Decided to try a reflow instead of a full reball on an old Xbox 360 GPU

I had this RROD Xbox 360 sitting on my bench for 6 months. Usually I go straight to a full reball with new balls and flux. But last week I tried just a quick hot air reflow at 380C for 90 seconds on the GPU and it actually booted up and ran for 3 hours straight. I was sure it would fail again in a day but it's been a week now. Has anyone else had a reflow hold longer than you'd expect on these old boards?

2 comments

2 Comments

davidshah13d ago

Try running it in a really well ventilated area for a few more days straight, like 8 hours at a time. I had one of these that lasted almost three months after a quick reflow at 370C, but it was only running Forza and Netflix. The solder balls themselves are usually fine, it's the cracked joints under the chip that cause issues. A reflow just melts those cracks together again temporarily, but it's not actually fixing the underlying problem with heat cycling.

casey26813d ago

Man, that's actually pretty awesome to hear. I've seen a few of these where a simple reflow held on for a couple months if the board wasn't too warped in the first place. The trick is usually keeping the fan at 100% and not letting that thing get hot ever again. Hope yours keeps kicking, it's always a nice surprise when one of these old beasts comes back to life like that.