PS3 Fault finding YLOD with the SYSCON - First steps and Error reporting

What in the holy moly ps3 world happen to this Cell ?

Had some A0A02031 and A0093003

Is that what we call extreme heat ?

20210905_193335[1].jpg 20210905_193319[1].jpg

Welp another board for my BGA training I suppose !
 
feng_ye said:
At this point I'm rather staying away from deliding tbh as there could be the external thermal chip or communication issue with the syscon. And I have zero experience delid anything and I see numerous posts even in this thread about damage from deliding. What's the next step you recommend after deliding? Do I have to delid to measure anything?
Click to expand...
This is my method. It works great and safe if you are careful.

I'm not convinced this is thermal panic, but Vitor has more experience working on non-BC models than I do. It's worth a shot, before you start using hot air on the board to replace IC's.
 
Stryder said:
What in the holy moly ps3 world happen to this Cell ?

Had some A0A02031 and A0093003

Is that what we call extreme heat ?

View attachment 34800 View attachment 34801

Welp another board for my BGA training I suppose !
Click to expand...
Nice and thank you for your report this will help more people to understand . Looking to your bump cpu, and will act as thermal error in rsx is something new or seen something similar to botakompong when he had 2131 and he changed cpu set. @RIP-Felix please note that in pdf of strange things.
 
feng_ye said:
When you say "use multimeter on power line of rsx vddc and report resistance values on both cpu and rsx", did you mean I do it when the power is on or off? I assume the negative probe goes to the GND right? I can certainly do it when power is off. But if you meant when power on, that'd be tricky to me as the GPU/CPU are actually below the PCB...
Click to expand...

Remove the RF shielding and plug the power supply in to the Motherboard directly. you can use a piece of cardboard to insulate. Then with power connected you can probe the various voltages around the board in the brief moments you have before it YLODs. A good analog meter can actually be very helpful here. @botakompong's method is useful. Victor has a bunch of schematics and voltage pictures to help figure out where to probe and what it's supposed to be.

feng_ye said:
About the "death" of RSX, I inspect my bringup log and compared with some usual 3034's logs. It appears my RSX and CELL actually passed the "BitTraining" phase means they can actually talk to each other, in a bare minimal. It reached to a quite late stage of the booting sequence, like this:
Code: 
[SSM] state: 0105 -> 0400

So what I'm thinking is still finding other issues like power, the death of the thermal sensor, or some connecting components. It's still like shooting in dark but I thought passing the BitTraining part is actually a rather good news.
Click to expand...
I agree, it's a good sign that you don't have a 3034/4xxx error. I think your RSX is fine. But it could still be overheating. Or the solder could be corroded on the motherboard. You did say it was kept in an inhgospitable place that caused the RF shielding to rust, so it's likely the came conditions caused corrosion on the MB.

My troubleshooting process usually starts with the SYSCON, as you have done. Then I inspect the board very closely. If I were your, I'd start by touching up the solder on the pins of the thermal sensor (IC2101) and clock generator (IC5003). Use flux. You may as well be sure they have a solid connection, since the SYSCON is complaining about them. From there I'd touch up any of the SMD nearby that look to have any corrosion.

My next step is to use electronics contact cleaner and a toothbrush to thoroughly clean flux residues off. Then I spray with LOTS of 99% IPA to wash the entire board. I have it in a 1L spray bottle. Don't just spray, scrub, and leave it to dry. Solvents dissolve stuff, they don't magically make it disappear. Once the IPA evaporates, the dissolved residues will still be there. All you've done in spread them around. I like to place a paper towel over the area and douse it with IPA, then run a toothbrush over the top of the paper towel to soak up the residues. I repeat as many times as needed., until the paper towel stops turning brown from the dissolved flux. Then I tilt the motherboard at an angle an allow IPA to run underneath ICs and off the edge of the board onto a paper towel. That washes the residues away. I Tilt the board 90-degrees and repeat. I repeat until I have run the IPA underneath every component from every angle. Then I use a compressed gas duster to blow all the liquid out from underneath the IC's and then let it sit for a couple hours to dry in front of a fan.

