for all xbox360 owner, 3rrod is a curse and for me who takes a lot of times to save money just to enjoy playing this platform, wasting a console over permanently is something that is the worst nightmare.
actually i already got once 3rrod and it scare the hell out of me as i am enjoying playing mass effect right now,
so, using my old gadget from good old PC modding knowledge back at university time, i dont care how terrible the looks as long as i don't get the curse fell into my beloved 360...
well, i upload it for all of you, just FYI...

overall view of my 360...

upper fan for HDD

3 fan on lower casing provide enough air flow...

2 powerful fan to suck out hot air from inside 360...

before modding this set-up,playing games for 30minutes already makes this part very hot and when u eject the disc, u can feel it hot too. laser form the reader WONT make that kind of heat, only hot air trapped inside can make it hot. and that is the main cause of 3rrod.
after i make this freak set-up, this area ain't feeling any heat at all.
and now i can enjoy with peace of mind playing mass effect hehe...

Could explain more about the power source of this system you created?
Also what is it that you put at the back of your 360? that blue/cyan color thing and why the heat sink on the outside?

thanks.

where do you get the power from?

you should post this inside the xbox thread

nice work though

This post has been edited by MR.Shiney: Dec 23 2007, 05:43 PM

no point u put fan that much
still hot air is trapped inside ur machine
u need to open ur machine and do some air tunnel

how long have u test this 360 with modified fan? it's effective enough?

yeah, i also wanna noe the power supply

huahua nice job bro but it's look creepy...

2 fans for the back is quite enuf bro..
@darklenanza
no need tunnel for the back oleady have stock air shroud
p.s dark lenanza have u check out my mod worklog latest post

This post has been edited by lightonokira: Dec 24 2007, 03:38 AM

Even in aircond room also...3rod can attack ...believe me..my xbox360 died already..

I think more effective is to place the fan directly on the GPU heatsink and suck out the air. I did this and now I can touch the heatsnk after few hours of gameplay and it does not feel hot.

Down side....I expose the whole damn unit ithout the covers. Also my DVDROM is outside

could u plz attach the pics ? juz wanna immatiate ur idea..hehehehe

i'm using external power supply.
i bought a power converter from 240v to 12v to supply the fans.
this can be bought at any electric shop. even giant sell this one. cheap only, around rm10.
i didn't use the usb as it only 5v, not enough power.
yes, the design do look sluggish but then with limited budget, thats d best i can do right now.
looking forward to make water cooled system

and bro, opening everything aint good as the air need to be flowed.
by opening, yes there are more surface area but for heat to dissipate through air, you need air flow.
air flow is not as good as water, keep in mind of this...

there are built in blow out fan through the back of 360 but it not enough.
and when i add the external fan at the back, between the built in fan and the external, the setup will create some sort of vacuum space so whatever the external fan speed are, it will inflict better airflow to the internal fan(external fan need to be higher air flow rate!)
the heat sink just to support the fan though hehe no particular usage hehe

i've been using this set-up for more than a month already and so far so good:)

HEre's a pic of my exposed unit. The fan is sucking air out instead of blowing into the heat sink. Air flow is not an issue as the fan sits directly on top of the heatsink.





This post has been edited by suntory: Dec 26 2007, 09:02 PM

suntory - how long had u been try this ? so is't effective ?

GG guyz, I just get my 1st 3ROD today....

Have been shocked when playing bioshock

But it could work again the 2nd time.....

Should I send it in for repairs or keep playing until it permanently shows 3ROD?

i don't think such method work for dissipated the heat, as before this my 360 i also put it like this, but then still not enough to cool it from 3ROD


my suggestion is to do as what lewmoker did, in order to improve the airflow and keep the system cooler.

I have only been playing for about a week with this setup. So maybe it is still too early to confirm its reliability. But I dun have high hopes. I am sure the 3rod will come back again..and again...and again... (I've had 3ROD x 4 times. But at least it works for now.

By the way, I am using some Cap X thermal paste (had it 4 years back). When got time, I will clean the heatsink/ CPU/ GPU and reapply some higher quality thermal paste.

hye there... doing a 3rod mod for my fren over here... i replace the Thermal Interface Material with the artic cooling mx-2..

but.. while playing game that require high gpu usage.. it stucked and theres 3rod again... how do i do now???

wow... impressive for lewmoker...
will try that...
see how it goes....

