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Yes this was absolutely true. I used to repair these systems when they got the dreaded red ring of death. Microsoft used inferior solder, and coupled this with
by mattius 5y ago
Yes this was absolutely true. I used to repair these systems when they got the dreaded red ring of death. Microsoft used inferior solder, and coupled this with a poorly designed heatsink mounting bracket. The heatsink mounting bracket on the back of the motherboard was bowed by design, and would pull back on the corners of the CPU, while a middle contact point would press up on the center of the CPU socket. Once heated, this caused the motherboard to flex directly under the CPU, and this stress would pop the ball grid array solder points under the CPU.
The trick was to place a stack of nylon bushings at each corner of the CPU, to take up the free space after removing the bracket. This removed the stress from under the CPU and would usually bring the system back to life for another eight months or so.
- samhuk 5y agoSurely the best countermeasure to worsening of the issue would be to advise people to place the xbox 360 horiztonally, no? This would mean no more stress. I'm intruiged as to why it would only work for eight months, why wasn't the fix "permanent"?
- mattius 5y agoThe position in which you placed the console was a separate issue that caused the same failure. The stress from the mounting bracket was a bigger factor. I tried looking for a good visual example and this article describes the issue, and fix, pretty well. https://www.instructables.com/Fix-the-Red-Ring-of-Deathwithout-towels/ https://www.instructables.com/Fix-the-Red-Ring-of-Deathwitho... The fix would only last so long because once a ball grid array looses connections there is no real fix. It takes very special equipment to create those connections in the first place. If you search "ball grid array soldering" on YouTube you'll see what I'm talking about. They're a real pain to try to fix once broken.