That's usually my last step after fixing a board. however, with a badly corroded board it may be a good idea to start from a clean state. Knowing the board is clean makes it easier to rule out mineral deposits from water damage or rust/gunk. I've seen people repair PS3's from junk yards that have been in the rain and mud for months. You gott'a clean thoroughly to begin to start troubleshooting it.
 
joesaiditstrue said:
Will SYSCON be accessible via CFW eventually? I don't have the equipment to perform the hardware mod unfortunately. I have a 4USB CECHE that YLOD whenever I play demanding games (Killzone 2, GT6, Uncharted 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Less graphically demanding games play just fine

Thanks for any advice
Click to expand...
Can you explain the YLOD better. Is it actually a single Y led before shutdown and then blinking red? Or does it flash yellow repeatedly before shutting down? The latter is overheating, not a YLOD. That is a relatively easy thing to fix. Does the fan get loud before the shutdown?

Syscon only costs a few dollars. You may need a soldering iron, but even a cheap one will work for the 3 wires you have to solder in. If you don't have the equipment and skill to perform the syscon, then you shouldn't be working on a PS3. You can buy a new one working console for less than it'll cost to fix it.

I know that's a pretty harsh statement, but the PS3 is not like a SNES or N64, some rock solid console that only ever has a blown fuse or bad capacitor. No, a PS3 YLOD is 90% of the time going to to required about $300 in equipment to fix (minimum). More than it's worth to most people. The chances you have an easy fix are less than 7%!. So my advice is to sell it for parts and buy another. Only attempt to fix it if you like electronics repair and are willing to pay for the education ahead of you, which most likely includes destroying a few consoles in the process.

EDIT: It sounds like your problem could be the NEC/TOKINs or overheating. Overheating is easy. NEC/TOKINs are not!
 
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Stryder said:
What in the holy moly ps3 world happen to this Cell ?

Had some A0A02031 and A0093003

Is that what we call extreme heat ?

View attachment 34800 View attachment 34801

Welp another board for my BGA training I suppose !
Click to expand...
Was that console sealed? If so, I can't imagine a scenario where a natural fault could cause that kind of delamination. That smacks me as a "heat gun special."

It looks like what happens when you don't dry the board before a reflow. The trapped moisture expands into a high pressure gas, delaminating the layers of the substrate. Especially the CPU is vulnerable to being over heated, because people don't know you need to cover the bottom hole with aluminum tape or it'll cool the die and make it hard to drive enough heat into the solder balls. My first guess would be someone heat gunned it at 1000-degrees when it didn't melt!
 
joesaiditstrue said:
Will SYSCON be accessible via CFW eventually? I don't have the equipment to perform the hardware mod unfortunately. I have a 4USB CECHE that YLOD whenever I play demanding games (Killzone 2, GT6, Uncharted 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Less graphically demanding games play just fine

Thanks for any advice
Click to expand...

vyktormvmpay25 said:
Hard to say if possible but my opinion by looking at different ports of connection between Cpu, rsx, SB, syscon. Syscon debugging uart port is quite separated in hardware side and not sure really. We have to ask opinion to @sandungas , @M4j0r, @zecoxao.
Probably if there was a way was about to be revealed?
Sony made this kind of hardware mask in my opinion.
Click to expand...

We can access some functions, I created an application for that, it's part of the https://www.psx-place.com/threads/release-ps3-advanced-tools.34104/ .
Example output: https://github.com/bucanero/psl1ghtv2_ports/blob/master/sm_error_log/log.txt
 
RIP-Felix said:
Can you explain the YLOD better. Is it actually a single Y led before shutdown and then blinking red? Or does it flash yellow repeatedly before shutting down? The latter is overheating, not a YLOD. That is a relatively easy thing to fix. Does the fan get loud before the shutdown?

Syscon only costs a few dollars. You may need a soldering iron, but even a cheap one will work for the 3 wires you have to solder in. If you don't have the equipment and skill to perform the syscon, then you shouldn't be working on a PS3. You can buy a new one working console for less than it'll cost to fix it.