BTW i think add fan behind ok already....
coz when air sucks out 4 sure there will be some more air going inside thru other channel...

This post has been edited by michael9413: Dec 27 2007, 08:51 AM

Hey,

by opening up and adding all these fans wont it make the XBOX void of warranty ???

what happens if theres the RROD then ????

I was thinking. Maybe the heat cannot escape fast eventhough you're in aircont room.

it's not about in aircond room or not.
what important is the air flow.
if you supply enough airflow, then you can see the improvement.
two area you can monitor is the air flowing out at the back and the DVD disc. as i mention earlier, dvd cannot be heated by the reading laser from the dvdrom bay. it heat up by trapped hot air inside the console.
the analogy is like driving your car in traffic jam, if your aircond fan not on, your aircond will turn to oven. your car need to move in order to get airflow pushing hot air from the radiator and cool air to the hot surface.
my method only have one main issue i've foreseen and that is dust accumulation. this one u can minimize by placing the console high from the floor like on top of a mini cabinet (u can see how i put) and clean the fan and external console periodically.
as i said earlier, water cooled is the best option but warranty wise... u noe...
right now i'm still under warranty so my set-up is d best for my current situation as i don't open anything.

---

Added on December 27, 2007, 2:48 pmmentioning about the dvd, my dvd disc still not too cool but then compared before i did this set-up, it is much worse! i can't hold the dvd for long, just insert my finger in the middle hole and at the side. maybe can cook egg at the top
anyhow, my main target is the temperature of the disc as that is my benchmark of best airflow. the lower the heat, much faster the lens can read from the disc and translate to faster loading time. but u can't be much less heat as the laser need certain heat to operate.
u see, u can cool down the gpu and cpu and ram to the lowest but the disc is another matter. there is where u get the data to play the game. u damage the disc, u need to buy a new disc. and heat can detoriate disc over time...

---

Added on December 27, 2007, 2:52 pmand i put both blow in and suck out just to maximize the airflow. and u cannot just simply put the strongest suck out fan cause heat need time to transfer from one material to another kind of material. and heat transfer of radiation is the slowest (there are three kind of heat transfer)

This post has been edited by lewmoker: Dec 27 2007, 02:52 PM

What i can do is get a external fan can blow in & out the hot air.
U know anywhere can get cheaper external fan ?

u can buy it at any IT shop. actually all that is for PC. i wired back to use external power as for PC it have it's own power supply outlet.
only at the back i use more than average fan. the blue one, awkward in design do suck out a lot of air without too noisy and if i remember correctly it cost me RM60 with copper heatsink. that heatsink i still use for my PC though.
when you want to install the fan please take note the direction the air is flowing. as a general rule, the one with the crossing(with the sticker showing how many voltage/ampere) is where the air will blow to.

It will happen 1 day

hey... just solved the mystery of this 3rod... haha.. my frens 3rod has disappeared and now has been playin for abt >4 hrs... kinda ok for now.. we will wait n see..

is there any batch that free 2rod?

me too have modified my xbox in hope to prolong it's life span. what i did is very simple modification
anyone can do it, and i believe it is really effective but have to sacrifice on how the xbox
would look like...

1. diassemble the xbox

2. put some cardboard or thick paper on top of the gpu heatsink ( i used calendar paper). this can
improve the air flow, most people believed that. i used wire insulating tape to attach the card board
on the "air flow tunnel" - plastik yang warna putih tu.

3. put some tape on cpu heatsing also to minimize any air flow leak between heatsink and the tunnel.

4. cut the original fan wire and connect it to 12v source. i used a cheap ac-dc adapter, cost me rm12.

5. don't bother to assemble the box, just leave like that and put a table fan directly on the right side of your
box when playing games.

6. the result: after playing 6 or 8 hours straight in a-cond room( gears of war, bioshock, assasin creed), the
cpu heatsink as cold as the room temparature, gpu heatsink suam-suam( a bit warm), and the dvd disc
as cold as the room tempature just like before you put it in the box and played it.

i did this modification on my box two weeks after i bought it because the shop where i bought it
only give 1 month warranty, and the warranty does not cover the 3rrod........its been going strong
now for 4 months....i hope it will last at least after i finished play DMC 4.

