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My TweetsI want this for Christmas. All I need is 3 Xbox’s, 3 screens, a fancy wheel and some kinda super hydraulic racing chair. Forza 3 comes out October 27th and I’m gonna be all over it. One of the coolest new features is the rewind feature that all racing games seem to be adding (Full Auto, Dirt 2). It’s like the driver is holding the dagger of time in his hand.
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.
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.
Ahhh City 17, such a gloriously depressing atmosphere for the greatest FPS of all time.
After spewing searing satire for over 20 years, The Onion has completely lost it’s way. Video games are the best way to prepare for the apocalypse!
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
A Rock Band game for Beatles music comes out 9/09/09. It’s going to be awesome because it’ll take you on a musical journey through the history of Beatles music. It will also include never before released tracks. What’s more awesome is it works with my existing Rock Band instruments so I don’t have to buy the $250 bundle. Music games keep getting more and more expensive. Games should not be more expensive than consoles! Is it so expensive because it introduces a keyboard instrument to the franchise? Maybe.
Rigopulos refused to give a definitive answer on whether Rock Band 3 will support a keyboard controller, settling on a “maybe.”
Update: Nevermind this game isn’t really that good. Ace Combat is better and also has co-op.
This new Tom Clancy flight game is pretty awesome. Ubisoft obtained the most detailed satellite imagery commercially available from Google’s GeoEye satellite, and combined it with over 50 military aircraft, including experimental ones. The enhanced reality system guides the player to intercept enemies and evade missiles. A demo is available on Xbox Live and features drop in/drop out 4-player co-op of a boring training mission, and one badass mission. Release March 16th, same as Halo Wars.
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