PS3 CECHA PS3 YLOD Saga

[Vishera]

Hi, a month ago I bought a ps3 fat because I needed one, I had YLOD but the funny thing is that after a few attempts the console turned on, but if I played or even being in XMB the console would turn off without a message of overheating, kill me thinking, I thought that the RSX was broken, until after a few messages with a technical friend told me to try reflow, and the RSX could have cold solders and after a while or when it gets a little hot it makes false contact and gives the yellow light with the 3 beeps and ends in red light, I tried it and it was really that, keep in mind that if in case welding is the problem it is best to do reballing but to get rid of the doubt, maybe it is not understood so well because I am using the google translator, my ps3 is one of 80 CECHL04.

Sorry but those are two completely different problems,
You have YLOD,which means one of your chips (CPU or RSX) is dead.
What we have here is consoles with a sudden shutdown but good CPU and RSX,that is common on NAND consoles which you don't have.
Also reflowing is a bad idea,Yes the heat will move things in the chip which will cause it to work for a bit but it's dead..
You will also dry the thermal paste underneath the heat spreader causing overheating.
The proper solution for YLOD is to replace the dead chip with a good chip.
Please don't spam about your YLOD,it's off topic and not the problem this topic is about.

 

[nazareno]

my ps3 also turned off suddenly, without warning of overheating, and it was not like the normal YLOD, since if it came on, show xmb and run games, for example before when I had the problem I could play the MGSPW without problem, but when running MGS3 the console turned off. I say that it is a problem of cold welding, I do not believe that by heating a defective chip magically it will be fixed, resolving it if.

 

[Vishera]

my ps3 also turned off suddenly, without warning of overheating, and it was not like the normal YLOD, since if it came on, show xmb and run games, for example before when I had the problem I could play the MGSPW without problem, but when running MGS3 the console turned off. I say that it is a problem of cold welding, I do not believe that by heating a defective chip magically it will be fixed, resolving it if.

That problem is not caused by bad contact,How did you get to this conclusion?
Possible culprits:
Faulty power supply,faulty NEC Tokin capacitor or a faulty XDR chip.

Because of the reflowing you did you have a high risk of dry thermal paste underneath the IHS,which can cause overheating.

 

[nazareno]

when executing more demanding games is when it comes to producing the fault of the cold solder, for example in my ps3 before when I had the fault (as I explained, solve with reflow) with MGSPW or FIFA 16 could play without problem, but with MGS4 MGS3 they were executed but the fault appeared.
when one of the NEC TOKIN fails, the fault is a yellow light after 8 Seconds to turn on, shortly before sending an image and you can see the light of the HDD.
obviously before doing reflow or reballing it would be good to discard the source or that the NEC TOKIN is correct, but it seems that it is in the same situation as me.
When the RSX is defective the symptom is yellow light after 2 seconds, it does not turn on the HDD light.
When the CELL is defective, the console will turn on but will shut down completely immediately.

 

[Vishera]

when executing more demanding games is when it comes to producing the fault of the cold solder, for example in my ps3 before when I had the fault (as I explained, solve with reflow) with MGSPW or FIFA 16 could play without problem, but with MGS4 MGS3 they were executed but the fault appeared.
when one of the NEC TOKIN fails, the fault is a yellow light after 8 Seconds to turn on, shortly before sending an image and you can see the light of the HDD.
obviously before doing reflow or reballing it would be good to discard the source or that the NEC TOKIN is correct, but it seems that it is in the same situation as me.
When the RSX is defective the symptom is yellow light after 2 seconds, it does not turn on the HDD light.
When the CELL is defective, the console will turn on but will shut down completely immediately.

Did you reflow the NEC Tokin too?...

 

[Naked_Snake1995]

Sorry but those are two completely different problems,
You have YLOD,which means one of your chips (CPU or RSX) is dead.
What we have here is consoles with a sudden shutdown but good CPU and RSX,that is common on NAND consoles which you don't have.
Also reflowing is a bad idea,Yes the heat will move things in the chip which will cause it to work for a bit but it's dead..
You will also dry the thermal paste underneath the heat spreader causing overheating.
The proper solution for YLOD is to replace the dead chip with a good chip.
Please don't spam about your YLOD,it's off topic and not the problem this topic is about.

Someone who told the reality! Thank you mate, i almost thrown the keyboard at my screen when ive heard YLOD is because of the solder joints!

