Red Ring of Death? Or More complex than that?
My friend asked me to fix their 360 s model 1439 due to the disc drive not opening. I was able to get it open, cleaned and relubed. Cleaned the whole Xbox so it looks new and repasted with thermal grizzly paste.
Got it back together worked perfectly, played games from the hard drive, checked temps with aurora and couldn't get it to break 70 degrees playing a game.
The one game I brought from his house was the one stuck in the drive which was Spanish halo ce so since it played dvds and hdd games I said it should be all set and took it to my buddies place. It read their scratched up portal 2 no problem, played a level to test, then tried to test another game and it wouldn't read anymore. The system also had issues freezing ever since I got it back to his house along with graphical artifacts. Dumbfounded embarrassed and sad I drove back home with his Xbox to see what I could figure out.
Once home it started giving me a red light. But intermittently. I got it apart disassemble the disc drive again and got the laser unstuck. For some reason it was sitting all the way to the back and stuck there. Got it freed and saw it eas trying to scan a disc. Reassembled disc drive. Got Xbox to boot and it reads the discs again. But then I reboot it and couldn't get anything but a red light again. Checked the error code and it was 0101 aka gpu or memory failure, not looking good. Tried the clear stuck updates trick of booting while holding down the sync button. It booted screamed amd froze with artifacts on the boot screen for a second then shut off.
At this point I think its dead and after messing with it more I checked the code even though it has been 0101 multiple times already, but now it was 0100. I'm completely lost at this point so I'm just thinking lets try last resort stuff. Loosen screws, see if that helps and if not repaste and see what that does before deciding it needs memory modules or a possible gpu. Nothing there worked that I remember. So I take it the rest of the way apart and pulled the board out of the case. Rigged it all up and tried to boot. Now it boots perfectly. Shut it off rig up disc drive and brackets and try again, now it boots and reads the game. I played gears of war for about 5 minutes or so and shut it off, tried the other games I brought this time and they all work except for spanish halo ce which is also in terrible shape. Portal is also so scratched I'm shocked it read it the first time and again after getting the laser unstuck.
Anyways I played with it for around 30 to 45 mins testing games, spamming the disc drive and rebooting over and over without error. So the hardware appears to be fine. I now have out the board back in the shell and tried to boot with only installed screws being in the power button board. No boot again just a red light. I take out the screws for the power board and it boots perfectly now. What could possibly be my issue here? I'm gonna insert the rest of the screws minus the power board screws and see if it still boots fine I guess.
Edit: tested putting ecery screw back in except for the power board and can get it to boot reliably. It seems like the issue lies in the port the board connects too or the board itself.
I installed the top left screw of the power board test boot, its good, install the bottom right one and it booted froze on the logo and red lights on reboot throwing 0101 with the artifacting. Took the bottom right screw out, wiggled the power card a little and it was able to get it to boot. Reinstalled the screw tried booting and I've got 5 successful boots in a row, then booted Minecraft and it booted, froze and artifacted. Removed bottom right screw again and it booted again crashed again now it id just the 0101 error everytime. I did just get it to boot by using the top left screw to hold it in place and wiggling and it threw e71 for flash not found
At most now, I've booted into the dashboard and gotten into games but not been able to play anymore no matter what I do. Should my last resort be using a head gun/hot air station for a reflow? At this point I just want to fix this for my friend even it means investing in repairing this for them. Partly because I refuse to let an inanimate object whoop me and partly because I'm worried this is something I caused. Hard to say though as this console has been out of commission for years