Tips, Tricks and Fixes

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by sega_smasher

question for whoever has the answer,

i have a 60gig console, i notice it gets pretty damn loud under intense action (i.e. InFamous) and it bugs me a bit. i've already took a vaccume to the case (carefully) and got a ton of dust out (mind you i had it for about 2 years, using it almost daily and never serviced it like this before) now i heard of this "Fan Test" thing... i've heard good and bad things from it.

will doing this help me get dust out that is more inside my system? or will it damage my fans or other internal parts?

i really dont want to open my ps3 to clean it so any response would be sweet. thanks.

If you have done the vaccum, you won't be getting much more dust out using the fan test. Also I've heard that its risky to do and do not recommend it.

[Wreck]

Originally Posted by Psx0005

My condolences

Give Sony a try? My unit is still on its way to JD but I am willing to bet my chip is most likely fried as well. Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

Bright side is that he immeadiately refunded your payment and shipped it back to you.

Granted it didn't resolve your issue, but at least he didn't charge you and pretend that he fixed it or waited a long time to let you know he couldn't and withhold the refund.

I sent it off on Friday Morning ... He called me and shipped back to me on Monday. That's fast! (Albeit, I'm only a state away.)

Also, tho people probably shouldnt expect this ... He refunded me the full 74.99 where I actually only should have gotten back 64.99 cause the auction page says shipping + $10 inspection fee. So If that were the case, since I paid 89.99 he should of only gave me back 64.99. So unless he just feels bad for those of us he cant help or he forgot, you may get lucky and get a full refund minus back-to-you shipping.

And yes, I will ship to Sony next, just figured this would be the quickest way first ... It's definitely a good first option instead of going to Sony first , as its cheaper, and quicker and judging by his feedback he's actually fixed a great deal of them.

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by sega_smasher

question for whoever has the answer,

i have a 60gig console, i notice it gets pretty damn loud under intense action (i.e. InFamous) and it bugs me a bit. i've already took a vaccume to the case (carefully) and got a ton of dust out (mind you i had it for about 2 years, using it almost daily and never serviced it like this before) now i heard of this "Fan Test" thing... i've heard good and bad things from it.

will doing this help me get dust out that is more inside my system? or will it damage my fans or other internal parts?

i really dont want to open my ps3 to clean it so any response would be sweet. thanks.

My brothers 40 gig would get loud at times, since it was out of warranty already, i took it apart and found basically 0 dust inside, it was mint.

So i stripped it down to the motherboard and the thermal paste on the heatsinks were in bad shape, could have lead to a hardware failure down the line. I redid both of them with Arctic Silver 5 (cleaned them off first of course), and put it back together for him. I had it Folding @ Home for 7+ hours and the fan never made a sound the entire time. Just a thought to anyone whos fans are coming on quickly, very likely the thermal paste is the issue.

[caliblue15]

There is no fan test for the 60 gigs...

[WeApOn]

Is water soluble liquid flux okay to use on the mobo?

[sega_smasher]

thanks guys. looks like i might have to replace the thermal paste then... i really dont want to open up my ps3 though. dammit all...

its in an open area, it doesnt get overly loud until the games get demanding.

any other suggestions?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by WeApOn

Is water soluble liquid flux okay to use on the mobo?

Try the liquid flux on a piece of PCB board that is still working and then reflow that board. See if you see any significant changes. If not, then you know it's okay to use on the PS3's mobo.


fuad

[WeApOn]

I was told that water soluble flux will eventualy eat away at the board and cause corrosion.

Is there a way I could wash off the residue of flux AFTER reflowing to prevent this? Is it hard to clean under the chip?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by WeApOn

I was told that water soluble flux will eventualy eat away at the board and cause corrosion.

You are supposed to clean the board after you are done with soldering/reflow. Flux (liquid and paste) are supposed to be mildly corrosive but not to the point that your board would disintegrate rapidly. Read the label on the bottle.

Some flux are "no-clean" flux, which means that you don't have to clean them after reflow/soldering. EDIT: Wiki says that not there are water-based liquid/paste flux that requires cleaning, depending on the material. So yeah, read the label.

Originally Posted by Wiki

In high-temperature metal joining processes (welding, brazing and soldering), the primary purpose of flux is to prevent oxidation of the base and filler materials. Tin-lead solder (e.g.) attaches very well to copper, but poorly to the various oxides of copper, which form quickly at soldering temperatures. Flux is a substance which is nearly inert at room temperature, but which becomes strongly reducing at elevated temperatures, preventing the formation of metal oxides. Additionally, flux allows solder to flow easily on the working piece rather than forming beads as it would otherwise.

Is there a way I could wash off the residue of flux AFTER reflowing to prevent this? Is it hard to clean under the chip?

Use isopropyl alcohol. Spray and wipe, and don't inhale much. Ventilate!


fuad

[Marine Mike]

So I decided to turn on my PS3 to play a little Ratchet and Clank Future: TOD as I've become addicted to it, when I noticed that no video/audio was coming from my PS3.

