Tips, Tricks and Fixes

[Zen_Amako]

It's the "yellow light of death". The same thing happened to my 60GB launch console after a little over three years (and I wasn't too pleased that a product which cost $600 lasted that long). If you have a later model like an 80GB, there's a trick you can do to get your game out. If it's a 60GB or a 20GB, you're out of luck -- you have to disassemble the console to remove the game. I ended up just buying a new slim, but I do miss the backwards compatibilty feature.

[toef]

If you decide to try to reflow it yourself, I recommend the gilksy videos on YouTube.

Here's Part 1, and you can use the related videos to work your way through the rest of the parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70SgRDVcBo

I fixed my old 60gb this way, and a couple of my friends' PS3s (3 altogether), so it definitely works, if you do it right.

The worst that could happen is you'll further damage the PS3, but at this point it's already broken, so it would just be more broken.

You could pay Sony to fix it for you, but:

a) it's a temporary, not permanent, fix (could last a few years, might last a couple months)
b) they don't send you your own PS3 back
c) you lose all your files

Some last advice... if you are thinking of reflowing it yourself, don't bother dismantling the BD drive to try to get the game out. If you get it working again, it's a lot easier if you ended up leaving the game in the whole time. If you open up the BD drive to get your game out, you're just creating more work for yourself by having to reset the spring-loaded crap inside of the BD drive and putting it all back together.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Zen_Amako

It's the "yellow light of death". The same thing happened to my 60GB launch console after a little over three years (and I wasn't too pleased that a product which cost $600 lasted that long). If you have a later model like an 80GB, there's a trick you can do to get your game out. If it's a 60GB or a 20GB, you're out of luck -- you have to disassemble the console to remove the game. I ended up just buying a new slim, but I do miss the backwards compatibilty feature.

I've had my 60GB for 3 years next month actually, lol.

Originally Posted by toef

If you decide to try to reflow it yourself, I recommend the gilksy videos on YouTube.

I actually found that guy about 5 minutes after I posted this thread, I watched some of the videos and decided I am going to watch his videos while I attempt to fix this in the morning.

[bingtau]

im sorry for ya bro.. a nice post by toef. i had the same thing happen to me about ten months ago. the youtube videos are good and i was able to get my system going again only to see it die within the next month. i had a launch 60 gig. now i have a slim. hope you get the issue resolved quickly as new vegas is pretty sweet. if anything check some of the videos to at least get your game out.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by bingtau

im sorry for ya bro.. a nice post by toef. i had the same thing happen to me about ten months ago. the youtube videos are good and i was able to get my system going again only to see it die within the next month. i had a launch 60 gig. now i have a slim. hope you get the issue resolved quickly as new vegas is pretty sweet. if anything check some of the videos to at least get your game out.

That's what kills me the most, I just got New Vegas last week and finally got some quality playing time the past few days only to think hey I'm gonna be kicking some ass, here comes a giant radscorpion and 3 death claws and the screen goes black lol. I had 18,000 caps, a shitload of fantastic rare weapons a killer sniper companion some awesome perks, 54 towns discovered, and about 20 hours into this game only to see it all fade to black.

[jamclaur]

Yeah. DO NOT try to take the game out first. If you get the PS3 working again via reflow you can take it out normally, as the PS3 will be working again.

If you do a proper reflow and it doesn't work... reflow it again. MAKE SURE everything is hooked up properly.

If it still doesn't work (which is unlikely) then you can think about taking the drive apart for the game.

[bingtau]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

That's what kills me the most, I just got New Vegas last week and finally got some quality playing time the past few days only to think hey I'm gonna be kicking some ass

i knew i seen you post before. it was on the new vegas forums. it would be one thing if there wasnt anything to play but vegas is taking up some serious time in my life. believe me when it happened to me i was scrambling like you and it was a very sad day.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by jamclaur

Yeah. DO NOT try to take the game out first. If you get the PS3 working again via reflow you can take it out normally, as the PS3 will be working again.

If you do a proper reflow and it doesn't work... reflow it again. MAKE SURE everything is hooked up properly.

If it still doesn't work (which is unlikely) then you can think about taking the drive apart for the game.

Appreciate all the help and feedback i'm getting here. I hope to be able to report by tomorrow night that everything is working again.

[lucv13]

Sorry to hear about your PS3 woes, hope the repairs go well. I finally decided that it's time to upgrade the drive in my 20gb launch PS3 and am thinking of doing the reflow afterwards - only had it flashing once, a year or so ago but it was inside the wall unit, since I removed it haven't had any problems. I have, however noticed that it is getting progressively louder which is why I'm thinking, get it done now before it ylod's. Keep us up to date on your repairs - I for one am interested...

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by lucv13

Sorry to hear about your PS3 woes, hope the repairs go well. I finally decided that it's time to upgrade the drive in my 20gb launch PS3 and am thinking of doing the reflow afterwards - only had it flashing once, a year or so ago but it was inside the wall unit, since I removed it haven't had any problems. I have, however noticed that it is getting progressively louder which is why I'm thinking, get it done now before it ylod's. Keep us up to date on your repairs - I for one am interested...

In the nearly three years I've had it this will be the first bit of maintenance I will of have to do. I will keep you folks updated.

[MOONPHASE]

I feel for you. I just had my 2nd YLOD incident almost a week ago on my launch 60GB model and still without a PS3.

[SillyMammo]

I feel your pain. My 40gb fattie got the YLOD last November. Instead of sending it in to refurb, I just bought a slim...and an extended warranty.

[toef]

For reference, my 60gb died after about 3.5 years (November 06 to April 10). I tried fixing it within a week of it dying, and it didn't work. Since I have a 2nd PS3 (an 80gb) I just put all the 60gb pieces off to the side, and kind of forgot about it.

