PS3 Frankenstein PHAT PS3: CECHA with 40nm RSX

It was a busy week, sorry for the delay. Nevertheless, I'm back with kind-of-hi-res photos of needed spots. And measurements.

Voltage divider:

View attachment 35007
  • R2001 - gone
  • R2002 - 15.11 kΩ
R2002 is not black, it's a deep shade of blue, but certainly not light blue like two resistors below.

VDDR:

View attachment 35008
  1. 1.237 kΩ (R6219)
  2. 1.241 kΩ (R6214)
  3. 294.5 kΩ (this must be a cap, C6207)
  4. 220.6 Ω (R6211)
  5. 1.354 kΩ (R6222)
  6. 1.571 kΩ (R6216)
Also 1, 2, 5 and 6 look like they have been resoldered.

Diagonal resistor is 9.96 kΩ.

Hope this helps!
Just want to post this here. I may have before IDK. It's an update from the OP.
 
Just want to post this here. I may have before IDK. It's an update from the OP.

These measurements are irrelevant at this point. Especially when resistors aren't out of the board. I've explained all of the differences between Sony mod and Orbis mod in my video here. Like I said, @botakompong has done the measurements and more a long time ago. He had access to frankensteins long before this thread was even created. So they had carefully mapped every change on the board when they were creating the orbis chip.

 
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In attention for those who want to fix/swap rsx for cok001 models I don't take anymore repairs to this board as it is hard to get good rsx 40nm on time (3 months from China) also this board is not easy to be found in Europe.
In case something else is going wrong with them I can't get it easy/cheap. I can run this service of modchip and rsx swap only cok002 or any board apart from cok001.
I've got many requests for this swap.
Before opt for this swap just as suggest let board untouched (meaning no delid, no nec caps removed, no attempt to reflow/reball).
In case same service or person will take a board as responsibility it should take it with errors 3034/44xx Otherwise I consider if someone feels good enough to fix go until it is done. Diag via uart won't do damage to board as heat gun or other situations were boards get more damage.
I'll finish few already here and add few videos to my thread but won't do it much more.
Need to cure that for testing
http://s.go.ro/uj9uiow2
 
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man whats the f....ing deal with these cok001 boards? ive speek with @DeadEnd recent and tell me they warp like hell none else motherboard revision warp like that. despite the fact they almost same as cok002 only in ps2 harware are mostly different. mine board always error out in cold booting needs 2-3 tryes to start its either glod with error 2031 or ylod with error 1701. but after it boot in 2-3 tryes its stable even on last of us game whitch is one heavy game. i was hopping to sent it to you after 10 february. but now i see you wont service them more
 
As for cok001 Japan model it seems to work, i assume if one ps2 game started it should work for all of them? later probably user will add here in forum more details.
Rsx 40nm vdd line was 2 .1 ohms , botakompong compared with me and I agree that can work fine(rare case in kte001).Set on syscon fan to understand real potential,unit will stand at 28% cell wont pass 68 Celsius,rsx bearly reaching 50 celsius.This is kind of refusbished unit for untouched boards.
http://s.go.ro/ex9cncpb
 
As for cok001 Japan model it seems to work, i assume if one ps2 game started it should work for all of them? later probably user will add here in forum more details.
Rsx 40nm vdd line was 2 .1 ohms , botakompong compared with me and I agree that can work fine(rare case in kte001).Set on syscon fan to understand real potential,unit will stand at 28% cell wont pass 68 Celsius,rsx bearly reaching 50 celsius.This is kind of refusbished unit for untouched boards.
http://s.go.ro/ex9cncpb

All cok boards will work with orbis mod and ps2 games. The confusion happened because Felix's board didn't run ps2 games...His problem was caused by something else. But we know of at least one case where the same board was swapped with a 65nm and all games worked fine.
 
yes if one game works then that meens the ps2 hardware is initialized. if a ps2 game is compatible will work. remember cecha is highly compatible but not 100%
 
This is not correct as far as I'm aware. They are pin compatible but the reason it wont work is because the CELL is paired to other components on the board which CANNOT be swapped such as the NOR/NAND and syscon which are completely different.
Can the pairing key be extracted from decrypted syscon and then written to another with a cell graft? My dream would be to move the 25xx parts over into an A01 system
 
View attachment 35615
Has it escaped anyone else's attention that the PS4/5 APU has a support bracket around the edge of the interposer?

What do we know about the PS3? Oh yeah, it had issues with the YLOD! Hmm...

I just want to point out that the edges of the chip is where we are seeing the most BGA defects (FlexIO and VDDIO errors). Perhaps the purpose of this bracket (which add cost to the BOM BTW) is to provide support to the solderballs underneath.

