What you need to have is a set of Screw Drivers, among them a Torx 10(T10) and a Torx 8(T8) screw drivers. Other than that the fix itself will require the following:
- Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste
- 32 5mm flat washers
- 8 M5 x .8 x 10mm screws
You should be able to buy AS5 for under $10, and the rest should not cost more than $5, if you don't already have washers and screws. You can pick those up at any hardware department store.
STEP 1 Opening Up The Xbox 360
 | First things first remove the faceplate. If you skip this step and go on to removing the top and bottom plates you will find they can be removed but you greatly increase the difficulty and chances of breaking the little tabs off the top and bottom plates. The easiest way to remove the face is to use the finger hole at the bottom of the console and simply pull forward. |
 | Give her a good tug and pop! |
 | Starting with the gray bottom vent plate, six tabs that hold it into place. You will find that all of them are accessible from the sides through the vent holes. Gently pull up on the plate and simultaneously release the clips by pushing in with the opening tool or other tool that fits through the hole. |
 | Start at the front of the case and work your way back alternating sides so each pair of tabs are released. |
 | Keep gentle pressure to pull it up and away as you go |
 | The top plate offers a bit more of a challenge 3 of the six tabs are not in plain sight, begin with the front two, they can be accessed from the two corresponding holes where the drive tray connects. The opening tool has a cut out so it fits just right to reach the two clips. |
 | The next two are visible through the vent holes and easily accessible. |
 | The final tab can be released by removing one of the Xbox feet at the rear to reveal a hole |
 | With the top and bottom vent covers removed we now lay the xbox down upside down. This makes the process much easier as the chassis is screwed to the top. With the bottom shell, (the one with the feet) pointing toward the sky we see these innocent looking 7 little holes. |
 | This is where the opening tool really comes into play. When releasing the clips I find it helpful to spread the case with my thumb and forefinger, then position the tool so the tool lines up with the two holes by the power cord. |
 | Press in on the tool, you should hear crisp clicks as the clips release and the case should pop open a bit. |
 | Continue to spread the case apart and push in on the vent area, there are a couple more spots where the case connects but these are not clips and do not require the tool. When you press in nothing too impressive will happen but you may notice that the case spreads slightly further apart. |
 | Then flip the tool around and line up the 5 tabs with the corresponding holes. Continue spreading the case apart from the right side and press the tool in. |
 | You should hear a series of more click clicks and the case is free. Spread the back apart a couple inches it should be able to rest open while you spin it arround to work on the front |
 | Begining with the front clip nearest the DVD drive a fingernail will suffice as an opening tool. A little pressure spreading the lid apart and it should pop right open |
 | same with the next clips |
 | and the last |
 | Lift the lid and ta-da a steel chassis presents itself, in this photo the six screws that need to be removed are circled. You should be very proud at this point shout to anyone that will listen "I got the thing open!" Okay now settle down and remove those six screws with a torx 10 driver. |
 | Flip it back right side up but before yanking the other half of the case off remove the eject button. Just jamb a fingernail under the right hand side and give a yank it will pop out. You can wiggle the case around and get it off without removing this but the chance of damage drops to zero if you already took it off. |
 | Lift the lid and there we go! This is another good time for shouting to anyone in the room... use your best judgment. |
 | You should now have a plie of parts that looks something like this. |
STEP 2 FIXING RROD
Once you have taken a part (well partially) your 360, you should by now have something that looks like this
Now lets remove the motherboard from the metal casing. Look at the powerswitch in the front. There are 3 Torx8 (T8) screws that you must remove. One of them is concealed by that white light diffuser. Memorize the position it is attached, so that you don't accidently clip it on wrong, just to find out your 360 won't turn on AFTER you reassemble it.
After you remove the T8 screws, simply pull out the chip and set it aside. In some versions of the 360 there are a bunch of T8 screws that hold the motherboard from the bottom of the case. Unscew those, and your motherboard should come out of the metal casing.
