What causes the Xbox 360 RROD, Error codes E74, 0010, 0011, 0012, 0013, 0021,0102 GPU Error, 0103 GPU Error and 0110 GPU Error?

The main reason all of these Xbox 360's are failing is because of the faultly X clamp (xclamp or x-clamp) design. The X Clamps clamp the heatsinks to the processors which there are two (CPU and GPU). GPU stands for graphics processing unit and the CPU stands for the central processing unit.

These processors produce a lot of heat and this is where the problem begins. All Xbox 360's would instantly give the 3 Red Light Error (RROD) if you didn't have heatsinks. A heatsink is just a big metal device that helps to spread out the heat and dissipate the heat into the air. The X Clamps attach to these heatsinks and and clamp the heatsinks to the processors. The clamping pressure is what allows the heatsink to effectively transfer the heat.

Underneath the processors are a bunch of tiny solder connections that connect the GPU/CPU to the motherboard. Here is where all this starts to break down. With the force of the xclamps, all of the heat building up from the processors and contractions one or more of these solder connections break (cold solder joint). When these connections break you have 3 red lights staring at you and you can have any of the error codes mentioned above (Error codes E74, 0010, 0011, 0012, 0013, 0021,0102 GPU Error, 0103 GPU Error and 0110 GPU Error).

As mentioned above, heat is the biggest problem but we have also theorized other causes too. The heatsinks could be a bit too small, cheap thermal paste, lack of airflow over the heatsink and the X-Clamps, etc.

So here is what happens. You start playing a game and the GPU starts heating up because of the lack of cooling. Since the motherboard is basically made of plastic, when it heats up it starts to bend. The X-clamps then warp the motherboard and then you finish playing and turn the console off. Then the motherboard basically hardnes in this warped shape from the xclamps and the heat. This process repeats over time and pressure starts to build around the solder connections. Eventually the motherboard breaks away from the solder and your XBOX 360 now has the RROD.

Luckily, our Xbox 360 X-Clamp Repair kits will fix this problem quite easily by replacing the faulty xclamps.

To summarize,the factory Xclamps that Microshaft puts on the bottom of the console have a plastic tab in the center, the "legs" of the xclamp pull down on the board while the plastic tab pushes up. What this does is pull the board away from the outer edges of the chips. As the board and chips seperate, the heat from the consoles use causes the solder that is holding the chips down, and causing the connection with the board to get soft. This creates a cold solder (cracked solder) joint. a cold solder joint can not transfer the current back and forth from the board and chipset.

Now what the kit does is actually several things,

1. It provides better clamping force than the xclamps. It sandwiches
the chipset between the heatsync and board. The outer edges are no longer under the strain of the xclamps pulling away.

2. the screw heads are a little large which makes reassembly a little harder but causes the board to flex the opposite direction of the xclamps and helps put added clamping pressure.

3. the washers configuration between the heatsync and board are the same height as the chip itself. This makes the final torque very easy. As long as all 8 screws are good and tight the heat sync has no choice but to sit perfectlly flat on the chips.

4. the thermal paste we provide (for those of you that opt for it) is much better than the paste Microshaft used from the factory. Im sure youll notice the factory paste is pretty dry and almost chaulk like.

Xbox 360 X-Clamp Repair kits:

http://www.thecoupondepot2006.com/xbox360

Xbox 360 X-Clamp Repair forum:

http://discussion.thecoupondepot2006.com/