by Brooke Huntley

Created on: January 18, 2009   Last Updated: July 05, 2011

FLASHING RED LIGHTS OF DEATH! What can be done to fix this annoying problem. Instead of going and spending tons of money on a brand new Xbox, try fixing the X-Clamp. Fixing this you will only need to know how to dissemble your Xbox, and how to use a drill. Having some expertise in an your Xbox may also come in handy. Here are the steps in fixing your worst nightmare in your gaming life. For this process to fix the clamp you'll need to buy a few things first. you will need eight small sized washers for inside the system, eight small nylon washers, eight T9 screws, also small sized. You can find these at a local Lowes or Home Depot. Make sure that the size of both types of washer fit the screws you pick out, make sure they aren't long but short but big enough to hold the work back together. You will also need to buy just a little bit of compound glue. If you do try this and need more help you can send me a message and my gamer boyfriend will be glad to show you to a better view.

First things first dissemble your Xbox and don't lose the small screws. If your not sure how to take apart your Xbox I recommend searching a video to help you through. After you have taken the cover off, remove the white light reflector. This is located where the lights of death would have been. Dissemble those T9 screws, three to be exact and then take off the sensor board. The sensor board is the whole green piece. Remove the DVD drive and the air vent piece.

Next you'll need a flat head screw driver to remove the fan, to do this place end of screw driver under silver tab and pull out fan. Now you can unplug the power cable. Next on the back of your Xbox remove all the screws but don't mix them, they are different sizes. Using the heat sink pry up the motherboard. Pay close attention to how your pieces were in place some Xboxes are put together differently.

Now return to the motherboard side, and carefully with the flat head pry the ends of the x clamps up, by tilting one end of the driver up, careful to not slip and damage the motherboard. Repeat this on the other clamp also, the x clamp is like it says the x piece. Now with the back of the motherboard facing you, there will be two chips the one on the left is the CPU and the other one is the GPU. I consider using a toothpick for this next step. You'll need to use this to remove most of the thermal compound that surrounds these two chips, you'll need some acetone to remove the thermal compound, this can be done with a simple Q-Tip.

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