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Welp, I got a situation worse than the Red Rings. I turned on my xbox a few days ago and the screen was tinted green and flashing like a strobe. Few seconds passed, back to normal. Every time I turn on my 360 it eventually gets better, sometimes in seconds, sometimes a minute or two. I'm assuming this means either the GPU or scaler chip is heating up and re-soldering itself back into a working connection. I'm halfway to e74 aka the dreaded Red Light (as opposed to ring), which isn't covered under the 3 year RRoD warranty.
I see three options:
1. I get this ordeal over with, grab a towel, wrap up my 6 month old, falcon-chip 360, that I've babied like an infant chick... and red ring the living out of it, before calling 1-800-4MY-XBOX.
2. Keep using it heavily for marathon sessions until it breaks completely and then enact above plan.
3. I've heard proper self-repair on 360's can actually make them bomb-proof. A lot of the hardware failure problems are caused by there being unequal pressure points on the x-clamp that holds down the GPU and it's soldered joint. From what I gather on the internets, if you put some washers under the mobo and x-clamp screws, it distributes the pressure a lot more evenly and solves a lot of problems. I'm tempted to do this, but it completely voids the warranty and if I can't fix it, I'm ed. And if I do this, I want to continue treat my 360 well in the meantime, as I would plan on keeping it.
Much appreciation if anybody's got thoughts on how to go about solving this foul predicament?
Specifically regarding chips and thermal paste. Just how difficult is it to properly mount a chip onto a mobo? Something easy enough that I should risk trying it for the first time on my 360? Thanks in advance.
