Towels Give Life!

[slycat]

As absurd as it may sound, towels really do fix (temporarily) red ring of death Xbox 360s. I don't really know what's going on inside the box and I'm sure it can't be good for it in the long run, but to stop an Xbox 360 from suffering from the 3 light red ring of death, you just need to remove all cables apart from power, remove the hard drive, wrap up in 3 towels or so, leave the Xbox on for around 25mins and then remove the towels. The 3 flashing lights will have changed to 2 which means the Xbox is overheating. Turn the Xbox off and leave to cool for 15 mins (this sounds like a recipe doesn't it?) before turning on again and enjoying Xbox 360 goodness for a couple of days before it breaks again.

I celebrated by downloading Jeff stinkygoat Minter's new game Space Giraffe. After working out that the combos and multipliers you get from knocking lots of enemies off the grid at the same time is the best way to get a higher score, I've ended up getting a nice 8mil after playing through to level 11 which seems to be quite good in comparison to my friends list.

I will be sending the box back when I can anyway, but I'll most likely do that when I get the box I sent to myself from Pittsburgh with my fursuit feet and tail in it which finally seems to have made it's way to UPS' depot.

Comments

[werepanther.livejournal.com]

That all sounds like, either, lose soldering or a hair fracture in
the mainboard.

Anyways, at least you get some gameing out of it. Foxes box is done too,
not the rings of death. But the DvD drive grinding from hell.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

It's something to do with warping motherboards and X-Clips whatever they are apparently. My drive grinds discs when you tilt it and the disc is spinning, but then it does quite clearly say don't tilt it while it's on so that's my own fault I guess :P The game still plays despite having a circle ground into it.

[dolphin42.livejournal.com]

the problem is the lead free solder.
it's brittle and fails too easily.
ask me how I know... :)

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Hmm, OK then, how do you know? Furthermore, why does overheating the Xbox temporarily fix it?

[dolphin42.livejournal.com]

I design microelectronics, and I've had to redesign things because the boards would fracture easily...

the antimony is brittle, the lead would flex. why exactly you get temporary repair - i assume the board flexes because of the head, and slides a little in it's mounts... causing the open connection to close for a while.

[dolphin42.livejournal.com]

s/head/heat/

[dogtoy.livejournal.com]

It's related to the BGA packages on the board. Heat causes the board to flex and the fractured BGA connections to close up temporarily. Interesting article (http://www.consolerealm.com/Tech/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=57&mode=&order=0&thold=0) on this.

Improved cooling can stop it happening, though not now it's damaged.

[dolphin42.livejournal.com]

yep... designers need to pay more attention to these things especially now that the solder doesn't "give" like it used to. In the last product I did, I had to use a second PCB for the keys because the board would flex slightly and eventually fail (the leaded version of the player didn't exhibit this problem at all).

I'm still having problems with USB connectors that "pop" off the board after a while.. tho hopefully the new design (with mechanical reinforcement and larger pads) will fix it.

Everything about electronics is getting more and more difficult these days. (bleah)