There were YLODs in 2009 for sure, but thats not the life expectancy. Maybe the lower limit or a huge range. My UK launch edition PS3 didnt fail until 2019
Success story!
If you want to skip the back story of the system then skip on down to the second paragraph.
This is my CECHA01 that I got for Christmas 2006. It suffered YLOD in 2012. Then I boxed it away. In December 2017 I started getting curious about possible repairs for the system. Of course like a lot of us the internet led us to the infamous ref flow method. I never baked my board in an oven thankfully but I did follow I fixits guide for disassembly and reflow with a head and new paste on top of the IHS. To my surprise my dead system worked! After 5 years of sitting in storage! Well it worked great but a month later YLOD. So I took it apart thinking I did something wrong applying the paste so I re pasted, reflowed and it worked again for another month. This time I was convinced that the system was overheated so I needed to delid. Well I was able to delid both IHS successfully and the system worked great for another month. Then I put a fan mod in that I bought off of eBay but same result. The last time it YLOD'd before this repair it happens while I was playing Metal Gear Solid 4. I was in game for about 45 minutes when it happened last august. Around this time I found this thread and started following it but I wasn't confident in my ability to do this without royally screwing up.
Tonight I decided it was time to try to replace one of the Nec Tokins. Top side of the board. I started with the one furthest to the right on the RSX. I tried just using my resolder station heat like NSC uses in one of his recent videos. But I couldn't melt the solder with just the gun to have a clean removal like NSC so I had to use my solder tip ton help remove the Nec. Once that was done and the pads were cleaned up I scratched away 4 little squares where my minus (-) of the tantalums would go. I did this so I wouldn't have to worry about putting them at an angle. With a combination of my flux, 50/50 lead solder, and solder station I had my four tantalums in place. The tantalums I ordered are rated 470 uf 2.5 v. My strategy was just to replace one at a time and see what happens. My mentality on this was that it wouldn't work but it's worth a shot. I apologize for not having photos of my solder work but I have a photo of the caps I used and the system running with my MGS4 disc! I tested it with this game for about an hour ( It was the only game I had at the time) it ran flawlessly. Then I played black ops for another hour. No issues! I couldn't be happier right now. Thank you Naked_Snake1995 and everyone in this thread for your contributions!
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Ok, I get it. Can I measure the caps while still soldered? I guess not, so I will have to unsolder them yet again. And if I really do so, I could also just order 50 tantals from china, which are rated for 2,5V, so I can solder them in properly and fitting the diagonal pattern suggested on page 1. The tantals I use now are just too big, in lengt and height. I hope, I havent bend the PCB with them :/Hiya, if you have a multimeter, that measures capacitance, you could measure (out of circuit) each capacitor's capacitance and also its voltage, can use like a 1.5V AA or AAA battery to charge up the cap so you can measure it under a load too. To see if the caps are matching their rated values and are fitting with your calculations.
Why? Because caps sourced from China, that aren't coming from a well-known established authorized distributer, carries the risk of not having passed through strict quality assurance controls. Meaning, instead of a guaranteed Class-A quality capacitor (for example) the caps could be Class-B, Class-C, Class-D, etc, etc.
Also, the caps from China could be old stock, from decades ago. That's sometimes why components from the authorized distributers can be much more expensive, because it's new, Class-A quality stock, guaranteed. Point in case:- 50 x 470uF 6.3V Tantalum caps for like $4+ from AliExpress / Chinese eBay sellers, where as from the authorized distributers like DigiKey, Mouser, Farnell, etc, they are much more expensive.
In short, we can never guarantee that what we'll get from sellers in China won't be 2nd class / 3rd rate quality components (or worse). And it makes a huge difference to a device working or not, because if the values are so far off from what they are supposed to be rated as, then it could be like some fellow PS3 comrades have seen here - a cheap 470uF rated cap from China will actually measure as 350uF in a person's hands. And when we are trying to match the NEC/Tokin 1000uF / 1200uF (with their rated 20% plus, or 20% minus of that 1000uF / 1200uF) then minimum values really matter, because if we go under the minimum value the NEC/Tokins provided to the CELL / RSX then it seems the YLOD will still be there.
And maybe even if we used 1%, 5%, 10% (+/-) 'tight' valued Class-A capacitors, with quality & value ratings guaranteed, sourced from the authorized distributers, then still there is the following information to consider:- (below is a link to NEC/Tokin's own datasheet - (test2) using the '0E108' 1000uF)
https://web.archive.org/web/2007121...-tokin.com/product/cap/proadlizer/test02.html
(The guys from way back on Page 6 posted this, but the link didn't work, so here is the web archive link version)
....basically NEC shows to replace one of their 1000uF NEC/Tokin caps, we would need approx' 1200uF, using a combination of big tantalums (220uF in the NEC's example) capacitors and an array of small (10uF) MLCC (ceramic caps). The large tantalums for passing (fast transit) the low frequencies and the small MLCC caps for passing the high frequencies with fast response times. The special part of a single NEC/Tokin cap is that it can handle both low & high frequencies, all in one unit, so this is something to consider when trying to match the values of a replaced NEC/Tokin cap.
We can see what Sony did when they started replacing the NEC/Tokins with TANs + MLCCs combinations on the later PS3 boards, here is a link where we can see photos of PS3 board revisions / evolutions, and can see Sony adding more TANs + MLCCs:-
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Motherboard_Revisions
Seems that Sony didn't replace the NEC/Tokins like NEC suggested in the NEC 'datasheet' (test2). Because instead of 4 x 220uF Tans' and 35 x 10uF MLCCs, Sony decided to up the value of the Tans' to 470uF and reduced the number of MLCCs by alot, Sony's replacement version has (approx) 2 to 3 x MLCCs for every 1 x 470uF Tan' (photo below is from @littlebalup and his KTE-001 board, posted on Page 6 of this guide)
Each NEC/TOKIN equals 1200uF, so all tantalum capacitors put together must equal 1200uF or above. For 1 single NEC/TOKIN, so 2400uF or above for each side of gpu or cpu. More capacitance means the gpu or cpu might not starve for voltage during high demands, 4800uF for all 4 Nec/tokins per cpu /gpu is the factory capacitance on older bc consoles. About voltage..?. better to have higher voltage tantalums .but never go lower higher voltage tantalums will only use what they need.
You need 470uF or 330 uF not 4.7uF or 3.3uF no decimal point. Voltage is ok but uF is wrong at 4.7
Tantalum Capacitors "330/470uF - 2.5V/6.3V - Rated" 2.7 is fine it is above the required voltage but will be fine
Please read the beginning of this tutorial your question is answered for were to put jumper wire. You have no pictures for anyone to look at to help you. The wire can burn up if it is not thick enough 14 gauge copper solid wire is what I used on all my repairs. Anything smaller gets hot or burns up.
