PS3 Reconditioning CECHC04 Fat to hopefully prevent YLOD

[daft]

I recently ordered a second hand CECHC04 backwards compatible Fat (hybrid PS2 emulation) and I plan to service it and prepare it in such a way to make a YLOD least likely to happen.

To give an idea of my capabilities I would say I am an entry level hobbyist. I've disassembled PS3 slim, PS4 and PS4 Pro to clean of dust and repaste. But nothing crazy, no soldering.

The description of the item is "used checked and works , runs quiet plays ps2 and ps3 games
used condition as have marks etc but ok."

I'm going to outline a checklist of what I will do (and not do) and if there's any other tips from users I encourage feedback.

The OEM warranty sticker is still intact so I think this is the first time this console will be taken apart.

If it's worth mentioning, my main PS3 is a Slim CECH-2003A with CFW, I only plan to use this BC Fat for PS2 games.

I plan to:

1. Replace the OEM 60GB HDD with a Samsung Evo 750 120GB SSD
2. Install HFW + HEN (I refuse to risk a valuable BC Fat when getting CFW with a suspicious Russian clone of bgtoolset or other fake)
3. Check total playtime with webMAN to get an idea how used the console is
4. Set the fan speed to 33% by default and maximum temp to 65C (I read somewhere the BGA starts to wear away at 68C and above)
5. Tear down the console, clean it out of dust and repaste the CELL and RSX
6. Depending on how used it is, maybe replace the fan?
7. Depending on how used it is, maybe replace the thermal pads? Are there additional pads I can put inside that Sony didn't put, I know they added one or two when they made the CECHCxx compared to CECHAxx

I plan NOT to:

• Replace the NEK/TOKINs
• Reball/reflow the RSX and/or even replace it with a 65nm or 40nm variant
• Delid the CELL and/or RSX

 

[daft]

Update: so it has 54 days clocked on webman MOD... wow lol. I feel incredibly lucky, this thing only cost me £70/$85 off eBay. It's actually in really good condition considering it's over 15 years old, has scratches on the exterior but could be worse. I'm more excited now to recondition this thing so it lasts for much longer. Ignore the rudimentary setup, was only getting it to the stage for me to see how used it was.

 

[CrazyRati0n]

Your plan with preventative maintenance seems reasonable. Of course it's always better to prevent than heal. From my side I will give you a couple tips and finetunings, which I find it crucial to do:

Replace the OEM 60GB HDD with a Samsung Evo 750 120GB SSD

Definitely you should go for at least 500GB HDD or SSD, because in 120GB will most-likely you will fit 3-4 games.

Tear down the console, clean it out of dust and repaste the CELL and RSX

That's not enough for 90 nm RSX/CELL. If you really want to decrease temperatures, you have to delid both processors.

Depending on how used it is, maybe replace the thermal pads? Are there additional pads I can put inside that Sony didn't put, I know they added one or two when they made the CECHCxx compared to CECHAxx

That's indeed very good idea, when I disassembled my CECHB00, I replaced all thermal pads except this which dissipates the heat from BD Controller. For the capacitors/resistors on motherboard, Sony used 1.5mm thermal pads. For the Chipset, it is 2mm. I recommend you getting Gelid Extreme Thermal Pads, they are very effective.

If it comes to the thermal paste, I went for Honeywell PTM 7950. I ordered it from aliexpress and put on the IHS and dies of cores. And this is the result on my BC PS3 CECHB00 (90 nm RSX and CELL) after 1h of gameplay in TLOU and around 20 minutes of idle in XMB:

So as you can see, I set a fan speed manually at 30% and I've got these results. Personally, I believe it is even possible to have temperatures below 60 degrees at load with 90nm RSX, I am planning to e.g. install active cooling for PSU and remove the upper housing of the PSU itself (it is metal based, so it keeps a lot of heat, your CECHC04 has got most-likely either APS226 or APS231, which is also "full-metal jacket").

 

[daft]

Your plan with preventative maintenance seems reasonable. Of course it's always better to prevent than heal. From my side I will give you a couple tips and finetunings, which I find it crucial to do:


Definitely you should go for at least 500GB HDD or SSD, because in 120GB will most-likely you will fit 3-4 games.


