Well, it finally happened...

[trickman]

Heard back from the Tech Factory.
They said and I quote:

"Hey, so we have figured out to the best of our ability what is going on with the unit, we are sorry it took longer than expected but we have rarely come across a problem such as this. Basically somewhere on your motherboard there is a short. In the process of figuring out why it would not turn on, the PS3 actually killed 4 of our power supplies. What we interpreted as a bad power supply during the original repair ,turns out is more than that, it is on your motherboard. We are so sorry that we cannot repair this problem due to the fact that the short could literally be anywhere on the board and we don't know why it was damaged in the first place. The reason we did not catch the issue when it was here originally we believe, is combination of believing the power supply not the motherboard was the problem and the only way that the problem presents itself is once you turn it off and turn it back on, it simply did not get hot enough quick enough here for us to catch it."

They offered to ship the broken unit back to me for free. I told them to not bother and just keep it at this point. I am sticking true to what I originally stated and not dumping any more money into it.

They are refunding my original repair cost, maybe I'll put that towards a new system... but how sad will it be to have an entire library of PS1/2/3 games that I can no longer play. Such a waste.

Sorry it finally bit the dust. Sticking by what I said -- get yourself a slim PS2. They're tiny and they work beautifully with PS2/PS1. And a newer PS3 should last you for a very long time.

 

[JamBurglar]

This is the guy I used, his grammar is horrible but look at his setup and feedback. He claims you system will be good to go for years after a proper reball (as opposed the reflow other places do). He also says he's stopped using leaded solder but the stuff he's using now is better.

http://www.ps3specialist.com/playstation3-gpu-reballing-service/

Anyway, I originally used Gophermods (reflow), and that lasted about a year. Rather than even wasting the shipping to send it back to them and have it fail again I sent to PS3 Specialist. Turnaround time was about a week. So far, so good but its only been 3 months since I had it done. It also runs a lot quieter now.

Here's what he says (in all caps) about leaded v lead free solder "MANY HAVE SAID THAT LEADED SOLDER IS BETTER, THAT HAS PROVEN TO BE UNTRUE, LEADED SOLDER REBALLING LASTS FOR ABOUT A YEAR BUT LEADFREE LASTS IN THESE SYSTEMS FOR THREE TO FIVE YEARS , THE ONLY ADVANTAGE OF LEADED SOLDER BESIDE BEING A LOT CHEAPER IS THAT IT MELTS AT A MUCH LOWER TEMPRATURE {SIC} COMPARING TO LEADFREE WHICH MAKES IT MUCH EASIER TO DO FOR REPAIR TECHNICIANS BUT IT IS NOT BETTER FOR THE SYSTEM LIFE AND DURABILITY AND IT IS NOT SAFE TO THE USER KNOWING THAT IT CONTAINS LEAD WHICH IS KNOWN TO CAUSE CANCER AND THAT IS WHY ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS PROHIBIT USING LEADED SOLDER IN ELECTRONIC DEVICES"

Well, my PS3 is dead again so I have to say "reballing" with this guy did not buy me years he promised. Not that surprising actually.