things, juts if there is any help soon I will not be doing this for hours. I think this Tutorial is great just to let you know.
I’ve tried multiple times and still getting the 3 red rings… help?