PS3 Reballing the 90nm RSX. Does it work long term?

[RIP-Felix]

I'm trying to get an idea of whether or not the 90nm RSX in A-E BC models and G/H models are reliable. We know they can have BGA defects. We've seen oxidized balls while reballing them!

What's less clear is how many of these consoles met their fate from BumpGate! In 2006-2008 Nvidia made poor bump and underfill material choices in some (if not all) of their chipsets designs. The got famously sued over this. RSX was designed and made during the BumpGate time frame, but there isn't any reliable data on how many 90nm RSX's have actually died from genuine bump failures.

While there are many theories about how one might be able to tell the difference between Bump and BGA failures, there really ins't a good way to know without 3D x-ray machines that cost $1,000,000. Clearly that option is off the table!

Instead I'm asking you, the community, to give us your experience with reballing. If you had a 90nm RSX reballed did the reball last or did the console subsequently die? And if so, how long after the reball did it last? If it's still going, how long ago was it reballed?

Obviously this poll won't exclude other failures, like NEC/TOKINs, fuses, CPU, etc. But this is the best we can do without diving into each and every console to diagnose it on a case by case basis. However, please feel free to reply with any additional details about your specific experience. Did you replace the tokins afterwards and it's been going strong ever since? Did you have it reballed again? How long did it last that time?

Maybe we'll get a better sense of whether or not the Bumps do fail, if reballs didn't last. Or maybe we'll see that the bumps were fine and reballs did last. Either way it'd be interesting to see some real numbers.

 

[Workz_777]

will be interesting to see the results

 

[Srassyfrass]

I'd be interested to know what other factors going to affect the quality of a reball. Presumably most people will have reballed using leaded solder for the plasticity But then you're also going to get differences of experience and process. I've done one reball and it didn't last long so I doubt it should be considered when compared to @squeept

 

[ElGris]

I'd be interested to know what other factors going to affect the quality of a reball. Presumably most people will have reballed using leaded solder for the plasticity But then you're also going to get differences of experience and process. I've done one reball and it didn't last long so I doubt it should be considered when compared to @squeept

Most people have different setups, IR or hot air stations, different ambient temperatures, pressure, humidity, even pre- and post- pcb preparation, I think all of that affects a good quality rework, and until not long ago, the only fix on BCs was another 90nm RSX, so this is mostly a gamble.

It seems some people didn't arrive to the party, huh?

@vyktormvmpay25 @Shawn Shakir @Computer Booter @alty75 @alzaabi (your opinion worths a lot too)

 

[squeept]

I'm not sure I can answer this correctly since I don't keep any for myself. My sample data would be tainted by the warranty length I offer. I would assume that other people assume they shouldn't bother getting in touch with me when the warranty period is over. So if it survives my warranty period, the data will be skewed heavily to "it lasted forever" even if it didn't. Until a couple years ago, my warranty on every kind of console was only six months, so all I know for certain is stuff lasted 6 months. It's been a year for a few years now, and I've only recently started offering 2 years on Frankies.

 

[Shawn Shakir]

So far my first Franky is running fine. I believe I got it done ~5 months ago (even though video was uploaded 4 months ago). I don't have it currently, but my friend has had it I want to say the entire summer (so about 3 months thus far) and has put a lot of hours into it with zero issues. My first 90NM reball (was actually a swap with another 90NM RSX not a reball of the original chip), which was I guess about 10-11 months ago is also still running well to this day with no issues. All my other 40NM's have been around 3-4 months and are still working, but also have basically 0 hours on them minus all of TLOU that I loop on them for hours at a time for about a week.

 

[alty75]

I think you will find that the revision of RSX plays a big part in it also! I have found CXD-2971-1GB revisions to be the most stable and reliable, and is my go to if replacing the RSX. I buy them in larger qty and preferably use these over any other revision. I have seen more long term rersults over short term results. I know and have seen that reballing works and lasts. I have seen CXD-2971/A/B/D/G last for many many years after a reball also. I've had many return customers rave about their PS3 still going strong years later.

 

[GalacticBatman]

Hey I've just seen your excellent video on the topic of YLOD, so I thought I'd share my own experience with it:

I got the CECHC04 on launch day. I don't remember exactly when I got my first YLOD, but it must've worked fine for at least 5-6 years. After I got the YLOD I researched the topic and found someone who was willing to reball the RSX (at that time reflow and reballing were pretty much the only available if I recall correctly). When I got my console back I was very happy that it turned on again, but I immediately noticed a problem that wasn't there before. The console was getting extremely loud when playing games (although it didn't seem to be overheating).

After 4-5 months or so the console started shutting itself off, with 3 beeps and a red blinking light, while I was playing Uncharted 2. Sometimes I could play for hours without issue, and sometimes it shut down in a matter of minutes. The only games I've experienced this in were demanding games like Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3. My theory was, that the console was overheating. After cleaning the console and changing thermal paste and pads the console became quieter, but the shutting off issue was still happening.

After some more digging I've stumbled upon the potential problem being dry thermal paste in between the die and IHS so I decided to try delidding the chips and see if that would fix the issue. The delidding of the Cell worked very well, but I just couldn't get through the adhesive to seperate the IHS of the RSX no matter what I tried. Initially I really didn't want to use a knife as a lever as was suggested by some, but since nothing else seemed to work I tried it after all. This is where I damaged some traces on the RSX and killed the chip.

