I use the cheapest media and burn at min 2x speed. The trick is to invest in the 120 gig harddrives that you get from china for $90.00 or make your own 120 gig. Then copy the game to the HD from the system menu. The disk is only needed to verify that you own the game. This is good for those people whose drives are wearing out but the laser still can copy the game.

I wouldn't touch a single thing with that kind of soldering effort. Make sure you have the basic soldering gear first. Stop using the gas gun as a soldering iron....For you to recover that drive will be impossible. You should send it to someone. 

Well with my chipset it recognises the drive as if it doesn't show I have to reboot. Well some will show up others wont I guess and still work depending on via chipset you have.

When booting up pc make sure the 360 is turned on and check to see if the drive is recognised at the initial system boot. Just dump the dosflash32 folder in the desktop.Then use dosflash 32 in windows by pressing the .exe icon in windows desktop.  You will get a message appearing, just press yes and then switch off the 360 and turn it back on & you should be able to get the flashing menu to appear. The important factor is seeing your drive at the initial bios rundown at boot. I just use the latest tool box to read key after dump of orig key and manually past it into the benq firmware and repeat step 1 but just choose write mode to reflash drive. My via chipset works 100% with dosFLASH 32 in windows.

My friends 360 got the RROD and decided to try and reflow the GPU but using a electric stove top.

He wrapped the underneath of the mobo with aluminium foil and placed it on top of the stove and turned on the heat. As the stove gained in temperature the motherboard that had a slight cure started to straighten out flat.  I don't know how long he kept on the stove top,  but the motherboard resistors would move when touched with the finger so he got the solder to melting point & took the motherboard off the stove too cool.

After it had cooled he reassembled the 360 using the x-clamp replacement fix & his 360 booted up and now is working again & has played it for over 5 hours. I said to him he should have recorded the procedure but he thought it was a stupid idea & didn't think it would have a positive outcome . So we are going to try and reproduce the procedure again in the next couple of days with another RROD motherboard & this time film the entire process to see if we get the same result or he was just very lucky ......

This generation the 360 will be known as the RROD console & finish second. The Wii will win the console wars & the PS3 will become popular at the wrong time when other consoles will be launching their new system in 2010 -11.  I just hope M$ get the next console right as they have failed in the current one....way too many failures!!!

Don't get me wrong about the 360 is a powerful piece of technology, however I promised to post when my 360 died, as I started the thread back in May. For consumer technology reliability should be made number one priority, at least be able to run for 2 years without hardware failures.

About the hacking comment, just a bit pissed and letting off steam as I really believed with the mods that were done I would at least get 2 years lifespan !!

The 360 average lifespan is 18 months......anything more is a bonus!!!!!

Out of 30 people I know who purchased a 360, all have had them replaced. Even the newer ones with the revised gpu heatsink still get the RROD.

There is no real improvement on the GPU solder problem!!!!

I can't wait until this thing is hacked completely M$ deserve it for the crap they produce!!!!

Well it has finally happened!!!

My 1st 360 bought on june 2006 has got the RROD. It never had a case on it from day 1 and also had the internal fan inside but still failed.  I have gotten 18 months out of this one which is quite sad!!! I thought I would get a least 2 years, but was wrong.

make sure you are using the latest version of dosflash get it from #xbins.
When using old version same thing would happen on via chipset.

Just used the web site with different benq firmware and works well with both types that are in different hex positions.

cheers

Go to xbox-scene which has guides, pics on how to cut the traces and solder two wires to make a switch.

having same problem with benq 64930c finding the key : as it just boots movies not games
I have spoof the ixtreme firmware with benq to flash on ms25 drive.

this is the string i'm using as key
95 3a 46 ec f4 23 4e a3 12 73 95 8f 2b eb 57 fe

0000c000:0f ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff    .ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
0000c010:ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff    ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
0000c020:00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 aa bb cc dd ee fa    .."3DUfwˆ™ª»ÌÝîú
0000c030:95 3a 46 ec f4 23 4e a3 12 73 95 8f 2b eb 57 fe    •:Fìô#N£.s•�+ëWþ
0000c040:e4 f8 55 d6 2b c7 47 eb a9 19 79 49 38 69 f7 59    äøUÖ+ÇGë©.yI8i÷Y
0000c050:02 76 4f 55 23 0a 84 4c 4d c9 05 12 da ab 3b cb    .vOU#.„LMÉ..Ú«;Ë
0000c060:f1 b1 fd 35 95 74 17 79 80 19 77 1b a9 fd d5 56    ñ±ý5•t.y€.w.©ýÕV
0000c070:ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff    ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
0000c080:ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff    ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
0000c090:ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff             ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ   

Need more info on possible key locations!!

The system sometimes throws error 71 and freezers up on games. I think I will kill this one off!!

Everytime I connect a hardrive system takes a while to boot and then crashes to error79. I have tried 4 different harddrives.

I have a interesting problem: I have a 360 which when boots locks up shows up error 79. If I unplug the dvd rom drive and harddrive it boots to dash. If I plug in the harddrive and leave the dvd rom drive unplugged once again shows error 79. If I plug the dvd rom sata cable in and leave the power and harddrive out I get the same error.

Is the error saying that there is a communication failure with those sata devices.

Both harddrive and dvd rom drive do work in another system.


Update: I reset the console and now have the system working with dvd rom drive but still error code when plugging in harddrive.

Sent a dead 360 in a week ago for repair/replacement to Sydney Australia and received a new system with the improved dual GPU heatsink. When I switched the console on the default language was set for French not English and had a Hitach 47 inside sweet!!

They just swap your case for a new improved one !!! Everthing was brand new inside.....

Thanks, I looked into it but would be useful if someone could help with a diagram for a switch.I just dont want to kill the 360 by experimenting.

cheers

Since putting these 3rd party fans into 360s some have complained about the noise. I want to make a 3 way switch to regulate the speed of the fan, High, medium, low. What would be the best way to go about doing this?

cheers

Thank-god we now have 3 years on this crappy hardware.

After several weeks half of the 360s I did the x-clamp replacement have needed to be redone or tighten.
Not doing this work anymore as it is only a bandaid solution and too time consuming.

Will be interesting to see what M$ will change in design if they can be bothered but they will most likely spend more money on copper heatsink and clips rather improve the fans, time will tell.

I can see the wii being the most successful console out of the 3 by 2010 in profitability just by selling to families. Like the hare and the tortoise....