Fixing the PS3 YLOD

Unknown

So today, me and a friend are attempting to fix a PS3 Yellow Light of Death (YLOD). We're following a very useful Youtube video tutorial (which you can find below) and we've already unscrewed and dismantled the PS3 console. Currently, we're removing the old thermal compound and it's actually amazing how similar this machine is to a computer. I often forget that it's basically a supercomputer with a badass graphics processing unit.

Here's the video we're following;

And now for a few pictures. Here's a picture of a PS3 motherboard, and you can see the CPU and GPU. You can also see how destroyed the thermal compound is after years of heat punishment



Here's a picture showing the rather awesome fan which blows the air away from the heatsink;



And finally, here's a picture of the PS3's copper heatpipe system ;



Has anyone else fixed a PS3 YLOD before? If you've got any tips or experience to share then that would be cool :thumbsup:

RaggedOldMan

That's fuckin' badass Trx, doesn't a PS3 have a million screws to undo before you can get inside it? If they make their consoles anything like they do their controllers then I'm surprised anyone can put them back together after taking them to pieces I just watched that video, and I'm assuming you're going to use the heat-gun to melt the solder back together again? I was just thinking... Why can't you remove the CPU and GPU, and resolder any cracked connections with something a lot more hardcore than just regular solder? What's that shit... Silver Solder? From what I remember, that stuff is the same thing, just 100% more awesome.

Let us know how it all turns out.

Unknown

The amount of screws inside a PS3 is unreal. There's also about 4 layers to the thing - you've got the top section, housing the Blu-Ray drive and the PSU. Take those off and you get down to another layer which has the heatsink and fan all arranged nicely, sucking that heat from the CPU and GPU. Next, you have to remove a couple of metal plates which separate that section from the motherboard, and below that is obviously the HDD bay and some plastic shit which holds the case together.

We're going to use a heat gun to fix it, just like in the video. The best part is, he's already bought a new PS3 and so if we get this one up and running again, I GET TO HAVE IT FOR FREEEEEE

Unknown

Well I'll be FUCKED! It actually WORKED! The PS3 is working once again, so now my buddy has a spare PS3 kicking around... Now I need to social engineer him into giving it to me :thumbsup: This is actually going to require some social engineering as he's pretty hard to convince when you want him to do something. Wish me luck, and with any hope, the next post in this thread will consist of pictures of my brand new PS3

EDIT: And when I say brand new, I mean about 4 years old. Plus, the fix might only work for like 20 minutes :facepalm:

RaggedOldMan

Best of luck getting it to work for a long time :thumbsup: I've heard that people have done this fix and it only worked for 15 minutes! Do your best to keep it as cool as possible, as that solder will overheat and crack once again.

Dfg

Posting in an awesome thread. Never really had a PS3 console but damn that thing looks sexy.