Flip the motherboard over and face the culprit that has plagued your 360. Microsoft's ingenuis Xclamps design. These Xclamps are the reason why your Xbox 360 gets the 3 red lights. My guess is that somebody got really stoned one night and decided to hold in these brackets by pressure, instead of the logical, conventional... screws. Instead of evenly distrubiting the pressure, it pushes down on the back of the cpu and gpu chips. When the 360 gets hot, the motherboard flexes. The combination of that and the xclamps pressing down on the chips causes the cheap bga solder connections underneath the chips to break. This is why the towel trick temporarily fixes this, it reflows the solder to create the connections again, but the xclamps are still there to screw it up again.
Indulge yourself in prying those pieces of **** off the motherboard. I used pliers to get them off, but be VERY cautious not to damage the motherboard itself while you're at it. You must pry off 2 out of 4 ends before they pop off.
After removing the Xclamps, flip the mobo over to remove the heatsinks from the CPU(left) and the GPU(right, 2 chips; 1 big 1 small). Now stop, and lets take a moment to applaud to microsoft's awesome thermal paste job, it looks like very few of it actually ended up on the CPU/GPU to conduct the heat released from the chips to the heatsinks. Great job microsoft.
Use a 1/4" socket to remove the screws from both heatsinks.
Lets get the screws ready before we apply the thermal paste. I recommend putting 1 washer on the screw and then 2 washers between the motherboard and the heatsinks so that in case you tighten the screws a little too tight the heatsink won't crush the chip. Now you are ready to apply the Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.
But before that, I would suggest that you scrub off Microsoft's thermal paste off the heatsinks AND the chips, be careful though not to actually damage the chips. Now put some AS5 on the CPU and on both chips of the GPU. Apply a reasonable amount of this stuff, don't drown the chips in it because it might actually all get squeezed off the chips(just like it did for MS) if you apply too much pressure when screwing back the heatsinks.
Top image is the GPU(2 chips)
Bottom is the CPU
Now it's time to put the heatsinks back on the CPU & GPU with the thermal paste on. Like I said before it is best to put 2 washers between the motherboard and the heatsinks.
The tricky part is to actually screw in the screws onto the heatsinks without flipping the motherboard over. For the obvious reason of course. What I did was simply lift the motherboard up with my hand and turn the screws clockwise until they firmly held the heatsink in place. If you find that a little difficult you can slide the mobo over to the edge of the table just so you can screw them in. Don't screw them in too tight, just enough so that it holds it in place.
You should have something that resembles the picture below. Once again do not overtighten the screws, and don't let them hang there too loosely.
Now plug the front panel(where the On button is) back on, and also the fan. Do not put the heatpipe or the DVD rom in place yet though.
Plug the Xbox in to the power supply and the AV cable.
And turn it on using a remote or your controller. Most likely your 360 will still have the 3 red lights, and the reason for that is because the solder connections are still broken. Let's fix that...
And by let's fix it I mean let's let it fix itself. Turn the 360 on without the heatpipe so that it over heats and resolders the connections. If you get 2 red lights that means the screws are too loose. Correct that and let it stay on for about 10 minutes, until the fan gets to full power. I just let mine overheat until it turned itself off not to fry the CPU/GPU. After it goes off(or you turn it off) let it stand for about 10 more minutes without touching it(otherwise you're screwed if you move it after it resoldered the connections).
Now turn it back on and it should have green lights. If the AV cable isn't plugged you will get 4 red lights, if it is plugged in to your TV, then you probably squeezed the thermal paste off the CPU and GPU while readjusting the screws. My first time repairing the 360 I had to take out the mobo from the metalcasing about a dozen times to make sure everything was done correctly, so if your first time isn't a charm either try the above process several times to get it working.
After you get the green lights, take it a part again(last time I promise) to tighten the heatsinks' screws. Play around with your 360 before closing it up, make sure it works properly.