So I did the following:

- I turned off my PS3 and from the back
- Power cycled all of my AV equipment
- Then I decided to reseat my HDMI cable from my PS3 to my receiver
- Then I decided to hold down the power button on my PS3 to reset the Video settings for it and that didn't even appear.
- Started to freak out and assumed that my graphics card on my PS3 burned out.
- Checked to see if the cable box was working and if it was a PS3 issue or not and that didn't work.
- So I was able to narrow it down from a loose HDMI connection from receiver to TV, which apparently causes no audio to come out of my sound system thats not attached to the TV for some reason.

Bottom line is that you should always check the physical connections first before assuming the worst and you won't end up in my situation of panicking.

[WeApOn]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

You are supposed to clean the board after you are done with soldering/reflow. Flux (liquid and paste) are supposed to be mildly corrosive but not to the point that your board would disintegrate rapidly. Read the label on the bottle.

Use isopropyl alcohol. Spray and wipe, and don't inhale much. Ventilate!

Looks like the one I'm using is indeed only water soluble, and not a no-clean flux. Is it worth attempting the reflow with this and trying to clean it after, or should I send this back and get a no-clean flux?

I was told I could even use a wet rag to wipe the flux off afterwards.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

Bottom line is that you should always check the physical connections first before assuming the worst and you won't end up in my situation of panicking.

Funny.

Originally Posted by WeApOn

Looks like the one I'm using is indeed only water soluble, and not a no-clean flux. Is it worth attempting the reflow with this and trying to clean it after, or should I send this back and get a no-clean flux?

You clean BEFORE or AFTER but not during.

I was told I could even use a wet rag to wipe the flux off afterwards.

When you apply the flux and after making sure that the flux got into the area you want it to, BEFORE YOU REFLOW wipe the area not intended to minimize the reflow exposure.

I guess a wet rag is fine since it IS water-based. Isopropyl alcohol is also fine because it's made with water.
------
In the last 12 hours or so my PS3 YLOD twice. Between the first (40 minutes operating time) and second one (5 minutes), I didn't even open it up! Lots of odd things happening in between. Most are heat related but at least I know the mobo is still good. While I only applied a small blob of thermal paste, that same amount held up almost 48 hours of "use" right after I completed the last reflow. So it's rather confusing why the heat problem exists now.

With last night's shutdowns, I could start it up again with no problem. This morning's shutdown, it resets the video to 480p and audio to stereo. Strange.

I'll open it up again and apply a bit more paste but won't reflow.


fuad

[Marine Mike]

Added the fix to The system software cannot be run correctly. Press the PS button to try to restart the system... when putting in a new hard drive provided by NARMAK!

[garlad]

Not sure if everyone knows this already, but found it very handy the other night. I wanted to watch HD movie trailers through my PS3 on my HDTV. I downloaded the trailers on to my lap top but had no way of transferring them on to my PS3 as I dont have any type of external hard drive to save on to then load on to the PS3. So I used the PS3 Media Server and attempted to stream to my PS3. As I was streaming HD video it was kinda jumpy so I hit and then copy! It copied the video straight on to my PS3 hard drive! How cool!! Hard to get my head around how it actually works, but it did! Now the trailers are on my hard drive and no need to stream so they play flawlessly!

[NARMAK]

Originally Posted by garlad

Not sure if everyone knows this already, but found it very handy the other night. I wanted to watch HD movie trailers through my PS3 on my HDTV. I downloaded the trailers on to my lap top but had no way of transferring them on to my PS3 as I dont have any type of external hard drive to save on to then load on to the PS3. So I used the PS3 Media Server and attempted to stream to my PS3. As I was streaming HD video it was kinda jumpy so I hit and then copy! It copied the video straight on to my PS3 hard drive! How cool!! Hard to get my head around how it actually works, but it did! Now the trailers are on my hard drive and no need to stream so they play flawlessly!

Don't use media streaming but for anybody having problems with their playback & HDD space it's a viable work around or solution if they wanted on PS3

[Shin-Ra]

Wow, looks like I'm not quite as in love with the XMB as I used to be.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by garlad

Now the trailers are on my hard drive and no need to stream so they play flawlessly!

It'd take a while via WiFi.


fuad

[Marine Mike]

Well I figured out the reason why my PS3 thinks there is a disc when there isn't when its turned on.

Its because the laser isn't returning to the 'outside' position when a disc is being ejected. Therefore when its turned on its trying to look for a disc.

I was able to determine this by taking apart my PS3 and manually move the laser to the 'outside' position. When I started it without a disc it didn't ask for a disc to be inserted.

So now my dilemna (other than the fact that it doesn't accept Lionsgate discs now) is figuring out how to get the laser to move to the outside position. Perhaps I screwed something in too tight.

[Marine Mike]

Well, decided to purchase another laser and replace it to see if thats the issue and if its not, well, I guess then I'll be sending it into Sony.


EDIT: Considering that I haven't had any issues after 7 months, I'm starting to think that this particular model of laser may be prone to failure. It seems like Sony may have the right idea with the new lasers having 2 diodes.

[michaeljannise]

I'm new to this forum so please forgive me if this is the wrong section.

I have a PS3 hooked up and I am having some issues. My PS3 is hooked via an HDMI cable to the TV and I get great audio on everything (games, CD's, Standard format DVD's) but I get absolutely NO audio on Blu Ray. I have great video but nada on video.

Any information you all may have would be greatly appreciated!