Simon’s Blog

Shortly after I boosted the power to my Xbox 360’s DVD laser, my Xbox suffered from total hardware failure.  Maybe it’s because I turned my Xbox off and on about 100 times while messing with the DVD drive.  When my box first failed I saw the E79 error on my display, which means HDD error.  The HDD wasn’t even plugged in!  Subsequent restarts resulted in no video output, just the dreaded red ring of death.

By holding the controller pairing button and pressing the eject button, the red lights will flash in sequence to indicate a diagnostic code.  The north bridge had failed, the chipset which bridges the CPU, RAM, and GPU (the 360’s north bridge is actually integrated into the GPU, similar to PC chipsets with integrated graphics).  The only known fix is the x-clamp repair.

The x-clamps are on the bottom of the motherboard and hold the two heat sinks against the GPU and CPU for cooling.  However, there is a major flaw in the design of the x-clamps.  Because the x-clamps are curved they cause flexing in the motherboard.  Overtime, the flexing combined with heat can cause the solder joints to loosen and fail.

The deficient x-clamps on the bottom of the mainboard, inset is a close up profile shot showing the curve of an x-clamp.

The first step is to pry off the x-claps with pliers.

Without the x-clamps anchoring the heatsinks onto the CPU and GPU, I could remove the heatsinks.  I took the opportunity to remove the crappy thermal paste applied in the factory, and replaced it with high quality silver thermal compound.  Removing the old thermal compound with alcohol took three hours of alcohol cleansing, but polishing the chips to a mirror shine ensures optimum heat transfer.

I replaced the heat sinks and affixed them with machine bolts, spaced with nylon washers.  The problematic x-clamps do not belong in a properly cooled 360, and are now a trophy of my success.

Close up of the bolts.

My box has been running for a few days without issue.  Maybe I was lucky, or maybe I’m a badass.

Update: Keen observers may have noticed I did not perform the overheating step of the x-clamp repair.  This is because sometimes the pressure of the heat sinks themselves are enough to restore connectivity to the GPU.  Unfortunately when I opened my box again to perform upgrades, I jarred it enough that it broke again.  Luckily I was able to repair it again by overheating the solder joints.  Here is an exciting video:

Serious props to lawdawg from xbox-scene for pioneering this method.

The DVD drives Microsoft puts in the Xbox 360 are cheap pieces of crap. They suck at reading discs. I took mine apart and boosted the strength of the laser and now I get less dirty disc errors.

The resistance on the DVD potentiometer was 4.6k ohms, I reduced it to 3.7k ohms.

Look at the cool pattern the laser reflects, I didn’t expect to see pretty lines.

After I finished boosting the laser power I decided to play some Half-Life. Enjoy the video.

The disc has a lot of circular scratches now, but it still plays fine.  Maybe the laser boost really did help, or I’m just damn lucky.

Hand cramps so bad you have to see a doctor? I have a lot of experience with marathon gaming sessions, both personally and from friends. I witnessed my college roommate beat Oblivion twice in 3 weeks, playing from 10am to 2am most days, his save read 150 hours after 12 days, no hand cramps.

My advice to Matthew Perry? Don’t grip the controller so tight dumbass, you only need to apply enough grip to keep the controller from slipping out of your hands. Besides, expending unnecessary effort only detracts from your ability to stay conscious and immersed in an alternate reality.

Watch the video below to see Adam Wilson, A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, tweet at eight characters per minute using an EEG.  This is a great step forward in human computer interfaces, and will also help paralyzed people communicate. Previously, users could only type about one character per minute when controlling a mouse cursor to select letters, Wilson’s new keyboard method allows users to type up to eight characters per minute.

View Adam Wilson’s on Tweets

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Speaking of gaming dystopias, how about a new Fallout game?  New Vegas was just announced at Bethesda’s press event in London.  OMG so excited.  You can never have too much Fallout.