That's not enough for 90 nm RSX/CELL. If you really want to decrease temperatures, you have to delid both processors.


That's indeed very good idea, when I disassembled my CECHB00, I replaced all thermal pads except this which dissipates the heat from BD Controller. For the capacitors/resistors on motherboard, Sony used 1.5mm thermal pads. For the Chipset, it is 2mm. I recommend you getting Gelid Extreme Thermal Pads, they are very effective.

If it comes to the thermal paste, I went for Honeywell PTM 7950. I ordered it from aliexpress and put on the IHS and dies of cores. And this is the result on my BC PS3 CECHB00 (90 nm RSX and CELL) after 1h of gameplay in TLOU and around 20 minutes of idle in XMB:

View attachment 39776
View attachment 39777
So as you can see, I set a fan speed manually at 30% and I've got these results. Personally, I believe it is even possible to have temperatures below 60 degrees at load with 90nm RSX, I am planning to e.g. install active cooling for PSU and remove the upper housing of the PSU itself (it is metal based, so it keeps a lot of heat, your CECHC04 has got most-likely either APS226 or APS231, which is also "full-metal jacket").

Thanks for the info. Do you know if the CELL/RSX get under heavy load playing PS2 games? As that is what I plan to exclusively use it for, so I hopefully won't really be in a scenario of something known to be heavy like TLOU. I'm aware the fan situation with PS2 games is different to PS3, so just wondering. Unless PS2 games do run heavy load.

If I'm constantly under really bad temps and delidding is the only solution I do have a spare very musty, filthy 20xx Slim which powers on and can play games but the fan well and truly is like an airplane engine (not my main PS3). I could practice delidding on that if I were to delid this BC Fat (I have zero experience delidding). Something to consider in the future though.

 

[SkewbTf2]

Your plan with preventative maintenance seems reasonable. Of course it's always better to prevent than heal. From my side I will give you a couple tips and finetunings, which I find it crucial to do:


Definitely you should go for at least 500GB HDD or SSD, because in 120GB will most-likely you will fit 3-4 games.


That's not enough for 90 nm RSX/CELL. If you really want to decrease temperatures, you have to delid both processors.


That's indeed very good idea, when I disassembled my CECHB00, I replaced all thermal pads except this which dissipates the heat from BD Controller. For the capacitors/resistors on motherboard, Sony used 1.5mm thermal pads. For the Chipset, it is 2mm. I recommend you getting Gelid Extreme Thermal Pads, they are very effective.

If it comes to the thermal paste, I went for Honeywell PTM 7950. I ordered it from aliexpress and put on the IHS and dies of cores. And this is the result on my BC PS3 CECHB00 (90 nm RSX and CELL) after 1h of gameplay in TLOU and around 20 minutes of idle in XMB:

View attachment 39776
View attachment 39777
So as you can see, I set a fan speed manually at 30% and I've got these results. Personally, I believe it is even possible to have temperatures below 60 degrees at load with 90nm RSX, I am planning to e.g. install active cooling for PSU and remove the upper housing of the PSU itself (it is metal based, so it keeps a lot of heat, your CECHC04 has got most-likely either APS226 or APS231, which is also "full-metal jacket").

I remember something about active cooling on PSU, it is better external psu than active cooling by the way PS3 dispels the heat, but nice work you are doing great
Why you don't delid Cell and RSX?

Enviado desde mi moto e6 play mediante Tapatalk

 

[CrazyRati0n]

I delidded CPU and GPU. I just only advised OP that changing thermal paste on the IHSes is not going to give a significant improvement in decreasing temps. And when it comes to active cooling for PSU, I think adding additional fan to cool the power supply seems good idea, because the fan of PS3 cools the lower compartment of console, not upper. There is literally no air flow on the PSU and making the air move on the PSU should give good results.

 

[CrazyRati0n]

Do you know if the CELL/RSX get under heavy load playing PS2 games?

Hmmm, hard to say tbh. Full BC PS3 has got two types of PS2 games execution:
1. ps2_emu.self is a routine responsible for using built in EE+GS chip to run PS2 games,
2. ps2_netemu.self is responsible to run full software emulation of PS2 games.