 

[nazareno]

never apply heat to the NEC TOKIN unless it is to extract them, the NEC TOKIN is easily broken by heat, can not even be removed to place it on another plate, in case of replacement, you will have to get a new one or failing use a slim plate 470 capacitor, I only apply heat on the RSX and the fault disappeared, something I forget to clarify is that the RSX is defective the console will turn off after 2 seconds and the yellow light will appear, but also when the failure in the welding is so serious that it produces the same fault, the console shuts down after 2 seconds, but as in my case and in this that the console turns on but it shuts down with some games I think you have to rule out a fault in the RSX and only relate the fault in the welding.

 

[SeanRanklin]

Now that you mentioned these other games you have researched I may have another answer to your problem.

The games you have mentioned above are 'high' demand games on the memory, meaning they require alot if not all of your remaining memory (RAM) if this is maxed out or over taxed it requiring more than is remaining your PS3 will crash, simply shut down without warning. normally a message is displayed along the lines of 'Game cannot run correctly' although not all the time. I have experienced this myself a few times with Black Ops 2. Complete shut down in the middle of zombies offline.

You can check how much 'SystemOS' memory you have left with WebMAN by holding 'START + SELECT' on the XMB.

You can check how much gameOS memory (Memory set aside for running games) you have left with MultiMAN and go to 'System Information'.

I actually read this post in the morning, but for some reason, this forum, forbids me to post a message on any other device i use apart from my current home PC due to captcha and sign in errors... but thats besides the point.

I had wanted to reply to you right away because this sounds like it is more of an accurate representation of what might be happening. Doesnt the CECHA00 have the most limited amount of RAM compared to other consoles? This could just be the problem here. I will boot tekken up again and monitor the RAM usage, however, if it is due to insufficient ram... how can this be resolved, since you cant exactly add another ram stick to the PS3, lol

Curious on your reply.

Also, i have read a lot about the NEC TOKIN, however i still fail to see how one capacitor can cause such a drastic issue only on select games. If a faulty capacitor exists, it should be problematic all the time with all games equally, not just with tekken and gran turismo, lol.

 

[SeanRanklin]

Alright - an update.

I tested the game with the memory and temps constantly displayed via webman notification, and the memory never went under 1100 kb at any given time. It would run at around 1560 during loading screens, and occasionally dip to 1300 or 1100, but mostly maintained 1560.

Then, out of nowhere BOOM - reset. I'm really tired of this happening as the constant crashes just cant be good for the system. .

Also tester GTA 4 right after this, played for 30 minutes without any issues. Temps as they were in Tekken, but the memory maintained a solid 1560 throughout exploring the open world.

I must say i'm proud of my chips though - both stay steadily under 65 and work very closely along side eachother maintaining only a degree or two of difference in temp.

Back to the drawing board for suggestions i guess??

 

[rjshooter]

Alright - an update.

I tested the game with the memory and temps constantly displayed via webman notification, and the memory never went under 1100 kb at any given time. It would run at around 1560 during loading screens, and occasionally dip to 1300 or 1100, but mostly maintained 1560.

Then, out of nowhere BOOM - reset. I'm really tired of this happening as the constant crashes just cant be good for the system. .

Also tester GTA 4 right after this, played for 30 minutes without any issues. Temps as they were in Tekken, but the memory maintained a solid 1560 throughout exploring the open world.

I must say i'm proud of my chips though - both stay steadily under 65 and work very closely along side eachother maintaining only a degree or two of difference in temp.

Back to the drawing board for suggestions i guess??

So that means, the RAM isn't the issue here? How long does the game run before it went...wait I want to clarify, reset or shutdown? Just curious.

Well, I was also thinking that RAM probably isn't the issue here, because GTA 5 and Watchdog which is also open world game also running without causing issues on my side.

 

[sandungas]

Then, out of nowhere BOOM - reset. I'm really tired of this happening as the constant crashes just cant be good for the system. .

