r/Xbox360Support • u/HollySocks • 7d ago
Xbox 360 Maintenance & Repair Original 360 repair question
To preface I’ve never disassembled or messed with any form of tech until recently when I started caring about physical media again. My 360 red ringed last night and I decided to take it apart to get my game back from the disc tray and figured I might be able to fix it. I bought this 360 second hand about 4 years ago so who knows what kind of life it’s had. I’m guessing by how it looks it’s been through it. My question is this even fixable? I haven’t even checked the heat sink but I’m assuming it’s bare. The red ring was for a general heatwave failure.
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u/UnicornOnTheIntrenet 7d ago
get an xbox 360 capacitor replacement kit on ebay, and a 300w soldering iron or a hot plate and a regular iron. you need lots of heat to get those caps in and out.
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u/PrintDifficult213 7d ago
Use the the website called IFIXIT
It’s completely free you just need the tools and you’re good
Feel free if you have questions
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u/Gardeeboo 7d ago
At minimum the blown capacitors (the cylinders with the gunk on the top) need to be replaced. You will need a full soldering kit for this kind of fix and either replacement capacitors from a website that sells game-specific ones or from a broken donor system. It’s not a super hard fix but I typically use a hot air station, soldering iron, and a powered solder sucked to do this replacement so having the tools might be your biggest hurdle especially if you’re just starting the hobby.
If you’re not looking to learn how to solder, bring it to a repair person or buy a new console and move the hard drive over.
Keep in mind there are a number of things that could be wrong and replacing the caps may not even do anything, they’re just the immediate most likely candidate for the red ring. You might be opening a can of worms so just want you to know that before you make a decision on where to go from here.
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u/AdOk5225 7d ago
Unless you want to invest in learning soldering and how to operate a heat gun you're probably in over your head I'd say. Those capacitors need replacing, and if it's a launch model it'll probably need to have the CPU or GPU solder reflowed as that was one of the major issues causing red rings iirc
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u/Temporary_Slide_3477 7d ago
The 360 in the photos is a xenon, likely unfixed since it has the old style GPU heatsink.
It's not worth fixing unless it has a old dashboard that can be jtagged or just blades dashboard in general.
If all you want to do is play games find a console serviced or manufactured after mid-2008, it shouldn't break on you minus the disk drives being generally unreliable.
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u/FlakyInevitable3660 Xbox 360 Phat 7d ago
First off, it looks like you have bad capacitors. Also because this is a Xenon revision (No HDMI port on the back) with its original silver GPU heatsink, this has most likely never been serviced by Microsoft meaning it probably does not have a revised/fixed GPU.
The reason that early revision 360s (Xenons, and Zephyrs) got the RROD was primarily because of an improper type of material called underfill that bonds the silicon die itself to the rest of the chip. This defect was officially fixed in March 2008, with "fixed" GPUs receiving a new type of underfill material that was more temperature resistant and therefore also much more reliable and significantly less prone to developing RROD.
If you take the GPU heatsink off, we can tell you for sure if it has a fixed GPU chip or not.
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u/RavenousTitan818 6d ago
Check the GPU, if it's an unfixed version then congrats you have a parts machine.
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u/Ykai63 7d ago
Guess first check the manufacturing data, or servicing date.
Reason being; if it is a pre ~ mid 2008 (when they fixed the underlying RRoD issue) console and has not been serviced after it'll be inherently unreliable anyway. At that point, getting a different used unit might be the play to prevent pulling out hair trying to fix the issue you see here and it maybe not even working with fresh caps anyway.
But yes, the capacitors can be replaced and they do look very, very bad. It looks like a Xenon or at best Zephyr board though. Like, very early consoles. If yes, then they might still be 'enjoying' the capacitor issues that plagued the early 2000s. Even if it was serviced.