I had recently taken apart my Xbox 360 elite to give it a new paint job seeing my warranty had expired.

I have heard of an ‘X clamp fix’ that was for the white Xbox 360s that was supposed to fix the Xbox from getting the Red Ring of Death. The
Xbox 360 Elite was supposed to run cooler and not get the RROD problem. But it
the Elites still get the same problem. Today, Microsoft has decided to create
the Xbox 360 Slim to make themselves look like the fixed everything and the
RROD is dead and gone. It’s not going away because of a design flaw.

First off, the Original white Xbox 360s have basic fan-less heat sinks for the GPU and CPU. What holds them into place? Not a clip or anything like your everyday computer, but some cheap X-shaped ‘clamps’ on the backside
of the motherboard to hold the heat sink. The heat sink is fan-less to save
room, the rear two fans on the console get a white piece of plastic that sucks
the heat from the heat sinks and out the back.

The problem with the original Xbox 360s: The ‘X-clamp’ was made for easy maintenance or easy removal. The ‘clamps’ are made from a thin piece of aluminum; therefore bend and come loose easily. I think the loose clamps would
cause the heat sink itself to come loose. With a loose heat sink, heat can’t
come off of the CPU/GPU well enough. Having the console standing vertically,
the extra stress of gravity helps loosen the ‘X-clamps’. The ‘X clamp fix’ is a
simple procedure that voids your Xbox’s warranty and replaces the clamps with
proper screws that will keep the heat sinks from moving. Microsoft not knowing their
mistake, created the Xbox 360 elite.

Hoping to fix the RROD, Microsoft sat down and looked at the anatomy of the Xbox 360 and found the overheating of the CPU/GPU causes RROD. They took the fan-less ‘X clamp’ heat sinks and chucked them away, replacing them with
a heat piped cooled heat sink. What I’ve discovered is that my Xbox had been
running vertical for the first few years of my ownership, and I had gotten the
Red Ring of Death four times. I had renovated a year ago and had my Xbox running
horizontal. No more problems. Seeing that my Xbox is Elite, the problem should
not have been present. Today, taking in the fact of the heat pipe, why could it
not be working?

Problem can be easily answered if you know how a heat pipe works. There is a raised area, one or more lowered areas, and a copper pipe. There are attached heat sinks on both the lowered and raised areas, and the
copper pipe connects to both. Heat pipes contain a few drops of acetone, thanks
to gravity the acetone stays in the lowered area. The lowered area is attached
to the top of the CPU/GPU. Like any other heat sink the heat is evenly
distributed along itself to help cool down. In heat pipe configurations the
heat meets the bottom of the copper pipe or the ‘lower area’ as I mentioned above.
According to the law of Conservation of Energy, the energy or heat from the
lowered area gets transferred to the acetone, turns into a gas. This acetone
gas is lighter than air, so it floats up through the copper pipe and goes to
the raised area. The raised area has nothing to cool down, so the acetone gas
has its own heat sink to help it condense back into a liquid. Thanks again to
gravity it flows back down to the lowered area and goes back through the loop.
Check?

Now here is the problem with the Xbox 360 Elites: The raised area of the heat pipe is to the right. If the console is standing vertically, the raised area of the heat pipe is now below the lowered area. Therefore the
acetone is in the raised area, where no heat is being given off. The lowered
area has no acetone thanks to gravity. This makes the heat pipe useless if the
console is running vertical.

Now the Xbox 360 Slim is out advertising to be immune to the overheating. All that is new on the Slim is the return of ‘X-clamps’ and a debut of a fan-mounted heat sink. Now more weight is
added and more stress put on the ‘clamps’.
Anyone say Déjà vu?

A recap for those who don’t understand or have ADD:
· Original white Xbox 360

o Vertical: Puts stress on ‘X-clamps’, they in turn make heat sink come loose, and overheats the CPU/GPU

o Horizontal: Heat sink sits on top of CPU/GPU. No stress on ‘X-clamps’.

· Elite Xbox 360

o Vertical: Heat pipe to cool will not work properly sideways. Overheat is caused because of it.

o Horizontal: Heat pipe is physically oriented correctly and keeps cool.

· Slim Xbox 360

o Vertical: Same as Original Xbox 360 with added weight of a fan.

o Horizontal: Heat sink sits on top of CPU/GPU. No stress on ‘X-clamps’.
Added fan helps keep cool.

So if you want your Xbox to go the extra mile, run it horizontal. Even if it is against the original design, the engineers at Microsoft didn’t design the Motherboard for standing up.

Thanks for the taking the time to read my theory.