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Good New for People That Have Problems With Xbox After Replacing Thermal Paste


bulkchart32
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i, like many others, started having problems with my xbox after replacing the thermal paste. graphics glitching, freezing, frag'ing, and sometimes it would just go into a coma on me. it appears that the problem is that some of the solvent for cleaning the thermal paste gets underneath the gpu chip and causes a short. 1st off, i do not recommend replacing the thermal paste on these consoles but if u already have and are now having problems then here is how to fix it. get a bottle of 91% rubbing alcohol with a squirt top on it(i suggest a quart bottle), hold the motherboard on it's side, and squirt the alcohol all over it. be certain that plenty is going under the gpu. next, take a hair dryer and dry the board very well. be careful not to get it too hot. a good rule of thumb is that if any part of the board is uncomfortable to lay your hand on and keep it there, then it is too hot and should be allowed to cool. next, sit the board in the xbox, hook up the psu, connect a tv and power on the system a few times to be certain that it appears to be working before full reassembly. BE CERTAIN TO REAPPLY THERMAL PASTE AND HEATSINKS BEFORE POWERING ON! i'm not certain that it will overheat the chips without the heatsinks for a quick test but it isn't worth the risk. this fixed my xbox that i was concerned i had forever killed.

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I work on the theory

if it is working it does not need fixing

I don't change the thermal paste unless it is running hot or the heat sink has been  removed some reason. 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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34 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

I work on the theory

if it is working it does not need fixing

I don't change the thermal paste unless it is running hot or the heat sink has been  removed some reason. 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

i know it can be good to replace it on pc but i think it is more trouble than it is worth on these xboxs. hopefully, people that are freaking out thinking they have killed their xbox find this post so they don't lose hope. that is why i wrote it. i haven't seen another like it online back when i was researching what was wrong with my console.

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Using rubbing alcohol is wrong too.

Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol diluted to 70% or less using water and often de-naturing and other substances too. If it was from a dodgy source it could be an even lower percentage and tap water rather than distilled water used to dilute it as well.

If you're going to use isopropyl it should be genuinely pure lab grade ie. 99+%.

You do not want anything which contains water seeping under the chip if indeed that is even the cause of the problems described.

I'm with others here - if the Xbox is not overheating leave it alone. But if I was needing to remove thermal paste I'd use a product designed for that purpose like Akasa's TIM Clean which is a citrus based solvent and works very well softening hard thermal paste. Rather pleasant smell too - Limonene I think.

  http://www.akasa.com.tw/search.php?seed=AK-TC

Edited by HDShadow
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59 minutes ago, Cosmonaut Cartilag said:

I replaced my thermal paste, i'll let you know if I have any extensive issues 😢

Most people that change the thermal paste correctly don't have any problems.

The problems come from excessive force to remove the GPU heatsink and contaminants seeping under the GPU/CPU chips and then I have seen posts where they complain that the temps have increased and that's probably due to the heat transfer paste being not applied correctly. I have had one person tell me that because the CPU heat sink was hot before the paste was changed and now it's a lot cooler that the old paste was not working where is the other way around, A cold heatsink to me means the heat transfer past is not working.

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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9 hours ago, HDShadow said:

Using rubbing alcohol is wrong too.

Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol diluted to 70% or less using water and often de-naturing and other substances too. If it was from a dodgy source it could be an even lower percentage and tap water rather than distilled water used to dilute it as well.

If you're going to use isopropyl it should be genuinely pure lab grade ie. 99+%.

You do not want anything which contains water seeping under the chip if indeed that is even the cause of the problems described.

I'm with others here - if the Xbox is not overheating leave it alone. But if I was needing to remove thermal paste I'd use a product designed for that purpose like Akasa's TIM Clean which is a citrus based solvent and works very well softening hard thermal paste. Rather pleasant smell too - Limonene I think.

  http://www.akasa.com.tw/search.php?seed=AK-TC

using a product designed for it is what caused me trouble. it still need that alcohol bath to clean what is under the chip.

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6 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

Most people that change the thermal paste correctly don't have any problems.

The problems come from excessive force to remove the GPU heatsink and contaminants seeping under the GPU/CPU chips and then I have seen posts where they complain that the temps have increased and that's probably due to the heat transfer paste being not applied correctly. I have had one person tell me that because the CPU heat sink was hot before the paste was changed and now it's a lot cooler that the old paste was not working where is the other way around, A cold heatsink to me means the heat transfer past is not working.

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

that's probably from the wrong paste being used or the paste being applied to thick.

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3 hours ago, bulkchart32 said:

using a product designed for it is what caused me trouble. it still need that alcohol bath to clean what is under the chip.

I suppose it depends how you apply it. A drop of that Akasa TIM Clean will soften the hardest dried out thermal paste if used as recommended. You carefully clean it off with a Q-Tip or non-abrasive paper towel and reapply a drop at a time and do it again and again, as necessary until all traces of the thermal paste are gone. There should not be enough to liquid to get under the chip.

My guess would that it wasn't the cleaning solution that caused the problem it was actually conductive thermal paste diluted by the cleaning solution. More care was needed when cleaning it off, that's all. 

Squirt too much of any liquid onto any electrical equipment and you could get problems.

Lab grade isopropyl alcohol is the only substance recommended for use with such equipment in general because it evaporates fast.

Rubbing alcohol is meant for antiseptic purposes and is diluted with water for that reason. The antiseptic properties of the isopropyl are still effective at 70% and so slowing down the evaporation by adding water actually means it is more effective when used for that purpose.   

