My Other Project

I have several other irons in the fire. When not working on ebike – I am dabbling in other areas. At present a project that has taken over my work space is the R&R of my XBox 360. A week ago last weekend it went belly-up and gave me the E74 Error Code which translates to “a bad AV cable”. What nonsense; the cable has been static for years and years. Sadly my Halo version of the 360 is far beyond warrantee.

Admittedly – I have been having issues with the unit for the past year, maybe two – with the fans never shutting down after I turn the console off. I knew the writing was on the wall - though always thought the power supply brick was the culprit. Until now.

Reading about the E74 Error, it is very similar to the RROD (an equivalent to BSOD for Windows). I could not believe the amount of bogus disinformation on youtube posted by nitwit noobs. I particularly (not) liked the “towel treatment”: Wrap your XBox with a wet towel, fire it up and let it overheat. This changes the Error Code from E74 to RROD – which is even more serious. Then, after cooling for 20-30 minutes, fire it up again – and walla – the mysterious error has self-corrected! In actuality – the unit becomes so hot that it remelts the solder joints -> leading to the clue of what is really wrong with the unit!!

Overheating
We knew this from a long time ago: The XBox was flawed with heating issues. For years I’ve had mine sitting on a tripod of 3-inch tall standoffs to increase airflow and radiation. Taking the plunge and diving into the repair, I got as far as the inner Aluminum case and main PCB before being blocked by Torx T8 screws. <grumbles>. No one had them locally – so I ordered off Amazon a full set of the T8 and below size that was missing from my tool collection, and elected to go the route of using the finest ArctiClean (I & II), plus I have a real chance now to experiment with IC Diamond Thermal Compound! Anyway – all those bits were ordered last week and they have finally arrived today.

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XBOX 360 Repair Guide - #1

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XBOX 360 Repair Guide - #2

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XBOX 360 Repair Guide - #3

There are a lot of helper videos out there, but for every one, there is 3X more crap-tech solutions. Caveat emptor


Replace the X-spring design with pan heads or not? It really does appear to be Rube Goldberg design: Spring-mounted pressure of the heat sinks against the chips as opposed to firm non-spring contact pressure. You tell me.

Anyways… now that I have the tools – heat sinks were removed. I was sooo grateful that the amount of thermal compound previously applied appeared to be factory-normal, and not burbled over in gobs of waste after some wretched 3rd-party R&R that I have seen in some youtube videos. The ArctiClean-I did a brilliant job of loosening the thermal debris. Some special notes:

For myself, I took the extra step of using Isopropanol to wipe down the surfaces after the ArtiClean (being that I had a LOT more of this solution) to clean up residual residue. From the videos, one could see that once the thermal compound is removed, there is still a trace… like a mask of material indicating the footprint where the original placement was. I had this issue too and resolved to go one step further to eliminate all possible layers of influence by using a little Bon Ami with water and working it with my fingers until the ghost of the footprint was removed.

The next step awaits until tomorrow as I finish the repair. Need to decide to make a run to Ace Hardware for screws and washers to replace the odd spring design, or not.

So listen: I did not use a pair of pliers to remove the studs from the heatsinks, no! A 1/4-inch wrench will do it perfectly. :wink: That took me by surprise as I expected it would take a 7mm wrench. Even in this late global economy American tooling influence still reigns in foreign assembly lines. Go figure

Anyone else have to go through all this on their XBox? Personally, I find the challenge to be a nice distraction from the ordinary, and relish the opportunity to use new thermal compound on a practical domestic device.

Minecraft awaits. KF

Edit: post removed by e-beach as it was off topic.

not familiar with the error but to isolate the spot where you most likely have a cold solder joint is to look for the place where high current runs on the traces to relays or high current components and look for the telltale shadow of the cold solder joint where the surface mount resistor device is soldered down. look right under the edge of the resistor to see if it looks like it has lifted even a tiny amount, imperceptible.

maybe you can interpret how the board might flex as it heats up and where the stress on a surface mount part would cause a cold solder joint to form. it takes repeated heat/cooling cycles, look for that stress spot. BOL.

then touch it up with a soldering iron to just remelt the solder and power it up again. usually this means hitting alotta surface mount resistors with the iron before putting it back together enuff to power up. so if it works, you never know which one it was.

dnmun said:

...... so if it works, you never know which one it was.

Click to expand...

Any way to test after every re-solder?....or is that a waist of time?

KF,

Sounds a lot like my adventures in resurrecting HP DV9000 laptops. The video cards would go out frequently on those, and you could repair the video chips by heating them with a heat gun to around 700F. Worked about 75% of the time. I would pick up dead ones on craigslist for ~$50 fix them and resell them for $200.

Update:
I decided to forego the X-clamp update after much reading about the E74 error -> Nearly everything I have read & watched that was not some amateur gibberish says the culprit is the H(ANA) Chip that handled the A/V signals with the cable and is also located close to the Graphics chip although not covered by a heat sink. According to sources the motherboard becomes so hot that it warps and lifts the chip because the Lead-free solder that is used in manufacturing is inherently weak.

Still - I have to put the unit back together.

• Using the ArctiClean-II and the instructions provided online by the manufacturer, got the surfaces all nice and spiffy and applied the IC Diamond Thermal Compound – using their online instructions. Partly assembled the box to where I could test it. Fired it up, and in less than 5 seconds I still had the pesky error.
• One youtube video said to run the console for 20 minutes to make it hot (2-red rings) but it never switched, so I let it go another 10 minute and still nothing.
• Swapped out the A/V cable – the supposedly real purpose for the error, but I got the same result. Granted I didn’t plug in the other side cos it’s for Composite-out, and I don’t have that sort of monitor around anymore.
• Tried the Penny-fix for the ANA chip next: That’s taking 9 or 10 pennies in a stack – bundled together with electrical tape and placed over the ANA (A/V) chip, and then put pressure on the chip as I fired up the console again hoping to prove this was the issue. Nope – still the same error.
• Resorted to blasting the CPU with a heat gun (set on Low) until the unit overheated (2-red rings). This was supposed to reset the chip. I let the console cool for ½ hour (it was barely warm by this time); fired it up and… no joy: Error E74.

There is one last thing I can try: Reflow
I know you guys suggested this earlier. Frankly I didn't want to heat-stress the board any more than possible. The task requires that I acquire “No Clean Flux”, dabble it all around the base of the ANA chip, and reflow the solder using a heat gun set to High for 30-60 seconds. I actually watched an amateur video of this procedure where it worked. Unfortunately the NCF is not available at my local Radio Shack, however Vetco.Net - the electronics supplier for geeks like me has the “Kester No Clean Flux Pen” and I’m thinking that might do. So I have to make a run into Bellevue to fetch that. I think this really is my last hope short of buying another XBox 360. <grrr> :x

All this just so I can be ambushed by Creepers!
…and then there’s the rain. KF