PS3 My PS3 now sounds like a vacuum cleaner

[Cypher_CG89]

the winner repice is it needs to be max 1.2mm thickness and a strong plastic such C-PET, good to know

A good product that would have this thickness in it would be ready made pasta pots and salad dishes use a good strong clear A-PET plastic. The roll used to make it should be 1.5mm thick (A right pain to feed in to the machine as it is very unyielding, got a few nasty slashes on me arms off this crap) and by the time it is passed between 2 heaters set at 200*c and then through the forming station of the machine which has a pressure force of over 2 ton then vacuumed into shape and cooled should come out at about 1.2mm thickness. One way to "test" the strength of the pots is to hold it between finger tips and thumb tip and lightly squeeze, you should feel a good bit of resistance and a general popping noise, if not, ie it sounds like plastic film wrap, its defective and should of not left the factory lol as its not thick enough.

This crap i used to make is in every tesco, adsa, Foxes, cadburys, nestle, the list is endless as it was one of the worlds best manufacturers. don't know how as they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, most of it was left up to me and the team leader, while the managers sat in there offices, they tried to make me a supervisor but i told them to stick it where the sun don't shine.

The black stuff is generally stronger, you want to go for the stuff with a dull look to it, not the shiney crap when it comes to the black as this is sprayed with heat resistant chemical to strengthen the plastic after forming, as well as what is added to it an the "extruding" machine use to make the roll.

 

[Cypher_CG89]

Thanks a lot of mentioning the plastic materials, this is what i needed to know from someone experienced in it
I could deduce the chemical composition of the plastic sheet is very important, but i had no idea about his composition and how to try to find other alternative plastic sheets from other stuff

So the winner repice is it needs to be max 1.2mm thickness and a strong plastic such C-PET, good to know

Btw, something i did not mention is while i was trying to insert the plastic sheet of A-PET of 1.3mm thichness under IHS.... i was able to insert a bit but with a lot of insistence moving it left and right
What it was happening is the plastic sheet changes his thickness a bit... enought to enter in the 1.2mm "gap"
But this is not enoght because doesnt enters completly to cut the silicone cord
So im completly sure, the gap is 1.2mm max (so max thickness of the tool needs to be 1.2mm (but better 1.1mm... or even better 1.0mm)
If you use a plastic sheet of 1.3mm (or even 1.4mm) you are going to be able to remove some silicone but is because the plastic sheet is being "deformed" at the edge you are using to cut

------------
Now the offtopic, you are going to find it interesting
I was looking at the plastic marks in the PS3 case and the case of the PS3 PSU, and the plastic cover of the heatsink, the PS3 slims are made with this:
BAYER BAYBLEND KU2-1514>PC+ABS-FR(40)< http://plastics.bayer.com/plastics/emea/en/product/bayblend/Product_description.html
SABIC CYCOLOY CH6410>PC+SAN-FR(40)< http://www.sabic-ip.com/gep/Plastics/en/ProductsAndServices/ProductLine/cycoloy.html

And yeah, im sure are "molded by injection" in huge machines like that, i guess is used a "mold" of alluminium with lot of details, just by looking at the "rought" top surface of the PS3 slim case with a magnifyer glass it can be seen it has lot of precission

Yeah am positive its Injection moulding, the top of the case is most likely done after the case has been moulded, at a guess, as if you look at the corners of the case where it is worn you will see it is becoming smooth like the rest of the case, and the PS3 slim logo is most likely done with a CAD laser precision router type drill head.

You are quite right about the tools, they are made from high grade aluminium that are made to precision within a 1mmm (micro mm) normally. They use aluminium as its an easy metal to work with for machining and can be cut or ground down easier than steel.

I think am going to do some research it the PS3 case manufacturing methods. To see how close my theories are to truth lol.

 

[psykosis]

1. Once the machine YLOD, reflowing or reballing, usualy doesnt last very long, as the RSX itself its already destroyed. Its only a matter of time till the machine YLODs again,when you least expect it!