Effectively there are 2 problems that cause YLOD:
  1. Bump failures = reduced to acceptable levels with better underfill and cooling. Perhaps by abandoning the diamond pattern that could cause tortional stresses as the interposer twists from the geometry mismatch.
  2. BGA failures = reduced with interposer support bracket, better soldering process, and better cooling.
For comparison sake...
View attachment 35616

Why is the PS3 CPU reliable then, you ask?
kuehlung_03g_cell.jpg

The CPU IHS has a ring and is silconed around the edge, effectively providing support.

This brings up a serious oversight and concern about delidding! We really should be gluing the IHS back on after repasting. Both the RSX and CPU IHS! With that in mind, then it changes the TIC decision for me immensely! I think a graphite thermal pad is the way to go. It can be taped (kapton) to the IHS so it never moves out of position and shorts anything out. It prevents die hot spots by transferring thermals laterally extremely fast. And it never degrades. It will perform the same forever, so the IHS can be glued down and never delidded again. You may even be able to silicone the RSX IHS down, to provide extra support for the interposer. Perhaps that wiould make the RSX more reliable. The downside is that graphite thermal pads don't transfer heat to the IHS as well as high quality pastes do. They're a few C worse. Not bad, mind you! They are still good, just not great.
Just a quick note on this, I'm about 90% sure the reason they have that metal support bracket around them is just to protect the components from damage since they no longer use an IHS. The only anomaly there is the original 360s which originally didn't have an IHS, then they added them for the Trinity and Corona revisions, then removed it again for the Winchester rev.
A support bracket is the best middle ground between protection for the die from cracking due to the weight and pressure from the heatsink, and the removal of the IHS for more direct cooling and a lower cost per chip.
The die on the PS3 doesn't actually touch the IHS directly due to the ~0.2mm (IDK what the actual value is) of thermal adhesive on the VRAM chips, if you remove this glue however the die does sit almost flush on the RSX.
 
Can the pairing key be extracted from decrypted syscon and then written to another with a cell graft? My dream would be to move the 25xx parts over into an A01 system
You can do it on a device of the same model EG. COK-001 to COK-001 since they use the same syscon, NAND, and CELL but that doesn't matter for a 25XX or really any other model since they switched not only the syscon but also the NAND to NOR, both of which are NOT pin compatible.
As far as I can tell all the NOR chips are 48 pin and all the NAND chips are 56 pin, pics in spoilers.
 
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This is not correct as far as I'm aware. They are pin compatible but the reason it wont work is because the CELL is paired to other components on the board which CANNOT be swapped such as the NOR/NAND and syscon which are completely different.

Some of the pins functions were changed even in a 65nm Cell comparing to 90nm. So that would require an interposer
 
Just a quick note on this, I'm about 90% sure the reason they have that metal support bracket around them is just to protect the components from damage since they no longer use an IHS. The only anomaly there is the original 360s which originally didn't have an IHS, then they added them for the Trinity and Corona revisions, then removed it again for the Winchester rev.
A support bracket is the best middle ground between protection for the die from cracking due to the weight and pressure from the heatsink, and the removal of the IHS for more direct cooling and a lower cost per chip.
The die on the PS3 doesn't actually touch the IHS directly due to the ~0.2mm (IDK what the actual value is) of thermal adhesive on the VRAM chips, if you remove this glue however the die does sit almost flush on the RSX.
That may be a fringe benifit, but I'm sure the purpose is to stiffen the package against warpage. Every direct die cooled chip I've seen lately has one. XB360 was the only one without anything. RSX at least had the IHS glued to the VRAM for support. It's not enough, but it was better.
 
There are 4 pad layouts for the CELL, while looking at them i decided to label them using the manufacturing lithography and the numbers of the "pad array", this way:
-90nm 41x41
-65nm 41x41
-45nm 41x41
-45nm 42x42

*The ones with 41x41 are not compatible with each others because there is a squared "hole" at the center without pads... and the number of "missing pads" at that hole is different in between them

In other words... if you take a 65nm or 45nm CELL and try to solder it in a motherboard designed for the 90nm CELL there are going to be some CELL pads at the center that cant be soldered because the motherboard doesnt have pads for them
 
That may be a fringe benifit, but I'm sure the purpose is to stiffen the package against warpage. Every direct die cooled chip I've seen lately has one. XB360 was the only one without anything. RSX at least had the IHS glued to the VRAM for support. It's not enough, but it was better.
You might want to take a look at more devices then, some do and some don't, it seems almost random.
Series S has none but series X has one, both versions of PS5 have it.
RTX 3060 and 3070 don't have one but the 3080 and 3090 do...
Also the later super slims removed the IHS and went for direct die cooling with no bracket.
 
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