Facebook and Qtipus vs. XBox 360

There have been 4 times in my life where I've been so shit-faced that I can't remember what I did. There of those times, I woke up on my friend's bathroom floor with a cat using my back as a bed and my pants leg as a litter box. The last time (which was about 5 years ago or so), I apparently created accounts like the one here on Blogger and...

...Facebook.

Among others that I apparently created were accounts on Match.com, Myspace.com and probably a couple of porn sites as well.

This is why I don't get drunk that often. I either end up smelling like cat piss or I end up doing dumb stuff like this that I don't remember until years later.

Anyway, I've never gotten into online social networking beyond the scope of Instant Messaging clients and FFXI. I've never felt the need to be registered with every possible social networking site in order to keep in touch with friends when a phone call, an email or an instant message would suffice.

I ended up getting a call from my sister about a week and a half ago around 10:00PM. This is about the time she's getting ready to go to bed. Before I go further tho', I need to give a little backstory here.

When I came back from my holiday excursion to Maine and Connecticut, I went to visit Sister a couple days later. Much to my dismay, she had discovered Facebook. Not that she didn't know about it already or anything, she just felt she couldn't participate in it the way her friends were wanting her to due to the location of the computer in relation to where the kids sleep and the kids themselves requiring her attention. It certainly wasn't at the forefront of her mind at any point in time unless she was asked by one of her friends that actually bothered to keep in touch via one of the preferred methods I listed above.

So how did she discover Facebook? (Or at least the time to play on it?)

She got a laptop for her b-day.

And she discovered an iPhone app...

And when I saw this after my holiday trip, I really just wanted to turn around and leave before I got sucked into the vortex.

Let's just say I knew this day was coming. It naturally came a lot sooner than I was hoping.

"I can't get this chat client on facebook to work! Can you help me out? Our cousin is sitting there chatting away and I can't respond."

(Not that you could really respond to this particular cousin anyway...she's an odd combination of Boxxy and Paris Hilton-in ego size only.)

I was pretty much content to just tell her No because I didn't care too much for said cousin and I cared less about feeding my sister's newly found Facebook addiction.

But yeah, I'm apparently a good big brother and reluctantly decided to help her out.

First things first...

Facebook has a chat client?

Remember, I'm a bit on the old school side. When someone is talking about an integrated web chat client, the first thing I'm thinking of is something along the lines of the old AOL Chatrooms.

Nope...that wasn't anywhere close. I'm officially one step closer to doing what I really want to avoid doing.

"There's no enter button or send button or anything?"

"Nope."

"Well that client sucks. Try something else."

"I'll just post on her wall that the client sucks."

"Ok."

"Or you could open a Facebook account and help me out that way."

/recordscratch

"I don't want to."

"Why not? It's just to help me out."

"I know how this works. I open that up and tons of people see me on there. Send me friend requests and I end up feeling bad if I ignore them. No thanks."

"You already have an account."

"...wat?"

/goestofacebook

Well I'll be damned, I do.

"This thing says you were born in 1983 though. You didn't know you had a facebook account?"

"Nope."

"Were you drunk when you created it?"

"Probably."

"Why would you create a Facebook account when you were drunk?"

"Probably because someone was naked in the same room as me pestering me about Facebook."

"Ewww."

So anyway...I updated Facebook. I took one look at that chat client and determined it was a piece of shit. And pretty much like I knew, friend requests started rolling in and I find myself checking my page once a day or so, much to the delight of my sister who finds it necessary to send me a text letting me know she's posted something to my wall or a picture about 5 minutes after she does it.

Seriously, she must think I just sit in a chair or something all day in front of a computer...


Oh wait..........


It gets me back to my original point though. I really dislike online social networking sites. Mostly because people tend to use things like Facebook as an acceptable means of keeping in touch. I get that it has it's purposes, but if your friendships are reduced to wall postings on a social networking site, that's no longer a friendship.

It's something I've felt was wrong with society in general and a trend I've observed with my customers over the years. People have issues communicating face to face anymore. More often times than not, I find myself speaking to people that are socially inept when you're face to face with them, but complete socialites when they're online. It's really kind of staggering.

