FINALLY fixed bad sammy28 & computer freezes when verifying

[Zmakin]

So after many months of patience ( i haven't even been back on any modding sites i got so fed up with this 360) i finally got my computer to detect, read, and write the new f/w onto my Samsung ms28 that had been swept clean i thought months ago. I have to give mad props to all the guys that make and update jungleflasher for that (even though i know they'll never read THIS post i gotta show those geniuses some love). i was super pumped to finally get the chance to be able to play on this console, and finally be able to MAKE MY OWN BACKUPS instead of using friends' computers/drives... YAY!!!

but my problems seemed to be starting up again right when i thought they were gone for good. My first issue is that when i got done with flashing the drive it verified in j/f and said it was good to go. so at that point i turned off my console, saved the j/f log and exited out of j/f. then i tried turning my console back on, hooking up to my computer, then booting j/f back up to verify that i did in fact get a good, verifiable f/w onto this drive. bad idea for my computer, because when i tried to connect the 360 all was still good. as soon as i tried to upen up j/f though my whole computer bogs down and it doesnt ever open the program up.

now back with like 1.63 j/f i used to unplug the console and the computer would go good eventually. but now i cant even open the task manager and have to hard power-off the whole computer to be able to do anything... and just one note, i do use a 6421 card, but have correctly uninstalled the drivers, AND portio32.sys and everything is running prime in j/f so please dont tell me to do that first (had that issue before long ago and now hopefully will never fall prey to the"freeze" from that again...)

so, my questions would be... wtf is going on with either my console or computer that makes it so i can no longer get into j/f with this "newly updated" drive? also, do i need to even verify that it works with j/f, or can i just go straight into playing my backups for stuff like ufc 2009 and borderlands?

thanks for all the help and input guys, really appreciate being able to come here and talk through my problems wirth people who know what they are doing

[HaGGardSmurf]

Try your drive in your console, see if it works.

Sounds to me like there is something wrong with the drive, was it fried before? It could be that you've fried it, and although you've flashed FW to it, your comp may still have problems polling the drive, so when you connect it, it bogs down because its constantly trying to see what was just connected, but cannot get a definitive answer.

[Zmakin]

try that first thing when i get home, well second after i get the damn thing to open...

but i dont believe it was "fried" before. what had happened was that i had been using my 6421 card wrong, with drivers installed, and not installed at different times and was using j/f 1.63 (i think) to try to get at my 360. well i had trouble reading the drive a few times, and had the program freeze up on me while it was reading. then one time i got lucky and retreived the ofw and key, so i was like "if i could read it, maybe i can gett lucky enough to write to it too"

that was definitely a STUPID mistake to make, as the program froze while writing to the 1 bank, and there went my whole 360 for going on almost a year now. then tried just about every method possible at the time to fix the bad write, but no luck just more disappointment. so i dunno if that would be considered "fried", but the whole system was kaput until i d/led the new j/f and ran everything according to the new tut.

im pretty sure that it looks good for the 360 though because when i power the box on while everything is open the lights go through the normal boot up sequence, and the tray ejects( only with the drive case off) so hopefully i'll be ok... fingers crossed but i'll let you all know how it goes

[Zmakin]

got lucky, then completely F*ed everything over...

so i figured out that i had accidentaly put 1.6 on my sammy, so i got it back onto the computer after openning the tray and starting the drive in vendor mode. read, and reflashed the ms28 with the new ix1.61 and everything looked good to go, until i sent the outro that is... soon as i did that i had the issue come back up with my computer froze up(wtf?) and the tray wouldnt open again (after i got it to actually open when encased again)

so i said F it, i'll go and just see if the fw works. so i go out to my tv, and had l4d2 already in the drive. booted up and everything looked good to go, said play l4d2 and i booted the game up to verify everything was good. this is where i should have gone with my gut feeling, because the backup said it had to update the 360 before i could play since i hadn't played the original on this console yet(been out since like july)... man was that a bad mistake...

so about half way through the update everything on my screen just goes black, and it seemed like the 360 froze up because i couldnt get the controller to respond at all, not to mention couldnt see anything on the tv. now after that im getting the 3 rrod and a secondary error code of 0022 on this console, which tells me that i had a major cpu error go down... not to mention the fact that when i turn on the console it ouputs no information to the tv anymore, and i cant sync or wire up any controllers to connect to the either...

so short of just going out and buying another 360( already have this one,a nother with1022 error code, and a banned box so no way) do i have any options left with this bastard? thanks guys

[Zmakin]

so after reading around i think i may have to x-clamp this beezy to get it to work again, short of doing a reflow/reball on the board. does this sound like the logical next step? also, does anyone know of somewhere other thanyoutube i can get a GOOD tut on how to do the x-clamp fix, like a pdf or text tut with some pictures. im a better reader than watcher and want to know what exactly it is i am doing to my console, not just watch someone else do it...

[HaGGardSmurf]

You dont really need a tut for a xclamp fix, its pretty simple.

Once you get the screws and washer's just take apart the box, remove the 8 screws on the bottom of the metal case, remove the fan, remove the rf module (power board) and then pull the front of the motherboard up with the cpu heatsink.

Then you should be able to pull the motherboard out of the metal case.

From here its pretty easy, just grap a flat head screwdriver, flip the motherboard upside-down, and stick the blade of the screwdriver into the xclamp.



Stick the screwdriver where the blue line is, and pry back, your trying to pop the xclamp off the legs.

Take all 8 off, and then remove the 2 heatsink's by just lifting them. Then clean the chips with qtip's (Cotton swab's) and rubbing alcohol. Then take plyer's or a wrench/socket and unscrew the leg's you poped the xclamp off.

Clean the heatsink's you can use WD-40 its much easier than rubbing alcohol, but make sure you clean it all off (using soap)

Now reapply your paste, you want a thin layer. Then put the washers on, and screw the heatsink down.

[Zmakin]

Freaking AWESOME!

Im gonna grab some heatsink paste tonight hopefully and give this a try if i can find some free time this evening. that gives me hope, cuz i thought it involding soldering and a heat gun and all that intricate stuff that would be the next step for a reflow/reball. thanks for the detailed info too Haggardsmurf, really appreciate the help.

i'll give this a try and repost with my progress as soon as i can.

[Zmakin]

after re-reading that you said i need to get screws and washer too...

do i need some specific ones, like do they have to still be t-10 screws the same length, or can i just take these ones out and bring them to lowes/home depot to find a match? same with the washers???

thanks for the response to this simple question