Review of Xbox 360 XCLAMP Repair Kit - 3 Red Light X-Clamp Fix w/ 3.5g Arctic

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The typical problem with the RROD is an inability to get heat away from the GPU via insufficient airflow to the GPU heatsink. Over time, this results in solder separating from the motherboard into solder balls effectively telling the CPU that there is a hardware failure and thus, you get the red lights in quadrants 1, 3, and 4. The folks peddling these screws and nylon washers are advertising essentially that installing fatter screws directly to the chassis will fix your problem. IT WILL NOT FIX YOUR PROBLEM IN AND OF ITSELF AND THESE FOLKS SHOULD BE DISCLOSING THIS FACT. The actual fix will cost you more money than these screws alone.

Product Problems

(1) Microsoft has redesigned the GPU heatsink so that there is additional cooling. Much more cooling. The screws don't even remotely compare to Mr Softy's fix for getting heat away from the GPU. You will most probably have another RROD failure w/in a couple of weeks as I did by using the fatter screws alone. THESE FOLKS WON'T TELL YOU THIS. The xbox 360 is a product with a marginal design defect in the GPU cooling. If you look in the chassis, the fan draws lots of air through the CPU heatsink but minimal air through the GPU heatsink because it resides underneath the DVD drive. This Microsoft heatsink redesign is what is actually needed to bring the design within specifications. LARGER/FATTER SCREWS ALONE WON'T SOLVE YOUR LONGER TERM HEAT DISSIPATION PROBLEM. MOREOVER, REPEATEDLY OVERHEATING THE GPU DUE TO INSUFFICIENTLY REPAIRED HARDWARE RISKS KILLING THE GPU AND THUS THE MOTHERBOARD ALTOGETHER. If you really want this solution to work, buy the newer heatsink in addition to these screws. It'll cost you another $25 but how many times do you want to rip apart your xbox 360 reflowing solderballs?

(2) The product instructions for the supposed 85-90% of the fixes in many situations do not sufficiently reflow the solderballs beneath the GPU. What's worse is that they deliberately overheat the CPU to the point of turning off power to both the CPU and GPU via the thermistor in the CPU overheating. Insufficient reflow will cause intermittent lockups when you think you've fixed your xbox 360. Your xbox 360 will tell you it's fixed via a normal startup, but you will now get frequent lockups and have to restart the machine. Talk about maddening frustration. The xbox 360 may lock up in 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. It is hard to say if the solderballs haven't sufficiently reflowed.

(3) The product instructions for the "hardest 10%" only overheat the GPU for 10-15 or so minutes. THIS MAY NOT BE LONG ENOUGH EITHER! This timeline should probably be extended to 30-45 or so minutes.

(4) I had to go through fixing my xbox 360 three times using this product. The first time I fixed it using the "normal" procedure and had frequent lockups. The second time I fixed using the "hardest 10%" in the end of the repair pdf manual but this time, I overheated the GPU for 40 minutes as Llama says to do. (Note: It's interesting that he says less that 30 minutes is insufficient. I found this to be an accurate statement.) This resulted in robust operation for a full two weeks. I had no lockups but nonetheless ended up with another RROD failure. The final time:

(a) I replaced my GPU heatsink with the newer design for $25,

(b) I replaced the chassis fan for $20, (this probably wasn't worth it)

(c) I added a fan for the new GPU heatsink itself for $30, and

(4) I again overheated the GPU for 40 minutes.

This cost me $85 ($75 for parts, $10 for shipping) in addition to the $25 for this kit. The newer heatsink was probably the only mandatory thing I needed but I wasn't taking any chances on this last go around. Doing it again, I'd buy the new heatsink and the fan which directly cools the extention to the new heatsink for around $55 ($45 for parts, $10 for shipping) in addition to this kit which is another $25.

Conclusion: The folks selling this kit remind me of the folks selling defectively designed products from China and what's worse is that they wasted a bunch of my time. I lost time not only tearing the unit apart and reassembling, but in contemplating what the hell was wrong, interacting with them on their boards, etc. If they would have disclosed the actual hardware I needed to replace IN ADDITION TO THE SCREW/NYLON WASHER setup and included proper instructions, I would have only done this one time as I followed their instructions very meticulously.

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This was a really handy kit. I didn't need hardly anything else to fix my Xbox 360, except for a kitchen knife. It's got everything listed in the James Dean Three Red Light Fix guide that you will need. I was super skeptical about the whole thing at first, but it was the highest rated fix online, and I didn't want to have to buy a new Xbox so I gave it a shot. The video tutorial (which you have to buy separately unfortunately) is very detailed and easy to follow, plus there's a pdf guide if you get confused. It did take me a lot longer than an hour to fix mine, because apparently I hadn't tightened the screws enough the first time around, but once I figured that out, I did everything just how they explained it and my Xbox started right up after cooling. I've been playing Assassin's Creed on it non-stop since, and it has worked perfectly. No over-heating or red lights or anything. If you're having over-heating issues, I would definitely recommend purchasing this kit as well as the instruction guide (), and also installing a better fan, since the factory one isn't great. Definitely saved me from buying a whole new Xbox. I spent $50 instead of $300. Pretty good deal.

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This kit did not fix my xbox rrod problem. You can accomplish the same thing with househd items, screw, and an internet guide. The kit was short a few washers and the screw holes were stripped on two holes In the xclamp. Waste of money!

Honest reviews on Xbox 360 XCLAMP Repair Kit - 3 Red Light X-Clamp Fix w/ 3.5g Arctic

It had everything it was supposed to have, now the only thing I would say it should do, is have repair instructions WITH the product. However it isn't that complicated. And warning to others buying this, dont tighten the bolts on the x-clamps too tight, or you'll bend the motherboard and it wont work. Thats what i did :(.

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I didn't have the RROD problem, but I had the audio but no picture problem. I performed the XClamp fix and the overheating of only the GPU and my Xbox 360 is now working. It's been 2 weeks since I did the fix and has been working since. Buy this for cheap instead of sending the 360 and paying $100.