Well worth the money, time & trouble

Mijn probleem

Our Xenon based 360 in the playroom went belly up and my kids were pretty bummed. We were willing to make do until the kids started taking over the 360 S tied to the home theater.

Mijn oplossing

Everything went smoothly. The old thermal paste was really gunked onto the processors. I removed the bulk of it with a plastic scraper tool. I followed up with nail polish remover & a coffee filter. That still left a lot of residue so I sparingly used some "goof off" cleaner. When I was finished the chips & heat sinks gleamed.

I also did the heat gun reflow procedure. I held a 1200 Watt heatgun about 6-8 inches away. I constantly waved the nozzle in a circular motion while moving counter-clockwise over the areas highlighted in the Reflow procedure instructions. In hindsight I could have shielded the nearby caps with some tinfoil. I let the board cool down about 45 minutes before applying the thermal paste & reassembly. We were all very happy when the Xbox worked perfectly!

Mijn advies

It was not explained in the how to video exactly where to install the plastic washers included in the kit. I had to replay the segment a few times to verify because it was not explicit. The washers are installed on the heatsink side of the motherboard. The plastic washer is in contact with the motherboad and the metal washer contacts the heatsink.