The motherboard should not suffer any harm by software crashes or power cuts, but the hdd could, specially when you hear that "click" noise of the hdd headers retracting to the "parking" position by a spring

This sometimes happen in PS3 that are working normally, because there are several different types of crashes that can happen when trying to boot a game

The less harmfull crashes and freezes is when you can reset or power off the PS3 just by pressing power button (and it starts blinking and afer 10 seconds or so it powers off or reset by itself). When this happens at the next boot the PS3 loads XMB normally

In your case is a power cut, so you have that "click" in the hdd and the PS3 boots in that screen advising is needed to do a filesystem check

And that "click" noises are a ticket for a lottery to damage the hdd phisically, either some sectors of it, or the reader heads

So i suggest to dont use the PS3 much in this state because you can damage the hdd... or if you do use another hdd temporally for the tests
And at some point you should do a "surface scan" of the hdd to check if all this adventure has damaged it, you can use a tool named MHDD, use the forum search, there are some talks about it and a tutorial in the forum

 

[Cypher_CG89]

I actually read this post in the morning, but for some reason, this forum, forbids me to post a message on any other device i use apart from my current home PC due to captcha and sign in errors... but thats besides the point.

I had wanted to reply to you right away because this sounds like it is more of an accurate representation of what might be happening. Doesnt the CECHA00 have the most limited amount of RAM compared to other consoles? This could just be the problem here. I will boot tekken up again and monitor the RAM usage, however, if it is due to insufficient ram... how can this be resolved, since you cant exactly add another ram stick to the PS3, lol

Curious on your reply.

All PS3's have the same amount of RAM (256MB).

Using webMAN? that shows you how much system operating RAM you have left not how much RAM set aside for operating games. And it is highly inaccurate. for example I have my fan set to 15‰ and webMAN says 42%. Temps at 56° and again webMAN stating over 60°.

Think about it and it will be make sense, any game using less than a couple of MB to operate? what Era we in here where games required such low RAM usage? late 80s early 90s when games required such little to operate.

But games in HD? they require alot more to operate. These are allocated to certain aspects of the console. SystemOS and GameOS and buffer points for various tasks. When we were developing games I believe we had something like 150MB to play about with. Maxing out either or will cause problems. You stated your system memory stayed constant when playing, this has ruled out this memory and normally when your system OS memory is maxed out your PS3 will reboot into 'safe mode' with the message 'system cannot operate correctly'.

As a have stated I have encountered this issue before on call of duty black ops 2 but my PS3 is a slim 2003a. and this was caused by the gameOS memory being maxed out.

I just re-installed my firmware after it happened 5 times in a row and I have never had a problem since. But what you have installed can have negative effects if they are conflicting with other things.

If the problem was a electrical component related you probably would expect alot more games and other things would trigger your issues.

I must say that these older models were extremely faulty. especially the power packs were very common to fail. but again you would expect the problem to be more wide spread if it were an electrical fault, not just restricted to a few games. And would probably be easier to get a Slim model PS3 if you cannot sort the issue.

It looks like more research is required in your case to identify the problem.

 

[Vishera]

never apply heat to the NEC TOKIN unless it is to extract them, the NEC TOKIN is easily broken by heat, can not even be removed to place it on another plate, in case of replacement, you will have to get a new one or failing use a slim plate 470 capacitor, I only apply heat on the RSX and the fault disappeared, something I forget to clarify is that the RSX is defective the console will turn off after 2 seconds and the yellow light will appear, but also when the failure in the welding is so serious that it produces the same fault, the console shuts down after 2 seconds, but as in my case and in this that the console turns on but it shuts down with some games I think you have to rule out a fault in the RSX and only relate the fault in the welding.

If the there is poor contact,a short or no contact at all between the RSX and the motherboard you will experience artifacts or a green light of death,not a sudden shutdown,also if you press with force on the cooling bracket of the RSX with poor contact it can be the difference between a green light of death to a working console with artifacts.

You mentioned that you had a YLOD,and then reflowed you cnosole,
Maybe your dead chip is causing those shutdowns,
In that case i think you should replace your dead chip,but backup everything before that,and then see if it fixes your sudden shutdowns.

 

[SeanRanklin]

All PS3's have the same amount of RAM (256MB).

Using webMAN? that shows you how much system operating RAM you have left not how much RAM set aside for operating games. And it is highly inaccurate. for example I have my fan set to 15‰ and webMAN says 42%. Temps at 56° and again webMAN stating over 60°.

Think about it and it will be make sense, any game using less than a couple of MB to operate? what Era we in here where games required such low RAM usage? late 80s early 90s when games required such little to operate.

