My Problem

My kid roasted his Xbox 360 during a 14 hour gaming marathon, so I Googled "RROD" and found the ifixit website.

My Fix

I used the step-by-step instructions on their website and the repair kit (worth EVERY penny!) and got the 360 up and running in about 1 hour! It has been working perfectly ever since!!!

My Advice

BUY THE REPAIR KIT! FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS WORD-FOR-WORD! (I used my laptop to follow the instructions while I did the repair) The repair kit & procedure worked PERFECTLY! I could not be happier!! THANKS IFIXIT!!!!!

My Problem

The red ring of death appeared mid last week. I have had the unit about 5 years with a lot of stored gaming and could not imagine losing the info.

My Fix

The repair was smooth and detailed. I have little patience hence my wife performing the opertion. The kit and instructions allowed her, an absolute novice to perform a relatively difficult electronics repair with little or no snags. The repair was successful and once again I am up and gaming. Although the process did take a few hours, it was primarily because she took it slow and deliberate.

My Advice

Please remember the Xbox 360 opening tool... she spent several minutes using a small screwdriver to open the rear of the case before recognizing it's significance and importance.

My Problem

After serving me faithfully for years, the Xbox got the dreaded 3 Red Rings and there was much sadness.

My Fix

The repair went great! The Xbox 360 is very easy to open and there were far fewer screws than I was expecting.

The Xbox 360 case opener tool was great when I misplaced my spudger. (Of course, I found it once I had finished!)

It was one of the easiest repairs I have ever attempted and the tools provided made it even easier.

My Advice

Use the T8 torx screwdriver whenever possible on the T10 screws. The included tool is fine but harder to grasp in my giant hands than the screw driver.

Get yourself some scotch tape. It will be invaluable when you get to reattaching the heat sinks and need to place the washers on the screws without them falling out. Place a small strip of tape on the screw head and insert it into the hole. Then tape it down to the board. That way when you put the washers on, you don't have to worry about the screws falling out when you set the heat sink on top of them. Then remove the tape one screw at a time and tighten.

Make sure you have some rubbing alcohol handy. It was the one part of the process I neglected to check for before I began!

Canned air! You need canned air. Your Xbox 360 will be filthy. The motherboard, the head sinks, the fans (Oh! The Fans!) will all be covered in dust. Blow all that dust out of the case while you have it open and blow out the board, fans, and other parts while you have them laid out. Be careful not to blow your screws away!

The X-clamps were a pain! I am so glad the repair kit doesn't require re-attaching those. Those. Things. SUCKED! I still can't tell you how I got them off. I was afraid I was going to bend a capacitor or break something off the board as I wrestled with them. Just be patient and eventually you'll get a leg off and it's must easier from there.

My Problem

A friend had an Xbox that was no longer functioning because of the typical RRoD/motherboard overheated issue. I found the fix kit and guides on ifixit, so I offered to help.

My Fix

Besides barreling through Microsoft's shoddy engineering, it went flawlessly. Removing the x-clamps under the two heat sinks was the most difficult part. It would be nice if there was a better tool for removing those.

My Advice

Take it slow removing those x-clamps. You don't want to damage anything in there!

My Problem

I got the circle of death eye on my 360 while playing Medal of Honor Limited Edition. I was at the end of the game just went through the last cut scene, and it happened. The red ring of fire, I wanted to toss the whole console controllers and all in the trash. But while looking around on YouTube at videos, I came across how to repair my 360 from "ifixit" and ordered the repair kit and now I have completed that game and just started Gears 3. Thanks-A-Lot. The next repair is my sons PS3 it has the "Yellow Ring of Death" I'll comment later.

My Fix

The repair worked like a charm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Advice

maybe add two sticks of the heat sink paste.

My Problem

The dreaded 3 red rings of death for the Xbox 360.

My Fix

I've done this repair on another Xbox without the Fixit kit, but I ordered the Fixit kit for this fix because of the nice tools and exact size bolts and washers that are needed to fasten the heat sinks.

I Followed the instructions (though they didn't come with the kit. Had to access them through the Fixit Website) and I turned it on. I still got the 3 red ring error. I then remembered from my first fix that I needed to turn on the xbox with the fan unplugged so the board and cpu and gpu would get hot enough to fuse the sinks. I think this is similar to what Fixit calls reflowing the board with a heat gun. After about 5 minutes the Xbox showed 2 red lights on the left (which I think means it shut itself off because of the overheating). I reconnected the fan and put the plastic piece on that directs the airflow to the CPU and turned on the Xbox again. Voila, the Xbox fired right up. I put it back together and I've been using it for about 4 days. I haven't had a problem yet.

My Advice

You might need to "cook" the board after attaching the sinks by unplugging the fan and turning it on for about 5 minutes. The sink will get pretty hot. When the Xbox shows 2 red rings instead of 3 then turn it off and plug the fan back up with the plastic piece.

Disclaimer! Of course, I have to warn that this could possibly cause more harm than good if the board gets too hot. Do this suggestion at your own risk.

My Problem

Duh. It was broke.

My Fix

The repair went well. Ifixit guides with pictures are invaluable on difficult repairs. The only problem was the T8 driver supplied with the RROD kit is junk. I removed one screw and on the next one the shaft started spinning in the handle. Luckily I had a set of Torx bits of my own.

My Advice

Don't be afraid to really heat up the motherboard to get the solder reflowed.

My Problem

Usual red ring of death

My Fix

It went well! Didn't take much time at all, even as I read through the step by step guide. A few cuts on my finger from the Xbox, so yes, I'll have scars from my first repair. What a memory haha.

My Advice

Don't let the length of the guide fool you. Read it while your doing the repair, and you'll seriously have it fixed within an hour.

My Problem

Like lot of people, I started to get the usual lockups and one day the 3 red lights made its appearance (again). Mine is pretty much the oldest of the old 1st gen unit and the first go around was fixed free or swapped at Microsoft. After many more yrs of enjoyment, The 3 red lights came back with a vengeance. No sense of sending back the unit for 100 bucks so i decided to try out this cool tool kit from iFixit.

My Fix

There's no doubt that this toolkit is the way to go to get to the innards of the unit and do the fix very quickly. Everything went well and quickly got it back together. Upon power up, the unit came right up, but would freeze up after so many min. This happened each time i cycled on and off. So the next step was to get back to the heat sink screws and tightened it but since it felt pretty tight, i decided to remove one of the washer from each screws thinking the washers were preventing the heat sinks tightly attaching to the chip. No go here either but now get the two red light popping from the get go when you powered the system. My guess now is that like some of the other posts at iFixit, this board needs to be reflowed. i don't have a heat gun.. can it be done with a hair drier?? Probably not.. but had fun taking stuff apart and back together!!

My Advice

This is a easy doable fix and worth every penny to try it. UPDATE 3/30/2012 - I bought a heat gun and gave the GPU and CPU about 15 sec on top and bottom then installed the heat sinks back on both chip. Then heated the back side of the board on GPU and CPU and tightened the hold down screws even more. After putting everything back together, its running perfectly. In fact I think its running even better than before. So im pretty happy and didn't have to throw it in the dumpster after all.

My Problem

My sons x-box360 had 3 rings. We had already gone through 3 new ones before I found your site.

My Fix

Very easy to follow steps on your site made the repair easy. The tools were a definite plus. His 360 has been up and running non stop, no problem for 4 days now. I wish I would have found this kit before I pitched the other two consoles.

My Advice

Get the kit. It works. The worst part was getting the old adhesive off. q-tip and acetone worked well.