ANSWERED [RGH] Freezes only whilst playing games

[Rich007]

Hi Guys,

First thanks to anyone who offered advice and support in my previous thread
I got a better soldering tip, some silver solder, tidied up my work and it read the nand and now glitches, with the cap it now glitches within 15 seconds EVERY time.

I'm now however having problems with freezes. However its ONLY when playing games, and always within the first 3 minutes of playing a game. I can sit in XEXMenu for hours, i can sit at the dashboard for hours. I FTP'd 4 games, which i ripped from the original, then used ISO2GOD to create the GOD containers, whilst stripping out padding. These games i can open, and leave them at the "Start" menu screen for seemingly ever, however once i start to actually play the game, it dies within 3 minutes. So much so that in about 10 attempts, i've not picked up a single achievement, and out of Forza 4, Skyrim, Batman AC, and Saints row 3, only Forza has loaded to a point where the game is 'playable' rather than watching some sort of intro video.

I'm currently in the process of trying a different xbox hard-drive, but not expecting much. Also as a matter of note i've cleared the cache.

The reason i'm not inserting the game to xbox and backing up is a very tempermental DVD drive, its an old liteon, which just about reads the XEXmenu live disc, but gets 'dirty disc' errors with anything else.

I installed a simple dash from Jtag tool, and i've since updated to the latest 14699 dashlaunch, and still no joy.


As a kind of second question (which i would post elsewhere, but still noob account), i've got a Freecom 250gb HDD which i bought some years ago. It used to work fine with the xbox back about 18months ago, but then it just stopped working when i updated the dash. I believe it was the kinect dash update. There was handful of people who posted on the xbox forums, but nothing of note. The hard-drive is fat32 format, works fine with PC, just doesnt get recognised in any one of 3 xboxes. Any ideas?

Thanks very much,
Rich

 

[Martin C]

What console is it?

 

[Goldensavage]

Might be a heat issue.

You could try installing FSD and setting the fans to run slightly higher, (Although noisier) to cool the 360 down a bit more. Or if you have a laptop Fan stand, put your 360 on that and see if it lasts longer.

 

[Rich007]

What console is it?

its a Jasper 16mb elite, running a 20GB official HDD from an old premium xbox.

On the heat note, would removing the useless disc drive be advisable? Also i take it, that it would boot to XELL on eject press, without a drive being in there? I'll try FSD this afternoon unless anyone else can think of something

Cheers
Rich

 

[Martin C]

You shouldn't need the cap - remove it. It might be causing the freezing.

pics of your wiring is also needed here.

 

[Goldensavage]

its a Jasper 16mb elite, running a 20GB official HDD from an old premium xbox.

On the heat note, would removing the useless disc drive be advisable? Also i take it, that it would boot to XELL on eject press, without a drive being in there? I'll try FSD this afternoon unless anyone else can think of something

Cheers
Rich

FSD and the Dashboard and any games will work without the drive there.

You'll just have a green blinking light.

Some people remove the drive, desolder the middle LED and put a big fan in there 360.

But only if it is a heat problem, try what Martin C said, he is the Guru of RGH and JTAG

 

[Rich007]

You shouldn't need the cap - remove it. It might be causing the freezing.

pics of your wiring is also needed here.

Without the cap it glitched about 5 out of 25 times (leaving it 30secs+ every time), with the cap it glitches every time within 15 seconds.
Admittedly i tidied up some soldering AS i installed the cap, but limited changes. but it was really a tiny bit more solder where it might have just been bit on the pre-tinned wires.

I'll get some pictures and post them up shortly.

Thanks

 

[axee44]

Maybe some issues with dash launch settings, like freeze on fatal error??

 

[DayvG]

I was getting freezes within 3 minutes of playing games and at game launch, my fix was to reroute my wires under the board staying as far away from the points noted in other threads as possible. I glitch pretty much first time now and it never freezes. It puzzled me to begin with because the first 2 days after I fitted the coolrunner it didn't freeze once.

 

[Rich007]

Im not so sure that it is overheating. I installed FSD, set the fan to 100% with the case open. Left FSD running as i FTP GOD containers to the HDD, and 3 times it froze. Generally about 10-20 minutes between freezes.... foolishly didnt note the temperatures, but as the fan continued to run at 100% (noise) i can't see it being any sort of overheating.

http://imgur.com/a/0Bh5Q

theres a link to pictures of the install. I tried to root the back wires away from key areas, as instructed on the sticky, (specifically avoiding the key area).

As i've said it glitches 100% of the time, very quickly, it sits on the NXE for hours without issues, but only once running games (particulary gfx intensive) does it freeze up.

 

[Goldensavage]

Have you tried removing the coolrunner and playing a normal original game from your drive?

 

[Rich007]

Have you tried removing the coolrunner and playing a normal original game from your drive?

No I haven't, but as i said the drive is borked anyway, only opens when most of the screws on the drive are undone, and if i do put a disc in, i just get "Dirty Disc" errors.

