Fix the YLOD with a Heat Gun Reflow

In the previous tutorial I showed you the process of taking apart a fat (phat?) PlayStation 3. This time I'll show you how to fix the Yellow Light of Death! Like I said in my previous post, the YLOD is very, very similar to the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death (RROD). It's also fixed the exact same way!

Fix the RRoD with X-clamp replacement

Today I'll walk you through an easier way to fix the Red Ring of Death. This is commonly known as an X-clamp replacement because you replace the 2 x-shaped clamps holding the heat sinks onto the motherboard.

The theory behind this is that the clamps do not provide enough pressure to keep the heat sinks firmly attached to the board. Because of this, the heat causes the motherboard to warp and the CPU and GPU pull away from the board - causing the dreaded RRoD!

Fix the RRoD with a Heat Gun Reflow

So now you have your Xbox 360 completely taken apart and you want to fix your Red Ring of Death. The Red Rings of Death is usually caused by solder joints under the microchips that become weak and break as a result of the constantly fluctuating temperature.  What we are going to do is reflow the solder under the chip to reconnect the broken points.

Xbox 360 Error Codes

So you go the dreaded Red Ring of Death. Did you know that not all RRoDs are the same? Yes, each RRoD has a 4-digit secondary error code. In order to find your secondary error code, first power on the console. It should, obviously, be flashing 3 red lights.

Now what you'll want to do is hold the sync button (little round white button near memory slots) and tap the DVD eject key to cycle through the 4 digits in your error code.