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Discussion Look ma, no Metro Dash! (Finding pre-Metro Xbox 360's on eBay, and fixing RROD)

CheapGSean

CheapGSean

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This is my first post on Se7ensins, so if I am doing something that may alter space and time, please cut me some slack.

After sitting back and spectating on the Xbox 360 modding scene, I wanted to jump in and get a taste of what it is like (Even though I am fairly late). During the summer my cousin gave me 2 Xbox 360 Phat consoles (White Zephyr, and a Halo 3 edition) that was said to be broken. Upon inspection, the White console was fine, and did not have any errors, except for an annoying rattling noise that would occur when the fans wanted to take off. The noise was caused by the little sink that is branched off from the GPU heatsink rattling against the top of a capacitor.
EyqEeBG.jpg

All I had to do was to bend the heatsink up a little, and the noise was gone.

The Halo 3 console had a RROD, and needed a reflow. I was slightly worried about reflowing, because of claims that some people have had caps blow on them when heating up. Because I do 3D Printing as a hobby, I had a couple of large rolls of Kapton (heat resistant) tape around. I surrounded all of the large caps with the tape, and the reflow went fine.

X1NkA4X.jpg


After the reflow, the console worked. After seeing some ideas on how to improve the airflow passing through heatsinks, I added some Kapton tape onto the top of the sinks. The idea was to guarantee airflow through the entire sinks, because the OEM shroud doesn't surround the sinks, so there is some air coming though/around the shroud, instead of through the heatsink (Where you want the air to be pulled from!)

Once the fix was done, it was time to stress test. I don't currently have any 360 game on me (They were sold last summer), so I put in "Godzilla, Final Wars" and had it play.

fwvtTlI.jpg


Not a very good movie, but I occasionally sat and watched. It was pretty fun.

Now that I owned two working Xbox 360 Phat consoles, I wanted to try and do some modding.

I did some research on different methods of running homebrew: JTAG, RGH, RGH2, R-JTAG, etc.
and wanted to try and go with an RGH method, as both consoles were updated to the metro dash.

Trying to find a cheap console to test an RGH mod on, I went to ebay to try and find a cheap RROD console to fix. A post on eBay caught my eye, with a listing for a Xenon Xbox, with 4 red lights in the photo of the console, compared to the description claiming it was a RROD. Thinking that they simply didn't plug an A/V cable in and they didn't know that they had a working console, I went ahead and purchased it. (The listing is now gone, however I did take screenshots somewhere, and I will upload them if I find them)

Upon receiving the console, I plugged it in and powered it up. The 4 red lights did show at first, even though I had an A/V cable plugged in, and then the 4 lights changed to 3, indicating a need for another reflow. Luckily enough, the console was still $20, so there wasn't a complete loss as I would still have a working console soon.

After another reflow, I plugged the console in and turned it on...

And I was greeted with this:

VkDrFWY.gif


A victory screech was had.

This $20 Xbox 360 from eBay has gotten the RROD in 2008, and has been kept in a box ever since.
The dash is on 7371, and if I am lucky and it is not patched, I am going to do a JTAG.

I ordered a Whipser fan, a Matrix nand programmer, some switching diodes, and I picked up some M5 Machine screws and washers. I am going to make this my custom Xbox 360.

(P.S. Microsoft goofed with the new Metro dash, because you cannot do this anymore:

clBq7Ah.gif


)

Anywho, I have starting thinking about how we could possibly find more of these types of broken Xbox's online. I don't know if this is due to my particular problem or the Xenon or the old dash, but unlike the other consoles this appears to be the only one to give 4 red lights when an A/V cable is not plugged in regardless of RROD or not. If this is due to the Mobo/dash, this could be a good way of finding out if a console being sold is possibly JTAG-able by pictures from eBay listings.

What do you think? Is there a good checklist that could be made to determine if a Phat Xbox 360 being sold could be on an older dash?, Or are my ideas about the 4 red lights correct/incorrect?

I plan on posting more when I get my stuff I ordered, and when I mod the console.
 
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AlienFreek01

AlienFreek01

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Wow you found one that old... that's sooo rare now.... well good luck to you and your modding adventures
 
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