Fix your XBox360s Ring of Death Now!

The red ring of death

It's an incredible pain when your xbox 360 gives you the ring of death. Many times, this is due to some faulty "X-Clamps" that are supposed to hold the heatsinks on to the processers. Unfortuneately, they aren't very reliable.

You should be warned that opening up your Xbox 360 voids your warranty. That said, it's a lot easier, and a lot more economical to open up your Xbox 360 and make the heatsinks stay tightly against the processers than it is to send your Xbox 360 to Microsoft and pay them ~$150.

Before we start into this article, I'd like to take the chance to mention Xbox360Fixer, which is more than worth your money. This article only covers one potential problem with your Xbox360, and doesn't have any videos. It may be hard to follow if you're not familiar with the inside of your XBox. XBox360Fixer is easy to follow, and includes instructions for fixing the vast majority of problems that arise with an XBox.

Parts needed

Here's what you'll need to fix the red ring of death problem:

• 4 3/16" x 1" (5 X 20MM) Panhead Machine Screws
• 4 3/16" x 1/2" (5 x 15MM) Panhead Machine Screws
• 44 #10 washers
• Drill or drillpress
• Torx9 and Torx6 screwdrivers
• 1/4 inch wrench
• Phillips head screwdriver
• Small flathead screwdriver (think eyeglass repair kit)
• Tape
• Steel scrubber (you know, a Brillo pad)

Fixing your xbox's 3 red lights.

First, you'll want to open up your case, and remove everyhing that you can. You may not be able to remove the fans, and that's alright - they can stay there. Get the motherboard out of the case and onto a flat, non-conductive surface like a piece of newspaper. Make sure you seperate the DVD drive and case somewhere where they won't get messed up. Also, be absolutely sure to save the screws.

Take a flathead screwdriver and carefully pop off the legs on the X-Clamps. Go in from the top of the X-Clamp, and be very careful not to slip and hit the motherboard with your screwdriver. You'll only need to pop off three of the bracket legs, as you can just pull the clamp off after that. Now take your wrench and remove the posts that are left over from the clamps.

Assuming you bought some thermal paste, take your brillo pad and clean the old paste off of the heatsinks. If you want to, get a toothpick and clean off the cpu/gpu as well.

Take your drill and a 3/16 inch drill bit, and widen the 8 screw holed in the case - the ones that previously secured the X-Clamps. This is going to allow you to use the machine screws that you have.

With the case flat in front of you, with the fan hole on the back and the right, the four holes on the left are for the GPU. The four holes on the right are for the CPU. Put the 3/16" x 1/2" screws in the GPU holes, and the 3/16" x 1" holes in the CPU holes and put tape over the screwheads. Now put 3-5 washers on each screws. You want the washers to be level with the motherboard standoffs.

Now you need to get the motherboard back in the case. You'll need to untape each screw individually, and screw it into it's hole on the motherboard. Once the motherboard is on, throw a couple of washers on the top of each screw, put some thermal paste on the GPU and CPU, and put the heatsinks back on. Now your heatsinks should never come loose again.