PS3 (Research/Experimental) - NEC/TOKIN Capacitors Replacement - YLOD

Some success to report in fixing my YLOD slim. I replaced the each of the two NEC / Tokins on the underside of the board with four Panasonic 330uF tantalum caps . The PS3 now performs flawlessly. Thanks @Workz_777 for sharing your method of using kapton tape to insulate the negative strips. I think any other method could've easily resulted in a short due to my limited soldering skills.
 

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Hi, folks. New to the Forum. Like many others, I've read the entire thread over the course of 4-5 days. It captured my attention and I am intrigued. I'm trying my first capacitor swap on a CECHG-01 (SEM-001) that's been sitting dormant for probably 10 years.
If I burn the house down, no big loss.

I have three other CECHA-01's, two of which have the original NEC's and still functional to this day. I have my original (A) launch console in all it's glory still fully working. The third A-Console is a YLOD purchased on eBay slated for a capacitor swap as well to see if I can get it to boot. I figured that I would practice on the G console first :)

So far on the CECHG I've replaced the top NEC's with 4 tantalum caps rated at 470uf/6.5v. Still YLODing with no change of behavior of the 2 second YLOD. I'm going to keep going and replace the bottoms as well, just waiting on another shipment of caps.
I'll make sure to jumper these also when I remove the bottom NEC's.

I've been out of the soldering game for a while, but was a huge hobbyist back in the day, so it's nothing new. But I found this pretty challenging.
I'll keep updating my progress as I go.
 

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Griggs said:
Hi, folks. New to the Forum. Like many others, I've read the entire thread over the course of 4-5 days. It captured my attention and I am intrigued. I'm trying my first capacitor swap on a CECHG-01 (SEM-001) that's been sitting dormant for probably 10 years.
If I burn the house down, no big loss.

I have three other CECHA-01's, two of which have the original NEC's and still functional to this day. I have my original (A) launch console in all it's glory still fully working. The third A-Console is a YLOD purchased on eBay slated for a capacitor swap as well to see if I can get it to boot. I figured that I would practice on the G console first :)

So far on the CECHG I've replaced the top NEC's with 4 tantalum caps rated at 470uf/6.5v. Still YLODing with no change of behavior of the 2 second YLOD. I'm going to keep going and replace the bottoms as well, just waiting on another shipment of caps.
I'll make sure to jumper these also when I remove the bottom NEC's.

I've been out of the soldering game for a while, but was a huge hobbyist back in the day, so it's nothing new. But I found this pretty challenging.
I'll keep updating my progress as I go.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the fight! We'd love to hear your results.

Looking at your picture, it looks like you're missing most of the micro capacitors below Cell. On your picture, they're in the bottom right side. For reference, look at this (my picture is flipped from yours, my Cell is on the top left.
aSkeEdD.jpg
 
@marciolsf you're absolutely right! I didn't even notice that. I can say with confidence that I didn't knock these off.. I'm wondering now if someone attempted a barbaric reflow on this board? It's been sitting in a box for quite some time. I can't even remember where I got it, but it YLOD from day one since I acquired it.

Lol.. I'd say this board is toast as I'm not about to venture into soldering micro capacitors. At least I got some practice in before I move to the next project.

Thanks for catching that.
 
Griggs said:
@marciolsf you're absolutely right! I didn't even notice that. I can say with confidence that I didn't knock these off.. I'm wondering now if someone attempted a barbaric reflow on this board? It's been sitting in a box for quite some time. I can't even remember where I got it, but it YLOD from day one since I acquired it.

Lol.. I'd say this board is toast as I'm not about to venture into soldering micro capacitors. At least I got some practice in before I move to the next project.

Thanks for catching that.
Click to expand...
No problem! The pads look pretty clean... it doesn't take much to knock them off, but for that many to be missing, yeah, I bet it was a reflow gone badly. The caps are probably sitting at the bottom of someone's oven right now :)
 
XYZ said:
Some success to report in fixing my YLOD slim. I replaced the each of the two NEC / Tokins on the underside of the board with four Panasonic 330uF tantalum caps . The PS3 now performs flawlessly. Thanks @Workz_777 for sharing your method of using kapton tape to insulate the negative strips. I think any other method could've easily resulted in a short due to my limited soldering skills.
Click to expand...
in which page this method is written?
 
marciolsf said:
Welcome to the fight! We'd love to hear your results.

Looking at your picture, it looks like you're missing most of the micro capacitors below Cell. On your picture, they're in the bottom right side. For reference, look at this (my picture is flipped from yours, my Cell is on the top left.
aSkeEdD.jpg
Click to expand...
Griggs said:
@marciolsf you're absolutely right! I didn't even notice that. I can say with confidence that I didn't knock these off.. I'm wondering now if someone attempted a barbaric reflow on this board? It's been sitting in a box for quite some time. I can't even remember where I got it, but it YLOD from day one since I acquired it.

Lol.. I'd say this board is toast as I'm not about to venture into soldering micro capacitors. At least I got some practice in before I move to the next project.

Thanks for catching that.
Click to expand...
Woah, wait a minute, slow down.
You had me convinced that my CECHG, that still doesn't work, was under the same fate, until i found a photo of my model of board with the caps just like mine: https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/images/a/a8/SEM-001_Bottomside.jpg
In fact, after comparing Griggs' photo with my board, the caps are the exact same as mine, missing and in position just the same. So i'd say there's no issue there.
 
evaldas256 said:
Woah, wait a minute, slow down.
You had me convinced that my CECHG, that still doesn't work, was under the same fate, until i found a photo of my model of board with the caps just like mine: https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/images/a/a8/SEM-001_Bottomside.jpg
In fact, after comparing Griggs' photo with my board, the caps are the exact same as mine, missing and in position just the same. So i'd say there's no issue there.
Click to expand...

