PS3, oh no, YLoD ]=

[endlessdamage]

I am gonna start off topic just to say that I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving + weekend. Oh, and I only have one more day until my warning is gone! I realize I havent been on as much now as I have previously, but I have just had the worst luck, first my desktop went (ugh and I just finished it, I let it run for 10 mins to make sure it was working, I had yet to install the liquid cooling, shut it down, and my girl turned it on while I was out, and didnt turn it off, it ran with no cooling for god know how long) , then the laptop burned up. And now the ps3, I feel like I was married to lady luck, then she caught me cheating on her and now its revenge time.

I was very happy that i still owned the original 60 gig ps3 from when it first came out. YES, I spent $500 for it (at least I didnt go on eBay and spend over a thousand, and i know some people who did). Oh yes back on topic, well I was very happy that I had it for so long and did not receive the dreaded 'Yellow Light of Death' as so many others who have the original have been. And alas I am at a dilemma, I am out of warranty, and Sony wants to charge me almost 200 bucks to 'fix' it. When all reality all the do is give you a refurbished version with a new pretty case. Which basically almost guarantees I am just going to get the YLoD again later on down the road. So i guess this is just a question of opinion, but here goes anyway. As I see it I have three options to be able to have a ps3 and be able to play older games, I can, one: send it in and pay the money grubbing assholes when they should cover it like microsoft did, two: I can buy a new ps3 to be assured that i wont receive the light, but then I would be forced to buy a ps2, considering I sold it when I got the ps3. My third and final option would be to try out the playstation version of the 'towel method' that was for the 360. If you dont know what it is, I will explain, but for time purposes right this moment, I will continue. If that were to work, I would love to do it, not only is my warranty already up, but I have already had it apart before just out of curiosity. My fear is that I would just mess it up more, I know I cant play it and people will argue that I will not be losing anything if something were to go wrong, but as of right now it is a hardware malfuntion and I can blame it on Sony, I would hate myself if I added to it and took some blame. Any opinions will be greatly appreciated, and anybody who has had the YLoD, and suffered through it, it would be great if you could let me know how you went about fixing it.

[youknowiknow778]

I had an 80 GB ps3 model that got ylod (MGS4 bundle) , I fixed it myself by striping it down to the motherboard (cleaning the system while doing this is good) and wiping all the thermal paste off of the GPU and CPU (alcohol wipes) then (using a heat gun not hair dryer) heating the gpu and cpu for about ten minutes on high, then applying some (the better quality the longer it will last) thermal paste. let it dry then reassemble the ps3. It is a pretty difficult task and I would recommend taking pictures for the sake of not losing where parts go and if your having trouble I learned from youtube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble so if you have any experience I'm sure you could do it. I'm just some kid with a torx screw driver and a heat gun XP

[nfitc1]

and wiping all the thermal paste off of the GPU and CPU (alcohol wipes) then (using a heat gun not hair dryer) heating the gpu and cpu for about ten minutes on high, then applying some (the better quality the longer it will last) thermal paste

I'm a little wary as to why you would need to heat them. Do you know the reason behind it?

[obesebear]

I got the yellow light a year or two ago from playing call of duty for hours on end.  So to fix it I turned the system off.  Then I let it sit overnight.  The next day I decided hours and hours of consistent gaming was probably a bad idea for me and my PS3.... and since then no more yellow light.

[youknowiknow778]

remelt and reconnect the solder, the reason it has ylod is because one of those two chips heated to a high temperature then cooled to quickly causing a crack in the solder, thus needing reheating and connecting. You could always use a soldering iron but incase you have no skill with that use the head gun just make sure to let the board cool before you try to pick it up again because it will be soft.

[endlessdamage]

Thanks for the replys. And about the solder, the reason you do it is because the solder dries out and cracks. Heating it up remelts the solder and no more cracks, the problem with this is that in all reality, you are only making things worse by drying it out even more. Sony really shouldnt have gone cheaper and used solder with less lead in it.  I have done this with motherboards before to computers that have come my way and i just wanted them to work to make a quick buck, but it is in no way a permanent fix. I am pretty experienced when it comes to the inner workings of things, for quite a long time now I just love taking things apart and figuring them out. Why else would I be in the computer field of work?! The 'refluxing' of the board isnt what I am afraid of, laptops and small circuitry always frightened me a bit, its more fragile and compacted and you have to take a hundred things off before you get to what you want. That makes me crazy. If its almost a definite fix then I will give it a go. Though I dont wanna go messing with the itty bitty boards and screws if there isnt even a remote chance it wil work out for me. I know there are no guarantees, but at least a pretty positive success rate will do me well enough.

[youknowiknow778]

Then I wouldn't even bother, I'm pretty sure the heat gun method will work, but there is no guarantee it will work forever, it could easily get cracked again within a month.

[endlessdamage]

I guess ill just stop being a 'kitty' about it and just try it out. Worst comes to worst I guess ill just go grab a new one. In that case, I have one last question, if I pull out the Bluray drive, and the hdd, and put them in the new one, will I be able to play the ps2 games? I never really researched it much so I am not really sure what it is that eliminated the backwards compatibility.

[sl1982]

It is the emotion engine and graphics synthesizer chips that have been removed from the motherboard that provide ps2 backwards compatibility. So no you cannot just take out the drives and put them in another ps3.

[endlessdamage]

Alright. Thats a bummer, thank you though.

[Nightmarish]

Didnt read the wall of text, but send the ps3 to sony and pay 180$ to get it repaired.
It's the best option if you don't want to risk open it.

[endlessdamage]

I have already opened it out of curiosity before, though I didnt mess with anything. Because I prefer not to mess with the little circuitry and risk anything with stuff that small. Anyways, I ended up using the heat gun, and FOR NOW, all is well. It works again, so thanks for everyones advice. Now I think the best idea is to backup the hdd just in case when I do get the light again, I wont lose everything.

[youknowiknow778]

GREAT IDEA