2. The lad whom repaired your console,doesnt know whats he its talking about! CFW leads to overheating? (insert 2019 joke here)

1. You are correct about it almost always being rsx that overheats, causing ylod. There are other factors, and ones that even seem completely unrelated at first as well. Couldn't the rsx be replaced from a donor? I know syscon/cell are tied, but I thought gpu was not. I could also be out my damn mind too

2. CFW doesn't lead to overheating directly, but it can in some scenarios. DEX uses extra resources, and thus raises temps also. It is running not only the cex firmware, but also the additional debugging tools and hooks needed for RTM. Combine this with the poor fan speed control of syscon (prioritizing sound over safety). That being said, in a rebug 4.82.2 on CEX in rebug mode, cobra enabled and wm-mod, dynamic fan control set to 68 with a min of 30, my cech-2501a has no temp issues whatsoever, and stays reasonably quiet. My room mate plays the thing non stop for around 10-12 hours at a time every couple days, while others he plays 2-5 hours depending on when he works. He's played official disks, and backups of disks I made for him without issue on temps.

I'm not arguing with you at all, but pointing out that might be what the shop person or whatever was thinking of, but not articulating correctly. I don't know how many users foolishly are on DEX for no other reason than it was easier to spoof and get back on PSN than using SEN Enabler or CCAPI or wm-mod. All of these users get a less than 100% experience because they are on DEX. It's not a terrible system, but its made for developers to develop on, not for users to just use as a retail system. It CAN be done, but should it? Why not let those valuable resources be used for the game, rather than for debugging symbols that aren't needed by 99% of people. Too much paste can also be an issue with heating as well, that would point back to the shop. I honestly prefer getting a slim 2501a that i can update to 4.82, run ps3xploit and throw rebug on, because i don't normally see this system get temps over 60 w/ my current setup.

Another point of YLOD fixes are that they are usually all related to reflow or reballing, both of which bring the temp of the cpu above 180 degrees, this also sort of "reflows" the gpu internal itself, which is only a temporary fix. How temporary, well, it depends. It's recommended that if you are using one that has been reflowed to be extremely careful, to let system not experience drastic temp changes. Letting system cool down for a short period to let temps drop and level before power off is usually a good practice from what i've read. I can tell you that i've had an rsx replaced by racer018 on a fat system, and it's had no issues, it was an gpu ylod issue cechL01 IIRC.

Hopefully this helps

 

[jacobsson]

I can see this thread been really busy with enthusiastic replies just from the few hours I last visited, love it!

@sandungas
As always thanks for your sharing some interesting facts that most people wouldn't know!

Another question, do you know how significant the quality is of the thermal pads on the various chips around the board?
I got around buying some fresh ones from gelid with high conductivity that I haven't got around installing yet.

 

[Jackfavvv]

UPDATE:
Ok, so here are the temperature readings after 1 minute from booting(no noise):

And here's after 5-10 minutes when the vacuum is activated:

And here's my PS3:

Okay, I think I provided enough info to conclude something.
Now lets chat.

 

[jacobsson]

@Jackfavvv
First of all, good job OP.
As you can the temp on the CELL is out of control, RSX seems fine though.

Since they share the same cooling assembly there is something wrong with the dissipation of
CELL CPU compared to the excellent temps of the RSX, this assuming webMAN reads proper temps.

I can see two steps for isolating the problem by a visual inspection:
1. First, take it apart and see how the paste looks like, is it evenly spread out over the CELL IHS and heatsink?
If not, the repair guy did a bad job re-assembling your unit with proper amount of thermal paste and/or heatsink placement.

2. If the paste looks good, then you'll unfortunately in need of a delid of the CELL IHS.

@sandungas
Do you think the problem could be that webMAN can report faulty values of the RSX and/or the CELL?

 

[fresh]

Hi!

First, i love the fats.

I noticed, when installing cfw the console is getting hotter as before. Have dealed with this a long time until i changed the internal hdd of one console, installed new cfw and noticed, the cfw version was the same, but the temperature of the cpu was 10 degrees lower than before.
DONT ask me why. I dunno!

The second thing i've learned is to check the correct position of the heatsink twice and the the correct amount of thermal paste. Really. Changed the paste and the thing was getting much hotter. Here, it was too much paste...

Just my 2 cents.


Greets + Have fun!

