Date: 01/05/2011
Xbox 360 repair
I have fixed several Xboxes for friends. The Xboxes were suffering from the infamous RROD (Red Ring Of Death). I bought kits from ebay which included the torx screwdrivers, thermal paste, nuts, washers and bolts needed to complete the repairs.
Above you can see the dusty inside of one of the Xboxes. To fix the Xboxes I firstly cleaned up the dust. The CPU and GPU heatsinks are removed by prying off their Xclamp clips on the bottom of the mainboard.
I cleaned the old thermal paste off both the heatsinks and the chips using alcohol based hand sanitizer and cocktail stinks. The cleaning of the old hardened thermal paste is the most time consuming part of repair.
The chips and heatsinks were cleaned to polished surfaces. New thermal paste was applied. The CPU and GPU were reattached with the ebay bought fixing kit. To reflow the broken solder connections to the GPU I ran the Xboxes for 20 mins without cooling fans attached, a heatgun should be used for this but I don't have one. When the Xboxes cooled they were fully reassembled and ready to game.
Date: 15/04/2011
DS Lite repair
I bought a DS Lite on launch day summer of 2006. Unfortunately after years of use I broke it beyond repair. I wanted a new DS but didn't have the funds to purchase one. To solve this dilemma I decided to buy and repair a broken one. So I searched around on eBay and found a DS Lite with a cracked Top screen and grabbed it for 26 euro.
The next step was to get a replacement screen. Luckily DS parts are very easy to source around the web. I got a new screen on eBay for around 10 euro which included necessary tri-wing screwdrivers and two handy spudgers.
The repair procedure involved completely dismantling the DS to the replace the screen. Inside the DS the speakers are soldered to the top screen so these needed to be soldered onto the replacment screen before installation.
As you can see I now have a fully working DS. I re-used the white buttons from my old DS which I think looks well.