Obviously, performance and compatibility-wise, I use the ps2_emu.self. But because of my curiosity I switched for a while the routine to ps2_netemu.self to check the difference. And what is very interesting thing that during gameplay of PS2 game whenever I click the "PS" button on a controller, it shows the menu for PS2 emulator and on the left upper corner also shows me the temps for CPU and GPU. So after a short gameplay in Burnout 3 Takedown it shew me 59 degrees on CPU and 52-53 on RSX. But this is full software emulation - it virtualizes both the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer on CELL and RSX, so I think the temperatures are quite good. I could do some more extended testing while playing other PS2 games for a longer while, will tell you later.
The CECHC04 has got hybrid PS2 emulation, which means that the Graphics Synthesizer is on the motherboard, but the Emotion Engine is emulated by CELL. This means that this model has got additional routine for emulating PS2 Games: ps2_gxemu.self - on this emulator your PS3 does all graphics computations natively on GS, only EE instructions are executed on CELL. So I think you should have better temps than these 59 and 52 which I got (ofc after you delid and repaste both processors).
So overall I am very, very certain that while playing PS2 games, you can decrease the fan speed a bit.

I could practice delidding on that if I were to delid this BC Fat (I have zero experience delidding).

Unfortunately, delidding process is very risky and done not carefully and gently, might kill CPU and/or GPU. Much higher risk is while delidding CELL, as on the CELL itself there are a loooooot of very, very tiny paths, which can be easily broke by the sharp knife/blade/razor.
I also haven't done the delid of any of the processor in the past, but I watched various videos on delidding process and I used precision knife and very thin razor blade, which I cut to the knife accordingly. The key to win is to start delidding of CPU from the right side and at all cost don't put a lot of force and don't hurry.
For me very helpful was this tutorial:

It is in Polish, but tbh everything what guy is doing in the video (from showing the tools, cutting the razor blade and starting the delid) is self explanatory.

 

[daft]

The CECHC04 has got hybrid PS2 emulation, which means that the Graphics Synthesizer is on the motherboard, but the Emotion Engine is emulated by CELL. This means that this model has got additional routine for emulating PS2 Games: ps2_gxemu.self - on this emulator your PS3 does all graphics computations natively on GS, only EE instructions are executed on CELL. So I think you should have better temps than these 59 and 52 which I got (ofc after you delid and repaste both processors).
So overall I am very, very certain that while playing PS2 games, you can decrease the fan speed a bit.

Good to know thanks, I'm glad the hybrid emulation takes stress off the RSX.

Unfortunately, delidding process is very risky and done not carefully and gently, might kill CPU and/or GPU. Much higher risk is while delidding CELL, as on the CELL itself there are a loooooot of very, very tiny paths, which can be easily broke by the sharp knife/blade/razor.

Yeah I've watched a lot of delidding videos and familiar with the process, I have a friend who killed his original BC PS3 after his delid went wrong, he then killed 2 more non BC fats until the 3rd Fat delid went fine then he successfully delidded his 2nd BC Fat. So I would definitely practice on other systems first, probably the trashed 20xx Slim I have as I believe the glue is similar to the Fats (before Sony changed it later on with Slims to be really difficult to remove).

Or, I could even just pay a delidding service I guess. Pretty sure it would be a lot cheaper than having to buy another BC Fat.

 

[CrazyRati0n]

Or, I could even just pay a delidding service I guess.

If you don't feel convinced to do it on your own and you are not confident enough, of course if somebody in your nearby area does that kind of stuff, I would consider giving your console somebody experienced for delidding.
Sorry, but if you really, really want to extend the lifespan of your fat PS3, then delidding is the very first step in that process.

 

[daft]

If you don't feel convinced to do it on your own and you are not confident enough, of course if somebody in your nearby area does that kind of stuff, I would consider giving your console somebody experienced for delidding.
Sorry, but if you really, really want to extend the lifespan of your fat PS3, then delidding is the very first step in that process.

No need to be sorry, I understand the RRoD/YLoD sagas and Bumpgate and whatnot. Found a regional delidder with many positive ratings who charges $60 including shipping, which isn't all that bad. Wouldn't want to kill this BC Fat on such low playtime given its age. I'll consider their services.