PS: Btw. Could you please post the fan speeds? When reading the headline i am thinking of 90%... This happens only in special cases.

 

[sandungas]

A good product that would have this thickness in it would be ready made pasta pots and salad dishes use a good strong clear A-PET plastic. The roll used to make it should be 1.5mm thick (A right pain to feed in to the machine as it is very unyielding, got a few nasty slashes on me arms off this crap) and by the time it is passed between 2 heaters set at 200*c and then through the forming station of the machine which has a pressure force of over 2 ton then vacuumed into shape and cooled should come out at about 1.2mm thickness. One way to "test" the strength of the pots is to hold it between finger tips and thumb tip and lightly squeeze, you should feel a good bit of resistance and a general popping noise, if not, ie it sounds like plastic film wrap, its defective and should of not left the factory lol as its not thick enough.

This crap i used to make is in every tesco, adsa, Foxes, cadburys, nestle, the list is endless as it was one of the worlds best manufacturers. don't know how as they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, most of it was left up to me and the team leader, while the managers sat in there offices, they tried to make me a supervisor but i told them to stick it where the sun don't shine.

The black stuff is generally stronger, you want to go for the stuff with a dull look to it, not the shiney crap when it comes to the black as this is sprayed with heat resistant chemical to strengthen the plastic after forming, as well as what is added to it an the "extruding" machine use to make the roll.

The pasta pots looks like the best candidate i guess the next time i will go to the supermarket im going to "betatest" the pasta packages plastic thickness by hitting them with my nail like a "toc", " toc" to see if i can deduce the material and thickness by the sound \o/

Yeah am positive its Injection moulding, the top of the case is most likely done after the case has been moulded, at a guess, as if you look at the corners of the case where it is worn you will see it is becoming smooth like the rest of the case, and the PS3 slim logo is most likely done with a CAD laser precision router type drill head.

You are quite right about the tools, they are made from high grade aluminium that are made to precision within a 1mmm (micro mm) normally. They use aluminium as its an easy metal to work with for machining and can be cut or ground down easier than steel.

I think am going to do some research it the PS3 case manufacturing methods. To see how close my theories are to truth lol.

After reading this i took the magnifyer glass to look at it, and you are right, the "roughtness" of the top case is made at a later step of the manufacturing process, and it seems to be made by "stamping" another (different) aluminium block on top
There are 2 details i noticed related with this
1) The transition between the rought surface (at top) and the shiny surfaces (at sides) is delimited by a perfect straight line very subbtle, that obviouslly they was trying to make it the smallest posible to "hide" it but there is no easy way to remove it completly, is still there
2) The limits of the rought surface (exactly next to the straight line i mentioned above) are more "shiny" than the rest of the rought surface, this is probably because the borders of the second mold (just a couple of milimeters of it) was a bit hotter than the rest of the mold... or because there is a small amount of hot air pumped at the edges to "melt" the borders a bit more than the center

And the big PS3 logo "grabbed" at top is not mechanized by a CAD machine, it seems to be part of the first molding because is very precise and shiny (and also seems to have that transition straight line separating roguht from shiny surfaces)

So by now there seems to be 2 manufacturing steps, in the first step the top surface of the case is shiny, and in second step is given the roughtness details



Edit:
The precission of the aluminum blocks should be the same and is very high... the "problem" is at the time of applying the second mold (with some areas of the plastic in semisolid state) appears some "defects" in the limits of the seconds mold

 

[sandungas]

1. You are correct about it almost always being rsx that overheats, causing ylod. There are other factors, and ones that even seem completely unrelated at first as well. Couldn't the rsx be replaced from a donor? I know syscon/cell are tied, but I thought gpu was not. I could also be out my damn mind too

The "married" stuff is CELL (hardware), SYSCON (hardware), and metldr/bootldr (software)
CELL and SYSCON communicates with each other at boot using high security keys and stuff, i guess a good part of this is still unknown
And metldr and bootldr are married with CELL because are encrypted with a key stored inside CELL, we dont know how to dump the key so we cant modify them

But RSX can be replaced, i remember to see a list of RSX compatibility for replacements in a forum especialiced in repairs/reflows/reballs

 

[sandungas]

I can see this thread been really busy with enthusiastic replies just from the few hours I last visited, love it!

