Ps3 YLoD Attempted fix's. Any more ideas?

UPDATE! I'm done with all the testing I'm going to do for today so here's the report.

Fired up the PS3 and everything is still pretty good. Logitech wireless controller works fine. Successfully connected USB hard drive to the system and copied pictures, music, and movies to the PS3.

I have the blu ray drive connected now with the main top lid off the drive.(so i can see what it's doin) PS3 now gives a blue light beside the power button when turning on and the round piece inside the drive that spins the disk spins like crazy when turning on, then stops after about 10-15 seconds, no lights on the diode though. Not sure if this is normal with no disc in the system?

Blu ray controller board must be functioning somewhat correctly as the system turns on without any issues, can read and view pictures, music, and movies copied to the PS3.

All that is left, is to affix the top part of the blu ray drive and see if I can read any disc. Little nervous to do this as EVERYTHING else is working fine. Hate to risk YLOD again by testing discs but I will do this tomorrow night for the sake of making this whole damn thing work. I plan to backup the hard drive via my USB hard drive in case I YLOD again during testing of the blu ray. I'm assuming that if I do YLOD again, it will ask for a reformat of the drive possibly? upon starting up teh system again.

Two things to note that I would like some input on if anyone has any suggestions or advice.

I stated in my first massive post that I reset the PS3 back to factory defaults once I got past the YLOD. Should this in fact clear any updates that have been done to the system as well as the drivers for the blu ray that can be reset under the system recovery console? (part you can get to by holding down the power button until you get 2 beeps then release) I can't get to that recovery console at the moment due to it wanting a hard wired USB controller and all I have is the wireless logitech.

2nd Issue / Question
The power supply on this badboy is still running SUPER HOT after about 1-2 hours. It hasn't been enough to kill anything yet, but I would assume if I left it run it could break something or YLOD again. This is a power supply I bought off ebay and replaced the existing power supply in the system due to the same issue. I'm not sure how hot these are supposed to get by design, but it seems a bit over the top right now. I would assume if it gets hot enough it could actually cause the YLOD where the board needs reflowed. This may be why systems need reflowed repeately since this molten lava power supply sits on top of the chips that are getting cracked solder joints. Might potentially cause blu ray issues too since it's right beside it. Who knows, the lead-free solder might be good enough after all if this thing ran cooler.

I've considered attempting to rig a 480w computer power supply to this permanently, as I've already somewhat had one connected to the system for testing purposes. It would get the job done and not run anywhere near as hot. Sony was retarded for trying to run this thing with no built in fan in the power supply. Once again savin them bucks over qualtiy, as if the price tag wasn't enough to cover it to start with.

Anyway, suggestions would be much appreciated if anyone has any ideas of how to cool this sucker down aside from the computer power supply rig. I was curious if anyone thinks having the case completely together (completely back together and not sitting open) would help the airflow and cool anything down? I have my doubts about that as hot as this thing is getting and only one fan on the very bottom of the system. I would imagine it would probably only cook the thing faster I might be crazy but I would bet Sony didn't get quite that far or we wouldn't be discussing so many YLOD issues and power supply issues on the launch units.I was also thinking if I could find a mini computer power supply (smaller proprietary towers usually) that had enough wattage I could even case this thing back up and be golden.

I'll be testing the blu ray tomorrow night. Anyone that is interested in the results. I'll post what all happens when I'm done.

 

sgebbie, you won't lose any updates/drivers from perfoming a factory restore/reset.

If it yellow lights again and you fix it, it will boot as normal and won't ask to reformat the hard drive again.

I have two open PS3's at present. One of the power supplys runs very hot in one machine but not in the other. I have swapped them around and it seems that it is the PS3 that is causing the PSU to overheat, not the unit itself. This may not be the same in your case however.

As far as I'm aware, you should get a light from the bluray lens even if there is no disc inside. As long as the drive is in the position it would be in if a disc was inserted.

Hope this helps, keep me informed.

 

That's great news about the hard drive! I'd like to keep what I have put on it so far but if not, no big deal just slightly annoying / time consuming.

That's going to be a real bummer if something else like a fault in the system board is causing the PSU to overheat I really hope that's not the case. Unless someone is an electronics guru I don't think I'd be able to figure it out quite that far except to replace the whole board.

What model are the two that you have? Mine is an 80GB backwards compatible 4 USB unit. Model #
Also, what model is your power supply? Same as mine? APS-226?

