so now the 3 rod is already solve.. lol.. so once its fix would the problem come again... i know this still new but just a prediction esp from those who actually do the job... since u guys actually do the fix.. do you think this problem will occur again? one more thing if a newly bought xb360, let say the owner decide to do this fix even if they still not encountering the problem, will this save them from 3rod?

  cool man, you are the best!

lol yealah judge...its actually an atrocity that so many 360s break and its not like we play catch with the damn console...heck, im so kiasu about mine that i never play more than 3 hours at one go(hence ive never got some achievments like dead risings 16 hour real life thingy)

anyways, ive already posted up in the pasar malam..see who wants to buy my broken console for 900 bucks and go fix it themselves...mircrosoft, u lost a customer right here.
why? well, explain to me how isit that my Atari still works fine

After reading some of the excellent detective work here re the red lights of death and going over the couple of dead consoles here with a microscope, I've come to the conclusion that in most cases the red lights of death is due to a simple design flaw, not to overheating or poor soldering.

We seem to be seeing consoles where the motherboard has flexed and a few of the solder balls or pads have given way at the corner of the CPU or GPU as pointed out by SMTRework and others.

Now why would a motherboard flex?

The answer is the heatsink clamp design.

If you look at the clamp design, *all* of the pressure to hold the heatsink down is in one tiny point. The centre of the X clamp has a plastic 'spacer button' that sits hard against the bottom of the motherboard and that causes all of the stress to push upwards (towards the bottom centre of both the GPU and the CPU.)

What is the reaction to that upward force? the corners of the motherboard flexing in the opposite direction.
Because the motherrboard is not screwed down to the chassis in the areas around the CPU and GPU the natural reaction is for the board to flex downwards slightly because of the pressure in the middle pushing upwards.

When the console gets hot, the solder balls may become slightly softer allowing the board to flex further and the break occurs.

Even if the soldering was perfect the poor design of the heatsink clamps means the corners of the CPU and GPU are going to be under tension.

So perhaps the fix would be to remove the clamps altogether, fit 'screw in' pegs to the chassis and screw down the motherboard and the heatsink so rather than tension being on the board to flex, it is actually encouraged to stay flat. The existing holes in the board where the clamp attached would be ideal.

So extra cooling and other measures may not do squat unless you remove the tension of the giant pimple trying to push up from the bottom.

congrat..details pls....needs to update it..so...we can have better database for error symptom or code....

Bro Virgil rocks and that's my console..huhu..!
Problem details over here: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/445019/+0
Thank you Virgil! 1 UP Mushroom for you!

virgil, good lar so many is fixed.
btw, u like bleach so much?
the other day my friend told me ep123 is out.

if you guys who want me to fix the 3 rods.. just bring along your console.. and we shall fix it together lo..

anybody stay near in cineleisure ? cannot fix at shop~.

me just fix for the community.. like what virgil said.. fix if for the "excitement" of the "4 Greens Lights OF survivor" to pop out... "Satisfying"

somehow I got so much of them.. I felt like is a ninja weapon

hallelujah!
hallelujah!
hallelujah!
hallelujah!

finally my 360 is back from the dead! i'm going out now so no time to do the stress test. later tonite will do it.

thanks alot to bro Virgil will all the advise and guidance, otherwise i'm sure lost on how to do it. look for him if you need fix on 3ROD.

again, YES!!!

btw, error code 0102. fixed using without drill method.

damn those batangs man.. issit that hard if i do it myself..?? haiz...

ya... so decided to for operation la..
its bound to happen la i guess.. just a matter of time.