Hybrid Homemade X-Clamp Fix Tutorial(Free)

Step 1: The Actual Fix!

At first you have to disassemble your mainboard like described in this tutorial - How to disassemble a 360....
After that you should have nothing but the plain mainboard and the metal case.

The "Hybrid" fix addresses many design flaws that still plague the Xbox 360 and keep giving people the "red rings of death". For one thing we wanted the motherboard to rest on a perfectly flat surface, which is impossible without a little case modification. Another issue was to advance the methods of applying even pressure to the CPU and GPU from both above and below the motherboard. Yet another goal was to find some way to stabilize or reinforce the motherboard to finally stop any flexing from occurring. As a bit of an unexpected bonus, this fix also helps your system run much cooler as the whole metal chassis acts like a giant heatsink.

First you must do a little prep work before putting the motherboard back in. The two rounded screw standoffs are a bit higher than the outer lip that the motherboard rests on. The outer lip is 3mm tall, so each of these standoffs need to be 3mm as well, or else the motherboard will be flexing no matter what x-clamp replacement method you choose.

Please Note... this mostly pertains to units built before 2007. We have found some 2007 metal chassis that Microsoft updated, as well as most Elite units seem to have the fixed chassis as well(Actually we have found evidence that this failure can be persistent for some Elites built in 2007 so please, check it out here and confirm that yours got the perfect height). There are different versions of the metal chassis, so please check yours yourself before you go sanding things down.

Sanding the stand-offs

You can stack 3 flat metal washers next to the standoffs to see they are taller than 3mm.

Now stack 4 washers on the inner area of the metal chassis near the x-forms in the middle rectangle area, and 3 washers on the outer part too see how they are nearly level. Actual difference is estimated to be .75mm.

So for everything to sit perfectly flat, you need 3mm tall standoffs and 3.75mm between metal chasis and the motherboard where the screws are.

Next you will need to sand down those 2 taller standoffs until they are level with 3 flat washers.

You can sand it by hand, but might want to use something like a small piece of plexiglass or something else flat to help sand it to a nice flat surface.

if you have some sort of sanding tool that can sand flat surfaces this can save some time.

This is what the two stand-offs should look like when you are done..

Then recheck the height and it should be exactly 3mm which is the height of a stack of 3 washers. It is a good idea to check the thickness of your own washers as some cheap ones are not deburred properly and can give the incorrect thickness. Also nylon washers are not really recommended as they can become brittle over time and also do not stand up to the pressure as well as steel washers.

Drilling the screw holes:

Now get a metal drill bit with a diameter of 5mm. You can also use a "unibit" step drill bit that can drill through metal and deburr the holes at the same time.

And drill the holes and be careful to not apply too much pressure so you don't deform the chassis when drilling.

After drilling it should look like that...

If you take a look on the inside of the metal case you will find stuff that looks like that if a common bit was used.

Take the sandpaper again and sand all the chippings away until it is perfectly flat like on this picture.

Now you are done with the preparation of the case. Congrats, now lets get on with the repair part.

Turn around the case and insert the 8 screws. If the 16mm screws or pan head screws in general are used, please add one spring washer to each between the chassis and the screw.

This is so the X-form part of the chassis does not get in the way + the screws are too long and dig into the heatsink otherwise(with 14mm screws like from the store you dont need springs...).
Here is an example what it shouldnt look like.

Should look like that.

Then take the tape,

and fasten the screws with it like that.