....i also cut the rf/dust shield on the back of the fan to further improve air flow




This post has been edited by wunan: Dec 28 2007, 05:39 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

wow.... i shld say that you really sacrifice the look... wow.....

hehe warranty really didnt cover 3rrod but for evrything else like manufacturer warranty? i don't want to void that...
anyhow by opening your case, it's prone to other danger like electrocution, dust, bugs even water leakage. u never noe what will happen ryt?
anyway, it's up to u guys on how u want to cooldown ur 360 and reduce the 3rrod possibility.
fyi i'm giving out how to assemble fans like what i've done...

1st things u need:
240v to 12v coverter (look up to ampere rating, 600mA and above should suffice)
some wires
tapes
screws to fasten to xbox casing.
fans (in my case i use 6 fans)

ok step by step
1. cut the converter wire to expose positive and negative terminal. usually the converter can be both as it have switch to change polarity.
2. screw the fan according o your arrangements but as general rule, back fans is to suck out and others to blow in.
3. make sure u put ur console a bit elevated to promote good air flow from beneath.
4. connect fans wire to converter terminals.
5. u should on the fans before on 360 and shut it off around 5 minutes after u shutdown 360.
if u have experienced in modding PC then u have no problems. anyway dudes, good luck to avoid 3rrod

Our Professor wunan even write the fomula on his wall to prove that ROD will not hit after using his method.
KUdos to our proffesor....

hey using my personal experience.. once uve been hit by 3rod, you can 'bake' it to solve the problem.... i did and it works..

bake it? .....

he meant that by overheating the GPU and CPU.

this cause the motherboard to flex..

it works.. but eventually it will come and haunt you back.

hmm...i wonder if microsoft doing something about this 3rrod thing? it really keeps me away from wanting a xbox360...

ah ic. thanks.

i believe they have extended the warranties on all boxes up to 3yrs. of course, i dont think modded consoles apply

This post has been edited by BurgaFlippinMan: Dec 31 2007, 01:57 AM

a bit OT here, but how does the non-modded 360 warranty work in malaysia? 1yr? 3yrs? shop or microsoft? send to sg?

my 360 here in oz 3rrod after like 2 months, then the HD kong a week after I received the fixed console. when that happened, you just need to put it in a box, slap a reply paid address on it and leave it at the local post office (then curse all those lonely nights for 2 or 3 weeks la). its not that tedious, just plain irritating. now i tell ppl 3rrod really a part of getting the console that you have to go through

hahahah....i don't think there are any formula that can prevent the inevitable 3ROD....

i think the 3rod is cause by many other factor beside overheating, like manufacturing process or design defect
for the early batch of 360.

i say this cause i have made my xbox 2rod twice before. since i connect the original fan to external power supply,
i need to manually switch on the adapter, sometime i forgot to swith it on.

i played some game for about 3 minutes, and there you go, xbox automatically shut down and 2 red led blinking.
switch on the fan, reboot the box and everything goes back to normal. this kind of event shows that the xbox temperature
sensor is indeed working just fine and it knows how to shut down the box if overheating.

but as we all aware most xbox just go straight to 3rod, not 2rod which is the indicator of overheating.
sooner or later, 3rod is on the way. the only solution is buy everything original from Djinn, at least
when 3rod hits can change on the spot for a new one.

gawddddddddddd!!@#$%^&*
kena 3rod this morning, bro djinn can u fix for me and help me do the xclamp ...

isnt it 33% or so? dont forget that those who get hit by it will probably b**** about it online, while those who arent dont post about it.

This post has been edited by BurgaFlippinMan: Dec 31 2007, 11:27 AM

i dunt blow air to my XO coz it will cause a lot of dust. I jas put 2 fans to suck the heat. so far so good...

@lewmoker,
how about putting all those fans to suck the air out only? would it be better or worse?

katana, i found a good sulution for u lol

haha wcliang, ur method are very true haha... ;p
what u've done is better than what i've done and a lot easier haha
only i dont have table fan like urs... and that halo helmet, cool man...

haha, believe me, i done that also.
only not as close to the console as that lar. i think the chipsets damaged already, or the pins can't align anymore after cook it. so everyone else better get good cooling method for their console before the chipsets damaged till cannot revived it anymore..

Does anyone know anybody that can repair 3ROD and can last for long time because i sent it for repairs and cost me for RM350 and 1 month later the same problem occur. Any help will do.Thks

i'm going for a ps3 instead.. till the 360 is 100% free of 3ROD...