Bethesda Vice-President of PR and Marketing Pete Hines stressed, “This is not a sequel to Fallout 3, and this won’t impact whatever Todd Howard and his group over at Bethesda Softworks are working on. This is just another Fallout title.” He further elaborated that New Vegas is still an RPG, and will impart the same feel and experience as Fallout 3; “it won’t be a different type of game like Fallout Tactics or Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel were,” Hines commented.

[Via 1up]

Idunno what it is, but I love a good game set against a dark, dystopic atmosphere.  Here is IGN’s list of the top ten gaming dystopias.  Many of my favorite games are on the list, FFVII, Mirror’s Edge, BioShock, and of course, Fallout 3.

10. Final Fantasy VI – Balance/Ruin
9. Syndicate – Unnamed corporate nightmare
8. Jak 3 – Wasteland
7. Final Fantasy VII – Midgar
6. Mirror’s Edge – Unnamed metropolis
5. Deus Ex – Futuristic cyberpunk Earth
4. Beyond Good & Evil – Hillys
3. Fallout 3 – Capital Wasteland
2. BioShock – Rapture
1. Half-Life 2 – City 17

Ahhh City 17, such a gloriously depressing atmosphere for the greatest FPS of all time.

Go Read at IGN

Rod Hilton over at The Editing Room, has written yet another hilarious satirical script of the recent movie Watchmen.  He pwns the director, Zack Snyder, for his many ridiculous creative decisions which disgraced the original novel.

BILLY CRUDUP

Enough chit-chat.  I have very important work to do with this nuclear something-or-other.  What do you want, Jackie?

JACKIE EARLE HALEY

(growling)

Honestly, there’s nothing in the world I want more than for you to drape something over that big blue glowing penis of yours.

BILLY CRUDUP

If only you could perceive my big blue penis in four dimensions, as I do.

JACKIE EARLE HALEY

(growling)

Yeah, that actually sounds like some kind of hell.  Anyway, I came by to find out if you had any idea who was murdering Watchmen.

BILLY CRUDUP

Isn’t it obvious? Zack Snyder.

It get’s better, I don’t want to spoil it, go visit The Editing Room and read it yourself, or any of the other hundreds of hilarious abridged scipts.

Relevant posts:

• My unfortunate eager anticipation of the movie
• The Dark Knight Abridged

Here are my favorite rumors about the next iPhone from Apple.  Most are well substantiated based off analysis of the 3.0 software update, iLife ‘09 capabilities, and manufacturer reports such as Apple purchasing massive quantities of solid state storage.  Jobs may even be feeling good enough to give the keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference on June 9th, where he can announce the glorious new iPhone, which will likely go on sale July 11th.

• graphics processor capable of outputting HD video, rendering textures and graphics superior to the Sony PSP
• 3.2 or 5 megapixel camera, possibly both (low and high-end models)
• can record video, edit and upload to YouTube (confirmed)
• 32 GB of storage (logical upgrade path, necessary to store recorded video)
• increased processor speed and efficiency
• HSDPA (AT&T’s network should be capable of providing 7.2 mb (double the download speed of iPhone 3G)
• WiFi 802.11n (much faster than G-grade WiFi)
• digital compass

Colbert kills in these two Better Know a Lobby segments.

(continue reading…)

This Saturday it was so sunny and pleasant outside we decided to visit the cherry blossoms in DC. We drove to the metro station which was thoroughly packed, when the train pulled up it was packed too, even though there is only one station before us. At each stop more and more people packed in, the crowd was full of murmurs about cherry blossoms.

The metro ride was worth it because the cherry blossoms were beautiful. We were lucky enough to run into a badass peditaxi rider (a bicycle with a two person carriage attached). He took us from the Tidal Basin to the White House in only a few minutes, weaving through cars and once or twice on the wrong side of the road, it was awesome.

This is my second HD YouTube video. I used Path Tracker, an iPhone 3G application to track our movements for over two hours. Below is the raw GPS data from Path Tracker.