Posted By: wraggster
News via http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=36945
rbz posted this on benheck forums
Hello!
First post on here
Basically, my friends xbox got rrod and he asked to take a look at it, so i did the usual thermal compound fix etc. Worked for <2 hours and then gave up again.
So, i got it back and decided to take a closer look. Firstly i noticed that the bottom of the DVD drive was 'stained' black with heat, if i rubbed the colouring it wouldn't move. This obviously was a major problem if the heat had damaged the metal on the metal DVD drive case, it was clearly getting really hot to burn that.
It seemed they sacrificed the heatsink on the GPU to make room for the DVD drive. This sucks and causes errors.
What i did was
a) Screw a fan into the GPU heatsink.
b) replace the tiny sata cable with a longer one.
c) modify the fan plastic so it fit together again.
d) cut a hole in the top of the xbox to further help with heat and another for the DVD drive cables.
e) check the console with a >2 hour session on HL2 - worked FINE.
f) place the top case on and screw into position.
g) install the dvd drive by screwing it into place. One of the holes on the top of the xbox was fine for this purpose and i made the other - i screwed it into place by sacrificing 2 case screws.
h) Put together and test!
it worked fine. even the eject button. It hasnt given him any problems since.
This will fix your xbox RRoD (for good, i think) but however you'll have to make your drive external.