I had the xbox initially to look at fixing the drive, but when i realised it was a new drive job (£30) or i could RGH it for around about the same price (once a few done), i asked my brother what he'd rather do. Went for RGH.

 

[KDallas]

Im not so sure that it is overheating.

I still wouldn't rule it out. After fixing quite a number of RROD boxes one common pattern was freezing shortly whilst playing games as the GPU very rapidly started to heat up. The dashboard isn't likely very taxing of the GPU, so that might be why it is idling at a less toasty temp.

One thing you could try... lower the resolution to 480p -- see if it takes longer to lock up. If it takes say 5 or 6 minutes consistently instead of 3 (at 1080p?), my suggestion would be to take of the x-clamps and use fresh thermal paste.

Is your Jasper 16GB missing the extra heatpipe/heatsink? The old Elites had boards much like a Falcon I believe even though they had the lower voltage and capacitors etc of a Jasper. Anyway you can verify that but if it doesn't have the heatpipe it could be more prone to GPU overheating.

 

[Martin C]

was it working before it was RGH'd?

 

[Rich007]

was it working before it was RGH'd?

I had it running to dash prior to RGH, before the drive packed up my brother reported no issues with game freezes or anything, and i've now gone back and asked specifically about freezes after playing for a few minutes etc.

Are the temperatures in FSD likely to be accurate and report if it does start overheating? ie, is the sensor reporting what temp the chip is, or what tempt the heatsink is?

Its an old style, no extra heatsink or pipe.

 

[82ross]

Just so you know Ive had the same issue with game freezing on a 16mb Jasper. Glitches ok.

Cables are routed pretty much exactly the same. Going to reroute blue and green when i get some spare time. Not going to route green under the xclamps this time either.

(Running FSD (latest as of yesterday) from Internal Hdd, games from External Hdd in GOD format, Dashlaunch 2.29, I dont have the cap on at the moment.)

(As for cooling this Jasper has the more basic GPU heatsink, I do keep an eye on temps using FSD and they stay around 54C in dash with open case. Will try using Dashlaunch temp monitoring to check in game to see if its temp related but ive played MW3 last night for about an hour without crash, then crashed after about 3 mins in kinect sports 2.)

Will report back if i make any progress on this issue.

 

[Rich007]

Just so you know Ive had the same issue with game freezing on a 16mb Jasper. Glitches ok.

Cables are routed pretty much exactly the same. Going to reroute blue and green when i get some spare time. Not going to route green under the xclamps this time either.

(Running FSD (latest as of yesterday) from Internal Hdd, games from External Hdd in GOD format, Dashlaunch 2.29, I dont have the cap on at the moment.)

Will report back if i make any progress on this issue.

Not that it helps you in the slightest, but i'm glad someone else is having the same issues! I would have routed the cables better across the back, but there isn't much/any slack. Is there anything wrong with routing the blue wire from the coolrunner, straight down, under the fan and round the board that way? I assume there must be a good reason, because its the shortest route.

I'll get the iron out later and remove the cap first, and try and then look at other ways of routing the wires. I guess i should be greatful that its reasonably easy for me to make it freeze, as its predicatble and easy to find faults!

 

[E_NICE]

Success!!!!!

I had this issue too. The xbox would freeze when a game would start. The motherboard was Falcon. I had the same exact route as you did with the green wire!!! Right under the X Clamps. I re-routed it exactly how Ubergeek has it on his guide here....http://www.team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75787

The Xbox as of right now stopped freezing. On a game boot from the hard drive the xbox would play for a minute and then freeze. Now after testing it for 15 minutes straight it has been working great. Also, the xbox boots really fast. Less then 10 secs. Hope my experience helps.

 

[Rich007]

Success!!!!!

I had this issue too. The xbox would freeze when a game would start. The motherboard was Falcon. I had the same exact route as you did with the green wire!!! Right under the X Clamps. I re-routed it exactly how Ubergeek has it on his guide here....http://www.team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75787

The Xbox as of right now stopped freezing. On a game boot from the hard drive the xbox would play for a minute and then freeze. Now after testing it for 15 minutes straight it has been working great. Also, the xbox boots really fast. Less then 10 secs. Hope my experience helps.

Thank you very much!

I re-routed the wire exactly as the picture, had problems soldering the wire back down, but got there in the end! It now takes longer or perhaps a 2nd attempt to glitch, but games play perfect off the HDD, even in a very warm room.

Thanks
Rich

 

[82ross]

I was being a bit lazier tonight and thought ill try adding the cap before i remove the mobo again.

Once installed boots much quicker and didn't crash on the 4 games i tested. Need to test kinect games tomorrow then ill reassemble if it goes well.

If needed ill reroute aswell tho. Glad ya got it sorted out.



Update on this box. It still booting very quickly and without freezes. Good stuff. Just shows its not just the BB Jaspers that work well with a cap.