But games in HD? they require alot more to operate. These are allocated to certain aspects of the console. SystemOS and GameOS and buffer points for various tasks. When we were developing games I believe we had something like 150MB to play about with. Maxing out either or will cause problems. You stated your system memory stayed constant when playing, this has ruled out this memory and normally when your system OS memory is maxed out your PS3 will reboot into 'safe mode' with the message 'system cannot operate correctly'.

As a have stated I have encountered this issue before on call of duty black ops 2 but my PS3 is a slim 2003a. and this was caused by the gameOS memory being maxed out.

I just re-installed my firmware after it happened 5 times in a row and I have never had a problem since. But what you have installed can have negative effects if they are conflicting with other things.

If the problem was a electrical component related you probably would expect alot more games and other things would trigger your issues.

I must say that these older models were extremely faulty. especially the power packs were very common to fail. but again you would expect the problem to be more wide spread if it were an electrical fault, not just restricted to a few games. And would probably be easier to get a Slim model PS3 if you cannot sort the issue.

It looks like more research is required in your case to identify the problem.

Oh trust me - i am trying to research this problem deep within the abandoned forums of the internet but i cant get solid advice.
You mentioned that you had this problems with BO2, another game that is known to trigger the issue - you then said you reinstalled the firmware and it never occured. I have a magnitude of questions right there'

- What firmware were you running?
- Custom or OFW?
- How can i know if it may still be the memory?
- If it is due to memory, how can i free this up?

I'm at my wits end with this. I have been thinking about trying another power supply, but something keeps pulling me away from hardware issues and leaning more to software.

I am running rebug cfw 4.8.2 if that helps

 

[SeanRanklin]

So that means, the RAM isn't the issue here? How long does the game run before it went...wait I want to clarify, reset or shutdown? Just curious.

Well, I was also thinking that RAM probably isn't the issue here, because GTA 5 and Watchdog which is also open world game also running without causing issues on my side.

The game time is completely random. I can play 5 games sometimes only the first game will trigger it. The system does not freeze. The screen will abruptly turn black, then the unit will beep 3 times and a red light will begin a blinking sequence.

The motherboard should not suffer any harm by software crashes or power cuts, but the hdd could, specially when you hear that "click" noise of the hdd headers retracting to the "parking" position by a spring

This sometimes happen in PS3 that are working normally, because there are several different types of crashes that can happen when trying to boot a game

The less harmfull crashes and freezes is when you can reset or power off the PS3 just by pressing power button (and it starts blinking and afer 10 seconds or so it powers off or reset by itself). When this happens at the next boot the PS3 loads XMB normally

In your case is a power cut, so you have that "click" in the hdd and the PS3 boots in that screen advising is needed to do a filesystem check

And that "click" noises are a ticket for a lottery to damage the hdd phisically, either some sectors of it, or the reader heads

So i suggest to dont use the PS3 much in this state because you can damage the hdd... or if you do use another hdd temporally for the tests
And at some point you should do a "surface scan" of the hdd to check if all this adventure has damaged it, you can use a tool named MHDD, use the forum search, there are some talks about it and a tutorial in the forum

Okay thats somewhat of a relief, i realy dont care if i damage the HDD as once i get this issue sorted (hope that i actually can achieve that someday) i plan to install a 1tb hdd and discard the current one. But before i can even think about that, i have to sort this problem out first...

 

[SeanRanklin]

Okay, I just want to mention something. As I only purchased this unit about a month ago (max) I have a vague memory of me actually testing Tekken tag 2 in the unit for at least 20 minutes and i didnt experience any shutdown. Cant say for sure how long i tested it for. May have been a shorter time, but definitely no crash.

That being said, could the CFW install be the reason why this is happening? I have read many stories online about this problem, but they were posted on forum which indicate that the user did not experiement with CFW at all, yet it still affected them. I dont believe CFW can cause this but, im no expert.

 

[Vishera]

Okay, I just want to mention something. As I only purchased this unit about a month ago (max) I have a vague memory of me actually testing Tekken tag 2 in the unit for at least 20 minutes and i didnt experience any shutdown. Cant say for sure how long i tested it for. May have been a shorter time, but definitely no crash.

That being said, could the CFW install be the reason why this is happening? I have read many stories online about this problem, but they were posted on forum which indicate that the user did not experiement with CFW at all, yet it still affected them. I dont believe CFW can cause this but, im no expert.