With the blu ray player, this thing was set completely back to factory through the settings menu. Are you saying that I should or shouldn't need to go into the recovery console and reset anything else? I heard of someone having blu ray issues resetting something in there and it fixed the blu ray player. I wasn't sure if I should just set it back to whatever that sets it to before I even start. I'm not sure though if that's covered under the full reset/wipe though.

Also I haven't actually gotten the player into the loaded position yet. It's in the unloaded position. I was thinking of testing it with one of those clear discs that you get in the top of a pack of blank CDs. I saw a guy on youtube testing with one of those and you could see the lights on the diode as it was trying to spin and read the disc. Not sure if this would screw with anything within the blu ray player or if it would eventually just say it couldn't read the disc hopefully.

Thanks for the help and information. I'll post back again tomorrow night with more findings. Probably should get a few hours of sleep today lol

 

The two that I'm working on are 60GB backward compatable with four USB sockets.

Will look at the model of the power supply later and let you know.

 

Has anyone tried disconnecting the battery that saves stuff while the ps3 is shut off? What I did was turn the ps3 on disconnect the battery turn ps3 off then hard reset it then turned the ps3 on & now I'm getting 3 fan speeds instead of just 1 which was low

 

First off, Colin, you are the man.
Second, successful reflow YLOD, let it sit a day (don't know if this was necessary or bad). Turned it on, looked fine, noticed it was really quiet, but the fan is spinning (put my ear to it, and it is spinning really low). Started FIFA10, still really low, eventually shut off, upon reset it stated that it is really hot and turned off again. Is there something I did or didn't do that would make the fan not function correctly? The power is connected to it.
Third, is there a special kind of flux that works better for the ps3?
Fourth, Colin, I have an older version I guess, some of the things were a little different on the inside of mine than in your videos. I was wondering if you want pictures and/or videos detailing the differences in case you want to add them to your archives, pdf, tutorials, etc.
Fifth, where do I donate to your cause, Colin? You did a fine job and I feel you should be rewarded for taking the time to make these tutorials. Thanks!

 

Check the sig of colinjest http://www.youtube.com/user/gilksy1

On there, you can donate ..

 

Well, I am red in the face. The power was NOT plugged in to the power supply...
But still get back to me on the other questions I asked, minus the donating, I found that

 

Although my last reflow is still working, I got fed up always wondering when it would YLOD on me again and got the 120GB version. For anyone else who's thinking of doing the same, consider M&S because they're giving a 2 year warranty.

 

I've finished testing my system and after putting the blu ray player back together everything is working great! Blu ray player is fine and has no issues that I can find.

I'm crazy and managed to play madden 09 for like 8 hours straight LOL. Mainly did this for testing purposes. (I don't ever recommend doing this just for sake of sanity!) No issues what so ever. Due to the power supply heat issue I was having before, I left the cover off so the internals were exposed and put a small fan beside the system pointing directly at the left side of the system (USB ports facing you). Fan was aimed at the hard drive bay / power supply. Fan was a 120VAC 60Hz 0.25A fan if anyone is interested. This kept the power supply warm but not hot at all. I checked the power supply with my hand frequently as I was playing.

I'm pretty sure at this point that the main issue causing YLOD is heat related due to the power supply. You could still have issues if your system is extremely dirty, needs new thermal paste, has never been reflowed? I'll have to get a handful more systems to test with to test all my theories (Not sure how soon that is going to happen ) I'm still debating how I'm going to attempt to fix the second system I have with YLOD due to solder issues. I may rig the computer power supply or possibly try to rig an extra fan or two into the sytem with the factory power supply and see how that works. At this point though I'm not sold that the factory power supply can get the job done on it's own without some help to cool it down.

Also with this system, I'm using a thermal paste called Seven Carat Diamond. They didn't have Arctic Silver 5 at my local computer shop so I got this instead. Read about it some as well, it seems that it has had slightly better results than Arctic Silver 5.
It has a diamond particle base rather than a silver particle base. Small tube of it was about 10 dollars. It also spreads a bit differently as it's a bit too thick to actually "spread". You are supposed to put it in a cup of hot water for about 10 minutes to get it a little easier to work with. I put mine in a zip lock bag and then put that in a cup of hot water for about 10-20 minutes. When you are ready to apply it, you put about a pea sized blob in the center of each chip and then attach the fan and the heatsink plates. When you screw these down it spreads the compound evenly. I was fairly skeptical after reading all this but it seemed to have worked perfectly. Supposedly this method of self spreading eliminates any air bubbles from getting in the paste and keeps it functioning at its best performance. They have some examples on their web site. http://www.innovationcooling.com/applicationinstructions.htm
Seems to be working great on mine!! Will definitely buy it again.