I know that's a pretty harsh statement, but the PS3 is not like a SNES or N64, some rock solid console that only ever has a blown fuse or bad capacitor. No, a PS3 YLOD is 90% of the time going to to required about $300 in equipment to fix (minimum). More than it's worth to most people. The chances you have an easy fix are less than 7%!. So my advice is to sell it for parts and buy another. Only attempt to fix it if you like electronics repair and are willing to pay for the education ahead of you, which most likely includes destroying a few consoles in the process.

EDIT: It sounds like your problem could be the NEC/TOKINs or overheating. Overheating is easy. NEC/TOKINs are not!
Click to expand...

Don't think it's overheating. CPU never goes above 60C and RSX never above 53C

I watch the temps from a web browser on my phone
 
joesaiditstrue said:
LiLR7GP.jpg


Here's the log file from my SYSCON chip. What do these say about my YLODs?
Click to expand...
@M4j0r this is a nice utility! I'm going to make a note about it in my SYSCON tutorial. Thanks.

@joesaiditstrue 1001 is a CPU VRAM PWR Fail. I've seen them associated with lots of things. The easiest one to check is a failing power supply. That is consistant with the 1004's in your log (AC/DC PWR Fail). The fact it's intermittent could be because the PWR supply is teetering on the edge, having slowly degraded to the point where you are starting to notice it during intense gameplay. Possably due to aging electrolytic capacitors.

It could also be the electrolytic caps on the motherboard, there are a number of them. Or it could be literally any SMD in the CPU's core power delivery system (VDDC), including the TOKINs (although we haven't confirmed that yet). However, better filtering on the TOKINs can smooth out the dropouts that are leading to the 1001/1004's. Meaning that, although the tokins may not be the bad part, tantalum might cover for the part that is bad (temporarily). Of course the best solution is to find the bad part.

So the real question now is, how much money are you willing to spend? If it's not the PS, you'll have wasted $30-50. If it's not the toins, you'll have wasted another $50-100 on soldering equipment and caps. Troubleshooting can cost $50-100 for the multimeter. And by then you may have been better off buying a new console.

If you have another console laying around, you can try another power supply and lets hope that's it. Afterwards you are going to have to troubleshoot the MB, which is a PITA requiring tools you may or may not have, or want to buy.
 
joesaiditstrue said:
Will SYSCON be accessible via CFW eventually? I don't have the equipment to perform the hardware mod unfortunately. I have a 4USB CECHE that YLOD whenever I play demanding games (Killzone 2, GT6, Uncharted 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Less graphically demanding games play just fine

Thanks for any advice
Click to expand...

BTW, I have never seen a 90nm RSX console such as yours with so much use! 559 days of use is well over the 150-300 days we usually see the YLOD occur on A-H models. I was curious if the console had ever been refirbished by SONY, in case they installed a 65nm or 40nm RSX in there. However your SYSCON Firmware Revision is consistant previous dumps of a stock COK-002's CXR713120-202GB SYSCON chip. So that can't be it.

I'm curious...How long have you had this console? Is it sealed? Was it sealed when you got it? Has it ever been refirbished? Have you done routine maintenance on it (change thermal pasted, deliding, blowing the dust out, etc)? I honestly didn't think any 90nm RSX could last that long. Your console is definitely the exception to the rule!

Given how much use it has seen, It seems more likely the PSU really could be the issue. Or even the tokins. You have the right kind of errors and YLOD for that diagnosis.
 
Stryder said:
What in the holy moly ps3 world happen to this Cell ?

Had some A0A02031 and A0093003

Is that what we call extreme heat ?

View attachment 34800 View attachment 34801

Welp another board for my BGA training I suppose !
Click to expand...

I just noticed that this was an A0 step number. That is Static state (Immediately after SYSCON reset). The 09 3003 is fatal booting error because VDDC to the CPU failed. 09 is also about the soonest the console can error. I've never seen an step number earlier than 09, other than A0. The CPU is one of the first things that has to start for the console to begin the post process. In you case the CPU is so badly damaged, it errors as soon as the SYSCON is released from reset. This is a catastrophic error occurring at the earliest point in the startup sequence.

I made a note about CPU damage causing RSX temp. monitor errors in my PDF.
 