A firmware can have a bug that cause this issue,
I have a rebug 4.81.2

 

[Cypher_CG89]

Same here, REBUG 4.82.2 D-REX. I Basically reinstall the firmware to clear everything I had installed that modified the flash in any way or actively interfered with any of consoles memory. before I did this I removed every Homebrew on the console then after I only reinstalled the firmware ander the basics of what I use, webMAN, multiman, PSN Patch, CCAPI.

After this I have never had these issue. what sort of things do you have installed, bootplugins, prxs and such? also anything that changes the flash memory? using System information in MultiMan should show gameOS memory. Mine shows just under 60MB available. Where as webMAN shows 4.2MB of systemOS available.

The power packs on them older models were quite prone to be faulty. It would also explain a sudden shutdown. but again I still would have thought it would present itself in alot more things other than just a few games.

Power distribution is something I haven't fully looked into onthe PS3 but should operate on the same principles as other computer devices. The more demanding game the more power is drawn but still there are alot of games that are demanding on power but not the memory, not just these few that seem to be linked, so again you would probably expect the issue to present its self in other situations.

This has give me another brain wave. How are you playing these games that shutdown the PS3? Disc? or backups from the HDD?

A firmware can have a bug that cause this issue,
I have a rebug 4.81.2

Yes the firmware can have issues, especially REBUG, it has issues installing over its self. for example updating from one version to another. Sometimes installing another cfw then back to rebug can sort this issue. This is why I suggested re-installing the firmware first, then would suggest installing another of the same version then back to REBUG.

We will get to the bottom of the the issue, it's just going to take a bit of trial and error to sort.

 

[Vishera]

Same here, REBUG 4.82.2 D-REX. I Basically reinstall the firmware to clear everything I had installed that modified the flash in any way or actively interfered with any of consoles memory. before I did this I removed every Homebrew on the console then after I only reinstalled the firmware ander the basics of what I use, webMAN, multiman, PSN Patch, CCAPI.

After this I have never had these issue. what sort of things do you have installed, bootplugins, prxs and such? also anything that changes the flash memory? using System information in MultiMan should show gameOS memory. Mine shows just under 60MB available. Where as webMAN shows 4.2MB of systemOS available.

The power packs on them older models were quite prone to be faulty. It would also explain a sudden shutdown. but again I still would have thought it would present itself in alot more things other than just a few games.

Power distribution is something I haven't fully looked into onthe PS3 but should operate on the same principles as other computer devices. The more demanding game the more power is drawn but still there are alot of games that are demanding on power but not the memory, not just these few that seem to be linked, so again you would probably expect the issue to present its self in other situations.

This has give me another brain wave. How are you playing these games that shutdown the PS3? Disc? or backups from the HDD?



Yes the firmware can have issues, especially REBUG, it has issues installing over its self. for example updating from one version to another. Sometimes installing another cfw then back to rebug can sort this issue. This is why I suggested re-installing the firmware first, then would suggest installing another of the same version then back to REBUG.

We will get to the bottom of the the issue, it's just going to take a bit of trial and error to sort.

In my case it's an exremely minor issue in just one title,and everything points to a RAM issue.

 

[Cypher_CG89]

As I have already mentioned the issue is most likely RAM related, when you were arguing with someone else about it being an electrical component fault. This kind of fault would affect all functions of the console.

If you knew what you were talking about you would already know this is most likely dew to low availability of RAM. And would have mentioned this before now. But since your theory has been dismissed you then change your mind.

You also suggested removing components from the motherboard to electricly test which is an obserd idea as you will most likely cause fatal damage to the board and kill your system.

Reinstalling the firmware is the quickest and simplest way to remove anything that is actively interfering, or using the systemOS RAM and gameOS RAM and also removing all Homebrew and reinstalling the basics to reduce all the use aswell.

You also mentioned that the games were released without proper testing and this triggered the issue... this is the biggest verbal crap I have ever heard, if that were true this would happen on any console. And I have never had this issue on my PS3 with OFW, just the one on CFW. And I know for a fact games are fully tested before releasing them (I used to work in the industry making and developing games for a job) but even this testing doesn't show all bugs, they rely on consumers to report issues as everyone plays games differently.

You then said the firmware causes this bug then next post saying it's RAM? after I corrected you. make your mind up.

You don't know what you are doing or talking about, just from the few posts you have put up, so stop changing your mind every time your theory gets dismissed and jumping on the bandwagon of what I have suggested and trying to force someone to follow your BS advice.

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