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6 hours ago, HDShadow said:

I suppose it depends how you apply it. A drop of that Akasa TIM Clean will soften the hardest dried out thermal paste if used as recommended. You carefully clean it off with a Q-Tip or non-abrasive paper towel and reapply a drop at a time and do it again and again, as necessary until all traces of the thermal paste are gone. There should not be enough to liquid to get under the chip.

My guess would that it wasn't the cleaning solution that caused the problem it was actually conductive thermal paste diluted by the cleaning solution. More care was needed when cleaning it off, that's all. 

Squirt too much of any liquid onto any electrical equipment and you could get problems.

Lab grade isopropyl alcohol is the only substance recommended for use with such equipment in general because it evaporates fast.

Rubbing alcohol is meant for antiseptic purposes and is diluted with water for that reason. The antiseptic properties of the isopropyl are still effective at 70% and so slowing down the evaporation by adding water actually means it is more effective when used for that purpose.   

i don't know where to get lab grade rubbing alcohol. anyone can get 91% alcohol from walmart and it does the trick. and it takes more than a drop to clean these gpu's. regardless, this isn't meant to be a tutorial on how to change thermal paste since i actually recommend against it. this is for people who have already changed the paste, are now having problem, and freaking out looking for solutions like i was a month ago.

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Isopropyl alcohol might be easy to get in the US but in the UK I've never seen it being sold over the counter. Possibly you'd get rubbing alcohol at the local chemist/drug store but for lab grade its Ebay or direct sellers on online. Some electronic component supply companies sell it.

The only thing you might get in a hardware store here is methylated spirits (ethanol 95% denatured by methyl alcohol 5%). That should not be used for electronics cleaning because it is actually a more powerful solvent and will damage the lacquer and any printed lettering used on a PCB. 

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Not sure if this is because of my heatsink or some other issue, but ever since I put in my new hard drive and have been using my xbox more, ive noticed itll refuse to turn on (itll just turn itself off and on without ever  coming up with any visuals or audio) or itll flash red and green. I read that this could be an issue with how the IDE is cable is put in, but I had to fold it alot just to get it all in the right positions to be plugged in :'/ Edit: I was able to get it to turn itself back on properly after I unplugged it for a bit and plugged it back in, unsure if thats a one off fix or related to whats going on? 

Edited by Cosmonaut Cartilag
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5 minutes ago, Cosmonaut Cartilag said:

Not sure if this is because of my heatsink or some other issue, but ever since I put in my new hard drive and have been using my xbox more, ive noticed itll refuse to turn on (itll just turn itself off and on without ever  coming up with any visuals or audio) or itll flash red and green. I read that this could be an issue with how the IDE is cable is put in, but I had to fold it alot just to get it all in the right positions to be plugged in :'/ Edit: I was able to get it to turn itself back on properly after I unplugged it for a bit and plugged it back in, unsure if thats a one off fix or related to whats going on? 

Can you post a pic of the Sata2Ide adaptor also you are using a 80 way cable I hope

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

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4 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

Can you post a pic of the Sata2Ide adaptor also you are using a 80 way cable I hope

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

I think I bough the startech cable as it was the only even remotely decent looking one I could fine and yeah it should be an 80 pin. I have a converter as a go between my hard drive and it since it wouldnt plug straight into the thing, the middle cable for the DVD drive I had to fold alot because it wasn't the way round  so im wondering if thats whats causing it. I'll get a picture of it here in a bit

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The cable sounds like it will be alright they are 40 pins and 80 wires ..

On the adaptor if there is a link to select master/slave make sure it is on master.

and a pic would be helpful..

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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26 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

The cable sounds like it will be alright they are 40 pins and 80 wires ..

On the adaptor if there is a link to select master/slave make sure it is on master.

and a pic would be helpful..

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

DM'd you the pictures so im not flooding the forum with them. 

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So i picked up an xbox the other day that was working and decided to clean it up because it looked like someone had spilt something inside (rusty metal cage). while i was there i thought id change the thermal paste, just to prolong the life out of it really. I got it all back together and now when I power it up, sometimes it will flash red/green and sometimes it will start for about 10-40 seconds and then switch off. I personally think I may have gotten some of the solvent under the gpu as well. so I am thinking the first thing ill try is drying it out with some 99% isopropyl. fingers crossed!

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1 hour ago, jack said:

So i picked up an xbox the other day that was working and decided to clean it up because it looked like someone had spilt something inside (rusty metal cage). while i was there i thought id change the thermal paste, just to prolong the life out of it really. I got it all back together and now when I power it up, sometimes it will flash red/green and sometimes it will start for about 10-40 seconds and then switch off. I personally think I may have gotten some of the solvent under the gpu as well. so I am thinking the first thing ill try is drying it out with some 99% isopropyl. fingers crossed!

definitely try it. my system flashed red and green after a thermal paste change and i thought it was toast. it functions perfectly now. here's a tip, in most cases, always try the xbox out before u work on it unless u see something that has to be address immediately(i.e. dust bunnies completely clogging the cpu cooler). i don't even remove the infamous clock cap before i test one now. don't be afraid to take a hairdryer to it. it will dry up any alcohol pretty quickly. just don't get it so hot that u can't comfortably hold your hand on any part of the system. if u do get it that hot, then stop and let it cool. btw, let me know if this works for u :)

Edited by bulkchart32
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I would suggest that 1st test the device before you do anything then do 1 step at a time and then test again .

If you do 3 or 4 mods at once and it is not working then you do not know which mod caused the problem, I know it's nice to do all  the work at once but it is hard to backtrack when you don't know what mod caused the problem.

And was the CPU temp running high before you changed the thermal paste? and is it any better now?

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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