If you have a unit known to be defective, might as well bust out the old nuts & bolts, because Microsoft won't be fixing 'em for you after your three-year date. Just figured I'd remind everybody. We just got Chou's up and running again, but his warranty is obviously voided.

Is there anybody here who still has a launch unit?

By launch unit, do you mean purchased at launch, or is still running from launch, because I purchased mine sometime around the first week of January 06.

Running from launch.

IE, does this affect anybody?

IGN is showing people how to red ring their 360's because of this.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/articles/932099/breaking-the-360-video-feature/videos/broken360_111808.aspx

Heh, I think MS might notice this trick.

My unit has been perfect for the last few days since I put it together properly, but its just started to show a few cracks.  Specifically with Gears 2 actually, since it never did anything with Mirror's Edge or the Tomb Raider demo.

Gears 2 seems to freeze/crash every so often.  The first time today it red ringed when I restarted it.  So I just cooked it again, and once again it was ok.  It crashed for a second time just now, but this time without the RROD.  I can probably play a couple of chapters at a time.

So I'm thinking I might need to play about with the tightness of the screws a little.  At the moment they're not ultra tight, but at the point where I would have needed to grip harder to screw them further.  I dunno whether they need to be more tight or less tight.

But I'm thinking I might be doing damage to the chips by repeatedly cooking them.  So far I've had 3 RRODs on this one unit, and its still going for the time being. 

Who needs a warranty when the machine was so well designed and manufactured?  It certainly wouldn't be selling so well if it was prone to breakdown because as the Ford Pinto taught us, consumers are NOT stupid!  No siree.

choupolo


But I'm thinking I might be doing damage to the chips by repeatedly cooking them.  So far I've had 3 RRODs on this one unit, and its still going for the time being. 

Deliberately letting components overheat to dangerous levels will always shorten it's lifespan. Personally, I'd be avoiding the baking method altogether and use something like a heatgun. Considering that all you want to do is soften the BGA, it's probably safer and more precise because it doesn't stress everything else on the PCB.

You're generally okay with overheating manually. You're never going to go much higher than the unit's operational temperature threshold. Their 2-ring shutdown failsafe is put in place *before* any real structural "damage" takes place, short of plying up the PCB a little bit.

Heatgunning and reflowing on the other hand, is an entirely different story. If you don't know exactly what you're doing, you can absolutely wreck your mobo. The most I've ever seen a board professionally reflowed was twice. The third time I started to hear snaps and sizzles as the caps started popping.

IGN is showing people how to red ring their 360's because of this.

They also got their gumpiest, most awkward interns to do their video featurettes. Way to go IGN... If you're going to encourage warranty fraud, at least get somebody who doesn't act like a virgin on prom night on camera.

Been playing around with my unit and it seems like tighter screws was the answer.  Had to cook it for a fourth time, but it seems stable now the screws are almost as tight as they can be.  Managed about 2 whole acts of Gears 2, no probs. 

I did leave it for a lot longer to cool after cooking this time, maybe this made a difference.