How to fix an XBOX 360

I acquired a broken XBox360 that has the four rings of death. It would blink the four lights during power up and I could not get past that point. I read a bit on the internet and there were several possible problems so I decided to go ahead and see what I could do.

Once I stripped the unit down to the motherboard and removed the motherboard from the case, I removed the heatsinks from the CPU and GPU. These are the two large heatsinks that are supposed to keep the chips cool. I carefully scraped the old thermal compound off the CPU and GPU so that they were mostly shiny and reflective. I got some metal washers, plastic washers, and screws to replace the metal piece that holds down the heatsink. When I put the heat sinks back on, I ended up with the two rings of death when I tried to boot it up. Progress, I thought. I took off the heat sinks again and I put down a thin layer of thermal compound and put the new screws and washers on to hold the heat sinks. There are several videos about how to do this. You should not make it too tight, but tight enough have a good contact with the chips.

After I was done, the XBox360 came back to life. I have no games for it, but at least it's alive.