XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death

The Red Ring of Death Introduction.

One of the most common problems with the XBOX 360 is where the GPU/CPU temperatures have exceeded a safe operating temperature. I have successfully repaired four XBOX 360's by re-seating the heat sinks and replacing the X-frames with spacers and regular bolts.

The main cause can be attributed from the cooling fans not operating at the proper efficiency. First the design of the plastic duct, on the GPU portion where the DVD player resides, the duct has a near shut-off design. This shut-off is like sticking a piece of cardboard (restrictor plate) in front of the inlet. This severly hampers airflow. There is also a much smaller heat sink that is used on the GPU to accomodate the DVD player. This shaved down heat sink, coupled with the near shut-off condition of the fan really are the two main causes but not the only causes for overheating of the GPU. On the newer XBox 360 units, they did add a cooling tube and attached a smaller heatsink inline with the CPU side which did help to alleviate the cooling restrictions.

Second, the two cooling fans typically run at 5 volts, but are most efficient at the 12 volt DC ratings. The problem of course is that running these fans at 12 volts is the noise levels becoming excessive. What I plan on doing is to construct a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) circuit with a temperature sensor to speed up the fans from a range between 5 volts to 10 volts DC. This circuit will ramp the voltage to the DC fans dependent upon the temperature increase over time.


Another option is to simply add a resistor of say 10 Ohms 5 watts to drop the fan voltage down from 12 volts to 9 volts which would allow for the fan to run at 75% of full speed (RPM). This is typcially known as a voltage divider circuit, the voltage is divided between the resistor and fan, the resistor drops 3 volts and the remaining 9 volts is delievered to the fan. With this mod typical current draw is around 270 milliams in the series circuit.


I will be posting more on this modification in the next upcoming articles.