I came back to the pieces a few months later (June or July) and decided to give it another try, and it worked fine. I think the problem the first time was one (or both) of two things:

1a) I was too afraid of melting the motherboard, that I held the heat gun too far away, which meant it ended up not heating up the solder enough to reflow it.

2a) I used too much compound. The gilksy method shows that you should spread a thin coat, but the stuff I used was pretty pastey in consistency (Arctic Silver 5), that the thinnest coat I could manage was still probably way too thick (using too much compound is just as bad as too little).

So, the second time around, I made some adjustments

1b) Don't be afraid to hold the heat gun close to the board (as long as you are using the right heat setting), just don't bump/touch the board

2b) Consider not spreading a coat of compound, and instead putting a pea-sized (or slightly smaller) dab of compound in the center of the RSX's heatsink, and then smaller dabs (just a tiny little bit) in each of the 4 corners. For the CPU/Cell heatsink, just a pea-sized dab in the center should be fine. When you reassemble the PS3, the compression put on the heatsinks will spread the compound out just fine. The reason for this method will make sense if you look at the picture below.

I actually put so much compound on the first time I tried that it was difficult to get the fan off of the motherboard assembly, and I ended up ripping one of the heatsinks off, exposing the RSX chips.


Cell is on the left, RSX is on the right, hence the reason for doing the center+4 corner method for putting compound on the RSX heatsink, vs only the center for the Cell one. Ideally you don't want to see what's in this picture, because you don't want the heatsinks to come off.

[Rike255]

If you're using Artic Silver 5 compound, a dab about the size of a grain of rice is more than enough to do either chip. Spread it with the cardboard card as thin as possible over the entire chip. Remember the more metal to metal contact the CPU has with the heat sink the better. In terms of heat dissipation, metal to metal is better than metal to compound. The compound is only there to fill in the gaps where the metal doesn't make contact (heat dissipation for metal to air is very bad).

[SDBlu]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! My PS3 60gb just YLOD! This is a sad day...It was like part of the family...

[ratandjmt]

Originally Posted by MarcosG

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! My PS3 60gb just YLOD! This is a sad day...It was like part of the family...

Mine 80gb did the same thing today while I was playing TFU2. Now I need to figure out if I want a slim with a warrenty or send in my 80gb to get it fixed.

[Misfit138]

Hey all. Long time lurker, but this is my first post. About 2 weeks ago my 40gb PS3 started having trouble. A couple of Blu-ray movies started skipping and freezing. They were from Netflix so I checked them and they did have some damage, so I chalked it up to that. But then a few days later I tried one of my own movies (The Incredible Hulk) and it wouldn't even read the disc. I can't remember what the error message said exactly, just something along the lines of "disc cannot be read" So I put in another movie and it worked fine for about an hour, then froze up and wouldn't eject. Had to hold down the eject button and then after it beeped and restarted it ejected the disc. Tried a game (COD MW2) and it started out fine, but then after maybe 40 minutes it started to have glitches and eventually froze, and I had to do the same to get it to eject. This has happened each time I've tried to play it. Admittedly my system was dusty, so I unhooked it and cleaned it on the outside, and also used a vacuum to try to clean as much from the inside as I could. I also tried the fan test and that blew out a puff of dust. Tried the system again after all that and had the same issues.

So any ideas? Is it dust possibly built up on the inside and could be fixed by maybe taking apart the system and cleaning it internally, or could it be something else? I've had this PS3 since early '08 (and it's been relatively problem free, maybe a few hiccups here or there but nothing like this) and would hate to have to buy another one (especially since I'm pretty much broke right now), though the thought of getting a slim is enticing.

Thanks for reading and any help,

Mike

[BirdManJr]

I just got a slim a couple weeks ago at best buy....the 160gb version.
It is quiet and runs cool...my concern is...when i play madden or nba 2k i hear the disc loading on every screen..or if i go to certain menu or something all i hear is the disc moving..or being read. When i watch movies/blu-rays i dont hear the disc...and when i go to Home i dont hear anything the ps3 is quiet...Just when i put in madden or nba 2k11 i hear the disc being read or spinning alot...

My question is...Is this normal? I have 30 days to exchange...so if the ps3 isnt suppose to be that way...i would rather exchange for a different one...But if its normal i would rather keep mine..so i dont have to redo everything. Thanks

[Rike255]

Originally Posted by BirdManJr

I just got a slim a couple weeks ago at best buy....the 160gb version.
It is quiet and runs cool...my concern is...when i play madden or nba 2k i hear the disc loading on every screen..or if i go to certain menu or something all i hear is the disc moving..or being read. When i watch movies/blu-rays i dont hear the disc...and when i go to Home i dont hear anything the ps3 is quiet...Just when i put in madden or nba 2k11 i hear the disc being read or spinning alot...

My question is...Is this normal? I have 30 days to exchange...so if the ps3 isnt suppose to be that way...i would rather exchange for a different one...But if its normal i would rather keep mine..so i dont have to redo everything. Thanks

It's probably the game itself making the disc seek a lot. When you go into Home there is no disc to load off of, and Blu-Rays are pretty much all sequential reads.
Without ever owning/playing Madden/nba, I'd say this is normal.

[BirdManJr]

Originally Posted by Rike255

It's probably the game itself making the disc seek a lot. When you go into Home there is no disc to load off of, and Blu-Rays are pretty much all sequential reads.
Without ever owning/playing Madden/nba, I'd say this is normal.

Thanks...yea those always have something going on so maybe thats why...what games do you have that you can confirm dont seek alot.