PS3 repair gurus - insight needed.

ARCredux

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A friend just asked me to check out two phat systems for him.

#1 - gets no response when plugged in. no lights nothing - Bad power supply/switch?

#2 - turns on with green light, but then after a second shuts off to a blinking red light.


What should I check on each system?

Thanks
 
A friend just asked me to check out two phat systems for him.

#1 - gets no response when plugged in. no lights nothing - Bad power supply/switch?

Could be a bunch of things. If it's an early revision (IE: 20 or 60GB) then they did have some bad power supplies. I have had a few systems with the symptoms you describe and changing the power supplies with known good ones had no effect at all. If the system was previously opened then it could be a safe bet it was reflowed and then reflowed inproperly so that there is a short somewhere.

If it is one of the early models as noted (and including the 80GB backwards) there is actually a ribbon cable that goes to a card which has the power switch / led and BR switch / LED on it. I have seen some systems where people have taken the machines apart and that ribbon connector becomes loose and exhibits a "no power" symptom.

So - Tough to tell. Has it been opened before you got it? Any history? If it just died I would go with new power supply or there is a dead short. If you tell me the model I may have a power supply.

#2 - turns on with green light, but then after a second shuts off to a blinking red light.

This is known as RLOD / YLOD. " X light of death" -- Commonly due to the CPU and or GPU overheating and lifting off of the pads they were soldered to. There are these lil tiny balls that connect the chip to the mainboard. When you use the heatgun method of the preferred reflow station you are literally reheating the solder joints. Think of it like developing cold solder joints on a monitor chassis.

I warn you - any repair method is a 50/50 shot it's going to work. If it does, then its going to fail again... its a matter of time. Consider yourself a lucky one if you get more than 6 months past a fix. If you have access to it, your most reliable and safest bet is to get a rework station or at a MINIMUM try and get an adjustable temp soldering iron that can switch out the tips and get a wide & flat tip for it. I made a homebrew rework satation using a drill press jig for cordless drills and this kind of iron. The heatgun is quick and dirty but you can very easily do more harm than good by overheating other components close by.

That said, I personally do not fix or repair YLOD / RLOD systems anymore due to the incredibly high failure rate afterwards.
 
Thanks for all the helpful info msignor! I was swamped today, but will post some more info about the two systems tomorrow when I get a little more time with them.

In the little research I ws able to do before reading your reply, an article said that perhaps it was the blue ray pcb that needed to be swapped on the rlod system. Have you done one of these before? If so did it remedy the problem?

I want to exhaust all options before attempting the ylod reflow method.

Does anyone on here resurrect dead ps3's for a decent price?
 
Thanks for all the helpful info msignor! I was swamped today, but will post some more info about the two systems tomorrow when I get a little more time with them.

In the little research I ws able to do before reading your reply, an article said that perhaps it was the blue ray pcb that needed to be swapped on the rlod system. Have you done one of these before? If so did it remedy the problem?

I want to exhaust all options before attempting the ylod reflow method.

Does anyone on here resurrect dead ps3's for a decent price?

I would have to say that is most likely not the issue. However, I have been known to be wrong in the past. :)

Easiest way to check is to open the system up and disconnect the drive. What model do you have?

I probably have a compatible blueray controller card as well. Since they cards are keyed to the system you can't just plug and play. You will need to "remarry" the controller which in itself is a pain. (downgrade to 3.30 of below FW, run the patcher, put a disk, wait, upgrade, etc.)

To clarify... System is powered off. You flip the switch and you have a red light. You power on, light goes green for a second, you hear "beep beep beep" while the light is flashing and the only color you see is red. You are sure its not a yellow? It's a very washed out yellow. A video if possible would help.
 
Just MHO, even if you do resurrect it, chances are it will die again within months. The phats run too hot and they're a ticking time bomb as to when they'll give up the ship.

Slims run cooler and have less of a chance of dying on you. I sent in my phat to Sony and they sent me a refurb slim for $99 minus shipping. Not a scratch on it, and it has worked great for over a year so far. That's the best route to go for your friend.
 
I honestly think it's the damn power supply in em that is the REAL troublemaker, they get scorching to the touch after only a few minutes at idle.

Whoever had the bright idea of stuffing the power supplies inside these machines, is a fucking idiot...
 
I agree exactly with everyone else. I have fixed a bunch of these, but they usually have the same problem again and again. I did notice the 40gb ones run ALOT cooler then the 20gb, 60gb and 80gb do. I still have a stack of these sitting at my house. I think I have a couple of 20gb's, 1 60gb and a 80gb. If anyone is interested, I will definitely sell them.


Brian
 
Well after some tinkering /testing..the launch model 60gb is dead in the water, but the power supply and power switch tested good in the ylod model, making it exhibit the same symptoms of ylod. Would that mean the motherboard needs to be reflowed?

I didn't try to swap the blu ray to the ylod system, even though I read somewhere that it had fixed a similar problem someone was having.

Bmorr are you still ressurecting these older phat systems? If so shoot me a price to do it. If it is cheaper then sending to sony my friend will probably go for it.


Thanks
 
Well after some tinkering /testing..the launch model 60gb is dead in the water, but the power supply and power switch tested good in the ylod model, making it exhibit the same symptoms of ylod. Would that mean the motherboard needs to be reflowed?

Yes.

I didn't try to swap the blu ray to the ylod system, even though I read somewhere that it had fixed a similar problem someone was having.

It won't. Don't bother. If you really want to check, just disconnect the power to the drive.

Bmorr are you still ressurecting these older phat systems? If so shoot me a price to do it. If it is cheaper then sending to sony my friend will probably go for it.

Sony has been sending slim PS3's in exchange for the broken fat systems recently. Your luck may vary but that's the best long term solution. A reflow WILL break again and 90% of the time sooner than the 90 day warranty sony offers.

EDIT: If you have a backwards compat system, sony will still send a backwards system, not a slim.
 
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I have a launch 60gb and only had a problem with the blue ray.
the slims can not do the same thing the launch models can but nobody cares about that anymore
good luck
 
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