Personally, don't expect me to keep up with the comings and goings of Facebook or to play their online games at all. I prefer real time conversations via face to face, telephone or instant messaging.

Qtipus vs. XBox 360

About a month ago, my brother-in-law's XBox red ringed. I've never owned a 360 and have never seen what this red ring actually is. I had a good idea that "red ring" = "hardware issue" just from the sheer number of complaints I've heard about the 360 through various forms of media.

When I heard that his more or less bit the dust, I asked him if he was gonna keep it for parts or if he was just going to get rid of it. He said he was going to keep it for parts.

About a week later, my sister (his wife) starts griping about the old 360 being in the floor and she's constantly stubbing her toe on it or tripping over it.

Now he's going to get rid of it.

So he gave it to me to let me tinker with it. I had done a little research on how to fix red ring issues. Most red ring issues, it would seem, are related to the CPU or GPU losing solid connections to the mainboard thanks to the 360's really shitty cooling system.

The rough translation to this is:

Parts come loose that aren't supposed to come loose thanks to the combination of being overheated and a flimsy heatsink system.

In my experiences with computers, the fans/heatsink combos aren't supposed to wiggle or have wiggle room. Most of these devices simply clamp down on a CPU socket via tabs and metal/plastic clips or they get fastened through the mainboard thanks to a mounting plate or push pins. No matter how it's done, they don't wiggle. Even if they did, you have to put a lot of force on them to get them to move.

Same thing should have applied to Microsoft's logic in designing the 360. I get that it's cool and all for them to have this snazzy X-shaped clip holding down the heatsinks (go go branding and damn, these things were a BITCH to remove), but I could literally move said heatsink slightly off the CPU itself w/o even unscrewing any part of it. Imagine if that 360 is standing on it's side (like most probably do). The weight of that heatsink isn't going to keep it flush against the CPU and the GPU heatsink is likely in the same boat although not as heavy and benefits from having the DVD drive sitting right the hell on top of it.

Loose soldering connections can sometimes be repaired by heating up the area and mashing the component down. In order to do that, I needed to fix the loose heatsink issues then use those heatsinks to address the lose components underneath them. (Yes they'll get really hot w/o fans blowing on them...go go eletrical resistance.)

The heatsinks themselves are idiotically designed (in case I haven't mentioned this already...). Here's what you need to know though:



1. That picture is one I stole off someone's website. I can't remember where though, so props to them for letting me use it. These are what the heatsinks look like. The one on the left is for the GPU (Graphics Processor Unit) and the one on the right would be for the CPU (if you don't know what that is, stop reading this blog and go learn...).

Note the 4 "pegs". These pegs are the standoffs that mount the heatsinks through the mainboard and are clamped down with...



2. ...these X-Clamps. These are the issue with the 360's cooling system. There's too much play in these clamps. (I stole that picture too from the same website.) Getting them off is a huge pain in the ass since they clip into little grooves on the aforementioned standoffs.



3. Said clamps get screwed in by some tiny little black screws through the bottom of the case. Again, this is not the issue. The issue is the amount of play between the standoffs and the X-Clamps themselves, but this picture is here to illustrate where I'll be starting the modification. If you can't figure out where, please, stop reading and take some classes in observation.

I'll end up using some panhead screws, some washers and some better thermal paste to eliminate the play these heatsinks have. Once the heatsinks are mounted, I'll heat the GPU up first (since I suspect that's where the main issue is) and start to apply pressure evenly over the top of it. It's basically:

- Turn 360 on and let it heat up.
- Turn 360 off, unplug it and press down on the heatsink.
- Turn 360 on and see if it works.
- If it doesn't, turn 360 off, apply more pressure, potentially targeting corners instead of central.
- Turn 360 on and see if it works.
- Repeat until it's working or I'm convinced it's dead.

If this works, I'll write up the guide on what I used. I'd be interested in potentially resurrecting a 360 someone else has that has red ringed too. My initial guesstimates on cost at the moment is about $15 for all the screws, washers, and thermal paste that are necessary.

There are lots of kits and guides out there on how to do this, so I'm not expecting that mine will be so drastically different from theirs that I'll end up with some ground-breaking 360 repair method. What I would hope to do better than anyone else is explain it.

Future updates incoming on this subject. :)