@sandungas
As always thanks for your sharing some interesting facts that most people wouldn't know!

Another question, do you know how significant the quality is of the thermal pads on the various chips around the board?
I got around buying some fresh ones from gelid with high conductivity that I haven't got around installing yet.

In my PS3 slim the thermal pads was very gummy and like "liquid"... like a chewed bubblegum, i never saw this kind of thermal pads before so not sure if are good or bad
I remember to see other kind f thermal pads in other sony consoles (not sure if was PS3 fat or PS2) that was dark grey color but not sure which type is better

One thing i suggest you to do is to take a good look at the metal shields and how it matches with the components that have the thermal pads... and use the common sense because there are other components where you can add "custom" thermal pads
The most obvious place is on top of the wifi/bt module... this thing gets hot, there is lot of people in forums reporting problems because they have the wifi/bt module fryed by overheats

If your thermal pads are very thin (not enought to touch the metal shield), you can stack several thermal pads on top of each other to create a "pillar" of thermal pads

Incase of adding this "custom" thermal pads, the only thing you need to worry is to dont obstruct the airflow, there are small amounts of air moving in between the metal shields and the motherboard, is designed for that

UPDATE:
Ok, so here are the temperature readings after 1 minute from booting(no noise):

If you start with the PS3 parts at ambient temperature... and after 1 minute of booting is imposible to have the temperatures your are showing in the photos

This kind of tests to see how the temepratures increases needs to be made starting from ambient, this means you need to cool down the PS3 by turning it off for some hours

But never minds, from your photos it can be seen the difference of temperatures in between CELL and RSX is huge, this is not normal, and indicates you have a problem in CELL
Usually that high difference is because the IHS of CELL has moved "up" a bit of his original position when you was pulling from the metal heatsink block
At this point, after all that years of use of your PS3 the paste under the IHS is like "talc powder" and when you move it appears lot of empty spaces and gaps
After that the heat dissipation is very bad (like in your photos)

@sandungas
Do you think the problem could be that webMAN can report faulty values of the RSX and/or the CELL?

No, is one of the things you mentioned, either the heatsink is not seating correctly on top of the CELL IHS... or the paste under IHS is too much degraded (probably because what i mentioned)

 

[Cypher_CG89]

I remember to see other kind f thermal pads in other sony consoles (not sure if was PS3 fat or PS2) that was dark grey color but not sure which type is better

The PS2 used them on the emotion chip and processor instead of thermal paste. Use paste on the PS2 and it won't boot. Bubble gum type pads? doesn't sound good to me, it like they have melted, I replaced all of the one's on both my Slims with 3mm - 5mm pads thick pads, cannot remember exactly how thick they were.

One thing i suggest you to do is to take a good look at the metal shields and how it matches with the components that have the thermal pads... and use the common sense because there are other components where you can add "custom" thermal pads
The most obvious place is on top of the wifi/bt module... this thing gets hot, there is lot of people in forum reported problems because they have the wifi/bt module fryed by overheats

On my SuperSlim Bluetooth is fried but not the WiFi lol. Strange one has gone and not the other when they are on the same unit. This was when it was reaching temps of 85+.

And the big PS3 logo "grabbed" at top is not mechanized by a CAD machine, it seems to be part of the first molding because is very precise and shiny (and also seems to have that transition straight line separating roguht from shiny surfaces)

Was just a theory as it would be easier to do the 1st 2 stages of the top then cut out the PS3 logo last as there are cutting tools out there that can do this with micro mm precision and still leave a nice shiny surface. The top of the PS3 seems to be made in similar way to car dashboards (This is what I do now lol, automotive parts manufacture and supply FLT driver for companies that mainly supply Nissan as the factory is very close to where I live, no factory in the world can produce more cars per hour than this one lol, one car every 56 seconds is produced from 2 "lines") and the plastic parts are made by injection moulding and I would assume that the rough top is made in a very similar way to the rough tops of dashboards or "Cockpit module assembly" as they are named.

