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In depth 360 Internal Fan Case Mod TUTORIAL; Added a fan over the GPU heatsink riser on my 360 to prevent RROD.
Topic Started: Jan 26 2011, 11:25 PM (864 Views)
daretogo
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Hey guys,

I've been gone for a while (busy season at work) but recently completed a mod on my 360.


I've used this method for RROD prevention on a few xboxs now. This particular box was RROD'd when I got it, and I have a guy that has an actual professional reflow machine fix the RROD for me, but unless you do something about the root cause (overheating) then eventually the box will just RROD again.

I'm going to assume you can Google or find a Youtube video of opening your case. There are tons of good guides out there for how to open your case.


The first thing you will want to do is get an idea of where we want to place the fan. Ideally it would be best to mount the fan directly over the GPU heatsink itself, but the DVD drive sits almost directly on top of that, so in most newer 360's (or ones that have been repaired under Microsoft warranty) there should be a heatsink riser that comes off of the GPU. Mounting the fan directly above this riser helps significantly cool the GPU as well.

http://i.imgur.com/93c2n.jpg

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After getting a good idea where that heatsink riser is, go ahead and remove the mobo so we can install the fan. This is because 1) We will need to have access to the reverse side of the motherboard for the power source for the fan and 2) because when we drill our holes for mounting the fan we don't want metal shavings all over the motherboard.

You will have already removed the RF board from the front of the case in order to get the mobo out, so we are actually going to mount the fan directly behind that section on the chassis. You'll want to make sure whatever screws you are going to use have a small enough head to fit behind the RF board when its reassembled.

Personally I use a 3/32 drill bit and just hold the fan firmly pressed against the case, drill each hole independently, and then install with screws (extra ones from old 360's worked for me, but you could use whatever you have around).

The largest fan size I've found will fit here is a 60mm X 10mm (or 6cm X 1cm if you prefer) but I've also used a 40mm X 10mm in the past.

http://i.imgur.com/3Gxv2.jpg

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alternate view:

http://i.imgur.com/x6RKKl.jpg

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Now that you have your fan mounted, you'll actually need to remove it to be able to reinstall the motherboard (but don't put the motherboard back until we have attached the power lead for the fan).

Now to the motherboard.
If you flip the motherboard over, and look on the opposite side of where the power supply is connected you will see several exposed contact points. These are accessible 12v power and ground, and by connecting here we run the least risk of ruining our motherboard by leeching power from another point (or worse, the DVD drive as I see some people do).

In the image below, you can see I have the 12v power options and ground labeled. The unlabeled spot opposite of the labeled gound with the tiny "9" is also a good ground point although grounding to the chassis is fine too if that is easier for you.

http://i.imgur.com/6iqhK.jpg

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Also, be careful not to route your power up through the hole that a screw goes through for reassembling the case. You can also see in this next image that I wrapped the power connectors in teflon tape. I usually use electrical tape but I had run out. The purpose of this is to make sure that the power connections don't ground out against the chassis.

http://i.imgur.com/DcJTl.jpg

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To allow for the fan and the mobo to be disconnected in the future if needed I used a standard PC fan connector that actually came included with the fan I bought:

http://i.imgur.com/r6vaJ.jpg


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Our fan has been removed, so we can easily reinstall the mobo, and then rescrew the fan into place like so:

http://i.imgur.com/f0YSP.jpg

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In past mods I've just drilled holes in the case directly above where that fan is for ventilation, but without a drill press it is hard to end up with a good pattern that doesn't look like crap, so I'm going with a 2.5" hole drilled with a hole saw and then going to cover it with screen.


So, I left it like this for a few days:

http://i.imgur.com/7hCp7.jpg

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but after a few days I got my hands on a 2.5" hole saw (a whole kit of hole drill bits from Harbor freight for like $6) and the screen that I wanted from JoAnnes fabric store for super cheap.

I started by centering the hole over the additional fan and drilling it out which is really easy because it's just plastic, and then hot glued the screen to the underside:

http://i.imgur.com/qyCYj.jpg

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so the final product came out really clean I think:

http://i.imgur.com/z0Jeg.jpg

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and you can see a video of it working too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJYfWLkcrIM
NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Wii, Xbox 360(s), PC

PC Specs: AMD Phenom II X4 3.2Ghz, 4GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz, ATI 1GB HD 5770 by HIS, 4.5TB total HD, Asus M4A78T-E Mobo
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Ladicius
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Sergeant Grade 3
Awesome!
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