After doing all this I'm thinkin that the lead-free solder used on the chips is just fine, provided that the system is cooled sufficiently. I'm thinkin this is where Sony has failed and why there are so many of these systems with issues. I will try to get some pictures posted later on of my current setup with the fan on the side lol and some pictures of the guts if I manage to modify one to accomodate a computer power supply or additional fans on the inside of the case.

 

For the fan, I would suggest geting a new one. Pretty cheap part of all the things that could need replacing and probably not a terrible thing to have a spare sitting around. If you can manage to tilt the system up while you have it on you can try testing the power plug for the fan while it boots up and see if it's getting the correct voltage to the fan. It should tell you the voltage that it requires on the back of the fan. To get to this and test it, you will need the system to power on without it sitting in the bottom plastic part of the case. I had mine running like this once so it should work. It will be a little tricky though testing the voltage since the fan connector is on the bottom. Not sure that I'd flip the whole thing upside down.

It's possible you could have a board issue not giving the fan enough juice, a fan wire issue, or just a bad fan that's not working quite right? bearings in the fan? One other thing you might consider is if you can boot your system up long enough to back it up if you haven't backed it up yet, wipe the system back to defaults. Start it over basically like you just unboxed it and hooked it up. I have read some stuff about firmware doing strange things to the system, could mess with the fan speeds or something? I still need to do some research on all the different firmware revisions and what exactly they do. I'm not sold on them actually being good for your system in all cases as quite a few people have had issues with I belive 2.42 which sounds like it has completely crashed some systems. Mine is running no updates until I see some info on exactly what they are changing.

Flux, I used Rosin Flux. On the bottle it says for leaded and lead free solder. It also says Instant wetting / RA type flux. It was about 10 dollars for a bottle about the size of cough syrup. It's pretty messy but clean up isn't too bad with some rubbing alcohol. I did my board just like the video, top side first let it cool and bottom side second. I'd suggest being a little careful and not going too long on the bottom side. I'm thinking if it got too hot, the chip could fall out? Might need a reball or a new board if that happened. You would need a ton of heat for that to happen so just back the times off from the top side say 5 seconds or so and maybe just a little less heat.

As far as your system goes, what kind is it? What's the Model#? Also, what size hard drive does it have? I have a couple older systems here as well. Both of mine are backwards compatible 4 USB systems. One is Model# CECHB01 - 20GB, the other is Model# CECHE01 - 80GB.Out of curiosity, how hot is your power supply getting on that system? Warm to the touch? Hot to the touch? Can't leave your hand on it for more than a couple seconds?

 

Hi all!

I'm attempting to relfow a 60gb ps3 however the unit came with missing rubber pads!

Is there anything else I can use to substitute this? Or will it matter? Are the rubber pads being used as a thermal situation or merely just as a holder.

Thanks

 

lestak .. mine was missing a few too compared to what Gilksy had in his guide :S

 

Hi guys,

well i was in the same issue that so many other gamers have, the bloody yellow light of death on my playstation.

I'd had it for 13 months so when i spoke to Sony they told me that it wasn't covered under warranty....

So i searched the net for something that was actually going to help me rather than be another con.

I have bought so many fix it guides but found one that sounded promising.

Bought it for £27 and took the gamble but it was so worth it!

Followed the walk through videos and within an hour and a half i was back on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2!

If your looking to sort yours out still i would recommend www.playstation3fix.com.

 

Is this the site were he uses tooth pase or something?
Care to share his method?

Also I called a third party repair guy and he told me that he didn't use an air gun and that the damge was due to fluctuating voltages of the house. He didn't want to give further details and he charges 90 bucks so I won't take to him but maybe you guys now what his talking about or is he just a scam.

 

Not sure what the air gun thing is about but the guide that i bought offers fixes for more than one error on the system as apparently it can be related to a number of things.

 

An air gun? What does he do blast holes in it lol.
Seriously there are loads of scams out there. Whats the one with the toothpaste?

 

The mention of an air gun has to make you think that the guy is selling you tripe.

Guessing that the use of toothpaste would be instead of using a bonding agent but if you think about it, your system heats up and so toothpaste would melt and cover your chipboard, causing more damage?

 

JAJA sorry my mistake, I meant Heat gun used to fix the YLOD

http://playstationlifestyle.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2376&highlight=flux+video

 

That makes a little more sense as it would be bonding something with the use of a heat gun and warm glue.

But there are a number of reasons that the yellow light could be shown so going out and getting a heat gun could be a pointless exercise until you know the cause.

An example is that maybe its something to do with the HD, how is a heat gun going to sort that? Glue it shut? lol