I love(ed) my Phat PS3

X

xtoad

Member
Over 10 years ago, I was drunk at a bar at 1pm and paid $300 for a PS3 during a charity auction. At the time, I was a PS1/2 owner that I had fun installing modchips (lol) in, and a PSP tinkerer. I did not know much about the brand new PS3 at the time, I was just drunk and got caught up in bidding at a bar.

It has served me spectacularly over the years; before 3.55 and Kmeaw, as a new and favorite-est media server and the etc. that followed...

Sorry for the boring nostalgia...

About 2 years ago, I started increasingly getting the YLOD. Restarting and Fan Control always acted as CPR for the old girl. I did surgery, replacing the heat sink paste, but issued continued... About 6 months ago, CPR stopped working, I can't power up at all. Just 3 beeps and the flashing red... It seems to me that the fan does not even get going...I'm thinking of replacing the fan? Does this sound right?

Please critique. (Except the story telling, that would hurt my feelings)
 
You have cech a01? It is in need of a reflow. Unfortunatley all bc phattys are gonna end up like what you have from overheating and poor manufacturing. Look into a reflow as heat gun or oven method will just ruin it even though it may buy it some time again albeit short.
 
nCadeRegal said:
You have cech a01? It is in need of a reflow. Unfortunatley all bc phattys are gonna end up like what you have from overheating and poor manufacturing. Look into a reflow as heat gun or oven method will just ruin it even though it may buy it some time again albeit short.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the reply.

It is a cech G01... same-ish thing? I think I read some stuff about reflow back when I re-pasted the CPU and GPU. I'll look into it again. Do you think it is worth replacing the fan with a 19-blade or whatever?
 
to properly reflow a system, you need a machine that costs nearly a grand. reballing may be what you need, but it uses the same oven as a reflow, so it requires the same machine. however, the balls on the bottom of the chip have to be removed/administered by hand afaik. reflowing just remelts the balls of solder that were already on there. if they're off center, then the reflow won't last. reballing creates new balls that are uniform, so it's more likely to last. due to it being more manual labor, the reball typically costs more if you have someone do it, which I'd recommend over buying that machine. only buy that machine if you're operating a reflow/reball business. lol

you could try a larger fan by doing what they do in the 360 scene - dremeling a hole above the gpu, using the power of the optical drive to power the larger fan, then removing the optical drive. I'm not sure if you can do this with the ps3 though, but it may be worth looking into. the fan in the phat 360 - it's connector doesn't provide enough power for a much larger fan, so the optical drive's has to be used. with the ps3, you'll probably have to use no-bd firmware after doing that though. personally, I'd just buy a slim and let the phattie rest in peace. ;)
 
Yeah, so, that's far more than I wanted to do... I do have a 2nd slim that I have kept on OFW (4.81) so maybe its time to hack that since I cant remember the last time I went online with it...

For shits and giggles, I may still try to do the hairdryer or heat gun reflow...
 
it's possible that a reflow with a heat gun would work, but I doubt a hair dryer would. with the 360, people were saying that you had to unplug the fan after applying thermal paste, turn the system on, then wait for it to overheat (2 red lights) which only took a couple of minutes. it was meant to spread out the thermal paste evenly. I did that myself, but I think it might be hokum. there was also the penny trick for the ram as well as sticking the motherboard into an actual oven. lol
 
You can do a feflow with a temp co trolled heat gun from home depot. Set the thermo to around 600 degrees farenheit, i think that is what solder melts at. Use colophan rosin flux around the chip before you apply heat so you get a good clean bond. Ive done this method myself on one of my a01 and it still works today albeit i rarely use it now. I wouldnt recommend doing it that way though. Id only go that route to recover data from unit then put it on a shelf and move onto the slim. There is always ps3xploit on 4.82 you could use to get cfw on it.
 
Thanks for the replies...I just check my slim and it seems like the min fw is 4.10 so no hacky for it. Sheee-it. Oh well time to move on I guess. No harm in heat gunning my already not working Phatty though.
 
Lets end the topic, reflowing its not a solution,neither its the heat-gun, nor its reballing! its just a myth that the community made from remedies back in the PS3 YLOD days!

The problem isn't the solder, but rather the Chip itself, 99% of the issue its always in the RSX

Poor manufacture yelds,poor cooling design and high-power draw from the RSX was enough to kill the RSX core for good!

Thats why at 45nm, they managed to control the RSX core to manageable cooling levels, and on the 4XXX Series got rid of the heat-spreader.

For the PS3 to work correctly, you need a full chip replacement, something you wont find available.

PS:When you heat or reflow the PS3 you arent melting the solder, but rather heating the chip itself inside, which will temporarily fix the little contacts inside of the core,but eventually it will fail again

I am telling this from a technical knowledge and experience, as i owned a 60Gb that has gone through the same fate, and had the same idea that reballing its the solution

There are sometimes that reballing its indeed the solution,but not fixing a dead chip, specially on a PlayStation3

My advice, let it go mate, i know its hard, same to my 60Gb, i could buy another,but aint worth the hassle, unless its in pristine condition and the RSX hasnt got much use, i suggest do the Webman Mod with the fan set at 50% minimum, something i didnt do back in the day, plus i bought the 60Gb used, and the previous owner abused a lot, and as a result it YLOD on me 3 days after Christmas of 2016, even after cleaning, changing the PSU, Paste and to a 19 fan blade, more money and headaches than solutions.
 
Last edited:
I have a few CECHA00 launch units on the way. Supposed to be low hour units with the original HDDs and mostly boxed up for the past 10 years.

I guess I'll find out how much they have been used by checking the "Power On Hours Count" of the 60GB HDDs.
 
Good find mate, my recommendation its to do the CFW right away, with a fan increase, thermal paste replacement and copper plates, it should work like a charm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top