Thanks, @evaldas256 This give me new hope that I may be able to still save this SEM-001 board?
Now I have motivation to keep going on the other side, just waiting for more caps which should be here soon.

Were you able to get your SEM-001 fixed and to boot up?
Sorry, just re-read you post. Apparently, you did not.. :(
 
I pulled this from the CECHG-001 service manual. It states that it is for the SEM-001 (2nd-Gen) Mobo.

According to this @evaldas256 our boards may have suffered the same fate?
upon another inspection, to me, it does look like these capacitors were there by the looks of the solder joints..
 

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Griggs said:
Thanks, @evaldas256 This give me new hope that I may be able to still save this SEM-001 board?
Now I have motivation to keep going on the other side, just waiting for more caps which should be here soon.

Were you able to get your SEM-001 fixed and to boot up?
Sorry, just re-read you post. Apparently, you did not.. :(
Click to expand...
Don't get your hopes up too high. I replaced all but one tokin per chip (to avoid having to make the bridges) 3x470uf 10V, and then after that didn't work, i added more caps to compensate for those last tokins, and later 2 more per chip, same result. I did however get a CECHH working after replacing just one tokin on the RSX, but that one needs a reflow as it has cracked solder balls under the RSX. I get artifacts on the screen after a few minutes.
 
Griggs said:
I pulled this from the CECHG-001 service manual. It states that it is for the SEM-001 (2nd-Gen) Mobo.

According to this @evaldas256 our boards may have suffered the same fate?
upon another inspection, to me, it does look like these capacitors were there by the looks of the solder joints..
Click to expand...
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/SEM-00x
Here you can see three different photos of the same board. Despite the photos being so blurry besides the one i showed you before, they all seem to be "missing" all those same caps.
 
Well.. I'll tell you what. I have a working CECHG-01 here and I'm going to pull it apart to verify. Fully operational system with the original NEC's, so this will solidify the fact that it is like that from the factory and that it was designed that way.
I do believe you, don't get me wrong, just need to see for myself :)

IMO, there's no way at this point all of the SEM-001 boards you referenced, yours, and mine are all the same.

Confused as to why the service manual would be different.. I'll see if I can dig up another reference on a service manual for the SEM-001.
 
Griggs said:
I pulled this from the CECHG-001 service manual. It states that it is for the SEM-001 (2nd-Gen) Mobo.

According to this @evaldas256 our boards may have suffered the same fate?
upon another inspection, to me, it does look like these capacitors were there by the looks of the solder joints..
Click to expand...
And i just checked over both sides of my board comparing it to these:
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/images/a/a8/SEM-001_Bottomside.jpg
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/images/1/10/SEM-001_Topside.jpg
Both have the exact same components, besides some variation in fuse appearance. All fuses test okay as well.
 
@evaldas256 I opened up my working G console. These images are of a fully functional CECHG-01 (SEM-001). No micro caps like all the rest. These caps are not there by design although the service manual seems to disagree.
I'm thinking a board revision along the way somewhere?

I guess the point is, our boards are okay and check out in that aspect.
 

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Griggs said:
@evaldas256 I opened up my working G console. These images are of a fully functional CECHG-01 (SEM-001). No micro caps like all the rest. These caps are not there by design although the service manual seems to disagree.
I'm thinking a board revision along the way somewhere?

I guess the point is, our boards are okay and check out in that aspect.
Click to expand...
Amazing discovery! Question is, what's filtering those voltages, then? Are we relying solely on the tokins for that? This might confirm one of Squeept 's tests, where he ran a board without almost any tokins. If that's the case, I'd guess this model is even more sensitive to fluctuations than models that have both tokins + micro.
 
marciolsf said:
Amazing discovery! Question is, what's filtering those voltages, then? Are we relying solely on the tokins for that? This might confirm one of Squeept 's tests, where he ran a board without almost any tokins. If that's the case, I'd guess this model is even more sensitive to fluctuations than models that have both tokins + micro.
Click to expand...

It would be pure speculation at this point to say for sure.
The question too would be has anyone here been able to revive a SEM-001 motherboard with a tantalum cap replacement?
Reading through all of the posts, I don't remember if anyone has.
 
Griggs said:
It would be pure speculation at this point to say for sure.
The question too would be has anyone here been able to revive a SEM-001 motherboard with a tantalum cap replacement?
Reading through all of the posts, I don't remember if anyone has.
Click to expand...
That's a great question, does anyone know?
But on the topic of having so few caps there, the CECHH also has what seems to be the same amount of caps there, and i did revive it with the replacement of one Tokin. Maybe more Tokins need to die before a tantalum replacement isn't sufficient enough.
CECHH board:
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/images/a/a8/DIA-001_Side-B.JPG
 
Griggs said:
It would be pure speculation at this point to say for sure.
The question too would be has anyone here been able to revive a SEM-001 motherboard with a tantalum cap replacement?
Reading through all of the posts, I don't remember if anyone has.
Click to expand...
Yep, I'm just throwing crap at the wall... Something has to be handling the task those caps were performing, I just don't know what! You're correct, we'd know for sure if we find a repaired SEM-001. Mine is a COK-001, and it's the only one I have at the moment.
 
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