The precission of the aluminum blocks should be the same and is very high... the "problem" is at the time of applying the second mold (with some areas of the plastic in semisolid state) appears some "defects" in the limits of the seconds mold

It is quite possible that the top of the case is flash re heated from cold to do this as, and is quite possible that plastic particles are sprayed on the re heated surface then stamped level. A stamp to produce a design this complex and "rough" on top would be insanely expensive and if anything was to go wrong with it would not be a simple fix, where as other tools, such as the basic shape of the case could be repaired, where as i think the rough tool would have to be thrown out if damaged, and i can guarantee that S@ny would not be happy about replacing instead of repairing the tools, as these moulds can cost thousands each. But it is quite possible that it is another stamp.

For example a one used to make salad bowls cost Asda £5000 to make, each and we had 3 sets of them. And some idiot left a bolt on the tool anvil of the mould station so when the station closed there was a clear imprint of the bolt left on the tool and it was damaged beyond repair, he was sacked the same day as it cost the company nearly triple this to replace the tool and make up for a late order and lost production time, which put them behind with other orders, it cost me 3 weeks of working 6 days a week in 12 hour shifts to get us back on track. I had six people sacked for turning the machines off because they couldn't keep up with them. ( i say they were lazy, I could operate them all at full speed )

This may be off topic but i thought i would give a insight into general manufacturing and production. And this holds true for all companies, they want it done the quickest, easiest, most nastiest way (for the person making it lol) cheapest way possible but expects very high quality and standards in the product. And all of these very rarely go together well but they never understand this and just twist like bitches when something goes wrong.

 

[sandungas]

The PS2 used them on the emotion chip and processor instead of thermal paste. Use paste on the PS2 and it won't boot. Bubble gum type pads? doesn't sound good to me, it like they have melted, I replaced all of the one's on both my Slims with 3mm - 5mm pads thick pads, cannot remember exactly how thick they were.

The thermal pads of the PS2 was looking good, very differents than the ones i fond on my PS3 slim, but dunno, technology evolves and maybe nowadays that "gummy" pads are equal of better efficience... or this is what i thought when i found them to ease my mind because i didnt replaced them, heheh
Another weird thing i found in my PS3 slim is the thermal paste (over IHSs) was blue color, it was the first time i saw a blue thermal paste, i guess is based on silicone because it was a bit "gummy" (but the PS3 was new though, it had only 6 months of use or so)

On my SuperSlim Bluetooth is fried but not the WiFi lol. Strange one has gone and not the other when they are on the same unit. This was when it was reaching temps of 85+.

Most people doesnt cares in trying to repair a wifi/bt module
Some PS3 wifi/bt modules (not all) have a metal interference shiled soldered on top, if you desolder it there are a lot of tiny components under it, it could be a resistor or something simple in you are lucky
Other thing that could be causing the problem is one or few (but not much because bt works) BGA solder balls, to check this you can use a couple of rubber blocks to place at the sides of the motherboard and apply pressure on top of the wifi/bt module with a clamp... then turn on the PS3 for a fast test
If that works (as a temporal solution just for the tests) then there are BGA balls broken

Was just a theory as it would be easier to do the 1st 2 stages of the top then cut out the PS3 logo last as there are cutting tools out there that can do this with micro mm precision and still leave a nice shiny surface. The top of the PS3 seems to be made in similar way to car dashboards (This is what I do now lol, automotive parts manufacture and supply FLT driver for companies that mainly supply Nissan as the factory is very close to where I live, no factory in the world can produce more cars per hour than this one lol, one car every 56 seconds is produced from 2 "lines") and the plastic parts are made by injection moulding and I would assume that the rough top is made in a very similar way to the rough tops of dashboards or "Cockpit module assembly" as they are named.

It is quite possible that the top of the case is flash re heated from cold to do this as, and is quite possible that plastic particles are sprayed on the re heated surface then stamped level. A stamp to produce a design this complex and "rough" on top would be insanely expensive and if anything was to go wrong with it would not be a simple fix, where as other tools, such as the basic shape of the case could be repaired, where as i think the rough tool would have to be thrown out if damaged, and i can guarantee that S@ny would not be happy about replacing instead of repairing the tools, as these moulds can cost thousands each. But it is quite possible that it is another stamp.