I found someone who was offering to replace the RSX and when I got the console back, not only was it working again, it actually was quiet that time. Unfortunately that only lasted for about 6 months, before I was again greeted by the YLOD.

I remember hearing about the NEC/TOKIN capacitor thing a year or two back, but after going through 2 repairs that both didn't achieve a sustainable result I was sceptical and I decided to leave the console dead for now and wait to wait to see if Sony announces full backwards compatibility for the PS5. Obviously that didn't happen so I bought a PS3 superslim and a PS2.

It's incredible to see how far the community has come in diagnosing the issue. This Frankenstein PS3 stuff is fascinating to me. I still have my dead PS3, but I'm in no rush to get it repaired, because I'm quite happy with my current setup. With that said, I'm not gonna waste a backwards compatible PS3. I've kept it for a reason. If this Frankenstein 40nm RSX procedure proofs to be reliable over time I'll definitely give it a go.

 

[Saleen4971]

i had my laucnh 60Gbz YLOD on me - and i opened it up and blasted it with a heat gun on 2 occasions. first one lasted a few months (2 or 3 iirc), 2nd one lasted maybe 6 months. after that i sent it out to someone (ps3repairs? this was 12 years ago) and it worked fine ever since. i havent booted it up in years but still have it and a 320gb slim model.

 

[atreyu187]

So in my life I have had four CECHA/B models. The first two totally crapped the bed but a hack hadn't been released yet. Tried with installing a pot to control fan speeds but she died. Got it reballed once but pretty sure just to much damage. I got it on launch day for a healthy $600 USD so I was the only owner.


I got another one that I kept the thermal paste changed every 3-4 months. It was used and already had the seal removed. So who knows about that. Then it gave me a YLOD so sent it off to get a reball but it was just a reflow and it finally gave GLOD.


I had moved on to a CECH-2501A till 2016 when I got my "Black Beauty" I have shown numerous times. He did any amazing job with all he did and feel it is a huge reason it's still alive.

https://www.psx-place.com/threads/my-cechb-01-teensy-stealth.9534/

I found it on 2.10 OFW if I recall. Anyhow sent it off to get the stealth install shown in the link. It has been running amazing with temps similar to some slim units. It was my daily driver for 5 years with heavy use of the system. Still keep my fan speeds at 33% changing the paste every 6 months. It has never given me a single issue.


Strolling along Facebook market place I came across a mislabled CECHA the guy has listed as a slim for $75 if I recall and I know that one was on 1.80 so I went to check it out. Seal was still in place so I paid and ran off. Got the NEC caps done and use it as my primary system till I can find someone to reliably install a smaller chip.


That being said I feel it's kinda hit or miss but a lot of it is ownership as well. Seen some stuffed into close TV stands, some smoke inside (ewww) so never change the thermal paste, have roaches or golf ball sized dust bunnies. So I have 50/50 results with my systems but I feel they could have both been avoided.

 

[Andrei Iscu]

I had a PC shop that did repairs and remember in the late 2007's there were some NVidia Chipsets on laptops that kept dying after being in use for 2-4 years. People somehow heard about "reflow" and that is does wonders, and kept pouring in to have their laptops fixed. At that time there wasn't a lot of information regarding the way the BGA Graphics chip was layered. I kept telling customers I cannot offer any warranty on the fix, and my recommendation is if the fix works, backup what you need and just switch to another laptop. Despite no warranty being offered, they went with it. Empirical tests showed exactly what Louis Rossmann said: you could heat the chips to temps well bellow reflow ones and the fix would work for some time. I ended up testing even further, and the best fix was removing the chipset, "bake it" at ~340 degrees centigrade, reball it and place it back in the laptops. This yielded the most success cases and the longest running "zombies" as I called them, with some working for up to 5 years (last I know). and I kept a tight list of all the laptops I fixed this way. I had 3 I can confirm lasted over 5 years (belonging to friends), some that died after less than 6 months and most that returned to get another fix being around 1 to 1 and a half years. I always suspected it was something under the silicone, but now that I saw your video, I finally have some peace of mind in understanding what was going on... Thanks for the time spent into this.
PS: I did have one PS3 which had the whole procedure done. It lasted a bit over a year, and when it started failing again it was interesting: after 2-3 attempts to power it on it would work 2-3 days without a hitch, and then die again. The guy that brought it in originally sold it as soon as it started to show signs of failure and the victim brought back to my shop without knowing it was already worked upon. I checked the SN, found it in my books, told the guy and realized it was running for one year and a few days short of a month. Redoing the remove-bake-reball procedure made it work again, but I cannot say how long it lasted the second time.

 

[Midas Milosavljevic]

I was a young teenager when I had a launch ps3 console. After I got my YLoD, my dad found some guy who could fix it. I am not sure what he did, but after watching your video, I am pretty certain he reballed my system. After picking the system up again, the reballer straight up said that it will work for another year and die around that time frame. Funny enough he told me that I won't be able to fix it afterwards. Kinda strange because if I understand everything correctly, this should not be the case...
But since his prediction was so accurate, I kind of took it as fact and was not dissatisfied with the 'repair' job.

 

[witek-pl]

My desktop GF 7600 GT showed nasty gfx artifacts month after two years guarantee expired. After hotgun airflow worked near half year and do same things. GF 6XXX 7XXX and some 8XXX card series had same issues, known problem. So even you swap broken chip for another new but potentially defective it will happen again.
Here good explanation video:

I think the only good method for today is frankenstein chip swap.