RIP-Felix said:
BTW, I have never seen a 90nm RSX console such as yours with so much use! 559 days of use is well over the 150-300 days we usually see the YLOD occur on A-H models. I was curious if the console had ever been refirbished by SONY, in case they installed a 65nm or 40nm RSX in there. However your SYSCON Firmware Revision is consistant previous dumps of a stock COK-002's CXR713120-202GB SYSCON chip. So that can't be it.

I'm curious...How long have you had this console? Is it sealed? Was it sealed when you got it? Has it ever been refirbished? Have you done routine maintenance on it (change thermal pasted, deliding, blowing the dust out, etc)? I honestly didn't think any 90nm RSX could last that long. Your console is definitely the exception to the rule!

Given how much use it has seen, It seems more likely the PSU really could be the issue. Or even the tokins. You have the right kind of errors and YLOD for that diagnosis.
Click to expand...

I bought it on ebay 1 year after PS3 launched. Most of those hours are indeed from me haha. Yes it was sealed (I've taken it apart many times to clean it out and repaste)
 
anybody able to help me with this error log system yellow lights when playing intense games

Firmware Version: 4.82 (50677)
Platform ID: CokE10
Hardware Config: 4E00FFFF0107BCBF
Syscon Fimware Version: 0E69.0001000400040002 (0001000400040002)
Bringup Count: 2837, Shutdown Count: 2743
Runtime: 239 Days, 2 Hours, 55 Minutes, 36 Seconds
Error Log
01: A0802203 Mon Aug 17 13:54:07 2020
02: A0801002 Mon Aug 17 13:54:07 2020
03: A0801002 Fri Aug 14 15:31:07 2020
04: A0801002 Sun Jul 5 09:51:11 2020
05: A0801002 Sat Jul 4 08:43:34 2020
06: A0801002 Mon Jun 29 12:29:21 2020
07: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:38:37 2019
08: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:38:35 2019
09: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:37:29 2019
10: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:35:16 2019
11: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:34:33 2019
12: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:26:21 2019
13: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:25:30 2019
14: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:23:26 2019
15: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:22:41 2019
16: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:19:20 2019
17: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:15:02 2019
18: A0801001 Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
19: A0801001 Thu Feb 4 09:14:22 2010
20: A0801001 Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
21: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
22: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
23: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
24: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
25: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
26: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
27: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
28: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
29: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
30: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
31: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
32: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
 
reapers2007 said:
anybody able to help me with this error log system yellow lights when playing intense games

Firmware Version: 4.82 (50677)
Platform ID: CokE10
Hardware Config: 4E00FFFF0107BCBF
Syscon Fimware Version: 0E69.0001000400040002 (0001000400040002)
Bringup Count: 2837, Shutdown Count: 2743
Runtime: 239 Days, 2 Hours, 55 Minutes, 36 Seconds
Error Log
01: A0802203 Mon Aug 17 13:54:07 2020
02: A0801002 Mon Aug 17 13:54:07 2020
03: A0801002 Fri Aug 14 15:31:07 2020
04: A0801002 Sun Jul 5 09:51:11 2020
05: A0801002 Sat Jul 4 08:43:34 2020
06: A0801002 Mon Jun 29 12:29:21 2020
07: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:38:37 2019
08: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:38:35 2019
09: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:37:29 2019
10: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:35:16 2019
11: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:34:33 2019
12: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:26:21 2019
13: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:25:30 2019
14: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:23:26 2019
15: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:22:41 2019
16: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:19:20 2019
17: A0802022 Sun Nov 24 05:15:02 2019
18: A0801001 Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
19: A0801001 Thu Feb 4 09:14:22 2010
20: A0801001 Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
21: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
22: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
23: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
24: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
25: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
26: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
27: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
28: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
29: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
30: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
31: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
32: FFFFFFFF Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
Click to expand...
239 days in is right on schedule for YLOD in 90nm RSX consoles. The electrolytic capacitors in the console will fall -20% capacitance in 250-330 days of use ballpark (6000-8000 hours). However, I'm not sure what model you have?

2022 is the multiAV controller for analog output, but I wouldn't start worrying about that yet.

The bigger issue is the 1002. That's the NEC/TOKIN error. Wow we actually found one! If you'd like to learn more about the NEC/TOKINS and the YLOD I suggest starting here.
 
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