I really think the top texture is made like when cowboys puts the "brand" of the rach to a horse with a hot metal piece, the tricky part is how the temperature is controlled so well, this is something i cant imagine accuratelly how is made... the only places where tempetarure goes a bit out of control (and are very small areas) is at the borders, not sure why, and is barelly notable

For example a one used to make salad bowls cost Asda £5000 to make, each and we had 3 sets of them. And some idiot left a bolt on the tool anvil of the mould station so when the station closed there was a clear imprint of the bolt left on the tool and it was damaged beyond repair, he was sacked the same day as it cost the company nearly triple this to replace the tool and make up for a late order and lost production time, which put them behind with other orders, it cost me 3 weeks of working 6 days a week in 12 hour shifts to get us back on track. I had six people sacked for turning the machines off because they couldn't keep up with them. ( i say they were lazy, I could operate them all at full speed )

This may be off topic but i thought i would give a insight into general manufacturing and production. And this holds true for all companies, they want it done the quickest, easiest, most nastiest way (for the person making it lol) cheapest way possible but expects very high quality and standards in the product. And all of these very rarely go together well but they never understand this and just twist like bitches when something goes wrong.

Yeah i guessed the aluminium stamps are expensive, for playstations is worthy because every unit is an expensive product, ruining one of that stamps could be a disaster XD
I like mechanics in general and know a bit about manufacturing machines, i never saw a plastic stamping machine ever though, i just know a general description of what it does
But im the kind of person that likes to "deraill" a bit thinking in the technical details of the stuff in general, as example in a travel if someone tells 2Çlook that bridge so pretty" i start thinking in how the bridge was made, his weak point (if any), why it was made that way and not in a different way, etc...
With the PS3 plastics happened this to me, i was inspecting some parts looking for serial numbers of the heatsink/fan and it called me atention some marks about the plastics composition

 

[Cypher_CG89]

Another weird thing i found in my PS3 slim is the thermal paste (over IHSs) was blue color, it was the first time i saw a blue thermal paste, i guess is based on silicone because it was a bit "gummy" (but the PS3 was new though, it had only 6 months of use or so)

So was mine, it was powder when i replaced it but it had a distinctive blue tint to it. I wasn't happy though when i saw how little of the ISH of the CELL and RSX it covered though. serious manufacturing flaw if you ask me.

But im the kind of person that likes to "deraill" a bit thinking in the technical details of the stuff in general, as example in a travel if someone tells 2Çlook that bridge so pretty" i start thinking in how the bridge was made, his weak point (if any), why it was made that way and not in a different way, etc...

Should I be getting worried?? "his weak point if any??" first the 2 PS3's one HDD thing, now this???
I am the same when it come to cars as I have worked on them since i was about 6 years old and the first thing I did after leaving school was train as a mechanic.

I often look at some modern cars, the parts, the way things are on them and think WTF have they done it this way for, this will cause issues and other similar things like "they need to stop smoking crap and taking acid when designing them" because some of the things are bonkers, for example the air filter box on an 2006 model citroen C4 - you cannot get at it unless you take half the window screen assembly apart and then you only have less than 1 inch of play to get a 2 inch thick air filter in and put the bolts back on as its literally under the window screen and it is one of the parts replaced in a general service lol.

 

[STLcardsWS]

The lad whom repaired your console,doesnt know whats he its talking about! CFW leads to overhearing? (insert 2019 joke here)

I am going to say this laid does not know what he's talking about.

CFW leads to overheating? If anything CFW has more protections to curb overheating and prevent it.

 

[Naked_Snake1995]

I am going to say this laid does not know what he's talking about.

CFW leads to overheating? If anything CFW has more protections to curb overheating and prevent it.

Never let a Repair Shop, near crack! They start to invent some BS, just to rip people off, they should be grateful that CFW prevents overheating,unlike the crappy $ony OFWs and fan profiles.

 

[STLcardsWS]

Maybe they should of read this
http://www.psx-place.com/threads/the-playstation-3-5.9590/

 

[Naked_Snake1995]

Maybe they should of read this
http://www.psx-place.com/threads/the-playstation-3-5.9590/

But but but....$ony told me that the PS3 doesn´t break, and using CFW its outdated, and i must use the OFW to have system stability!