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

[tracedg0d]

Yes, IC6200 is the RSX's linear voltage regulator that drives an N-channel MOSFET. These feed PWR to the RSX'a onboard memory. Without IC6200 the RSX is hosed. Best way to get another is from a donor board. If I were you I'd cut my losses and try to find a great deal on a working A model. Keep the busted console for parts and use it as the donor board when that PS3 gets the YLOD. In the mean time learn, read, and get proficient at fixing console.

Got it, I knew when looking at the schematics for COK-001 and saw it was a Voltage Regulator I figured it was done for haha. I'll have to keep my eye out for a working A01, but I might pick up another YLOD system and see if there is any hope with the next one. Thanks for the input!

 

[RIP-Felix]

If you enjoy working on the consoles for the learning experience, then by all means. Just expect the worst. Do proper troubleshooting first to actually give the console a chance. Start with the SYSCON method to have a place to start. Jumping strait to the tokens is like buying a lottery ticket as a retirement fund. Almost zero chance of that working out for you.

 

[RIP-Felix]

...might also get another A01 because i have a problem, lol.

Haha...me too. I have 7 now! This one came in the mail this week:

Spoiler: Shipping Sucks!

It looked pristine in the listing. That happened in shipping! Too bad too, cuz this one was factory sealed and a prime candidate for reballing. I still haven't broken the seal to see how extensive the damage is. Luckily the seller refunded me partially. So I only ended up paying $20 for it. From the corner that broke open, looks like the BluRay drive got smacked hard. The Motherboard is cracked in half too. The console barely fit in the box and there was no protection on the top and bottom. Looks like it took a 30-foot fall strait on that corner. Probably sheared off all kinds of components. I've been putting off opening it.

It takes all the wind out of your sails seeing something like this.

 

[vash32]

caps: https://www.ebay.com/itm/PS3-NEC-TO...SMD-Tantalum-Capacitor-0-045-Ohm/143630135112
probably overpaid but i only really have access to ebay gift cards lol

Yes, don't buy them at all. It's not overpaid but that TPSD477M006R0045 has too much ESR, it's 45 mOhms. Going by the great info RIP-Felix has posted it needs to be more like 6 mOhms for ESR. The ETPSF270M6E looks to be the best way to go if you're not going to buy new old NEC/TOKIN from eBay or Aliexpress. However, the price of 1 set of 270uf caps is almost the same as 5 sets of old but new NEC/TOKIN caps.

I have a nice working Japanese PS3 that is almost 100% but some games like The Last of Us will YLOD 5min into gameplay. So I'm thinking it needs some new caps. I order some new NEC/TOKIN for now but once they go bad, I'll try the ETPSF270M6E way.
The tamps never go over 68c at just 25% fan speed. Most are under 65c and at the lowest it can 50~56c.

 

[Pacorretaco]

Yes, don't buy them at all. It's not overpaid but that TPSD477M006R0045 has too much ESR, it's 45 mOhms. Going by the great info RIP-Felix has posted it needs to be more like 6 mOhms for ESR. The ETPSF270M6E looks to be the best way to go if you're not going to buy new old NEC/TOKIN from eBay or Aliexpress. However, the price of 1 set of 270uf caps is almost the same as 5 sets of old but new NEC/TOKIN caps.

I have a nice working Japanese PS3 that is almost 100% but some games like The Last of Us will YLOD 5min into gameplay. So I'm thinking it needs some new caps. I order some new NEC/TOKIN for now but once they go bad, I'll try the ETPSF270M6E way.
The tamps never go over 68c at just 25% fan speed. Most are under 65c and at the lowest it can 50~56c.

Looks like you have the real candidate. That's nice.
Even in your case, before removing the old tokins you could try being elegant and simply adding one tantalum in parallel to the existing tokin array (I'd start with RSX one), at least for a test.
You may very well get happy result.

Cheers

 

[MadMaxGR]

Guys, I have been wondering... Why should I replace the Tokin caps with tantalum since they will fail soon or later because of the ESR?

I found original Tokin capacitors that cost almost the same with the other tantalum capsand juat replace 1:1 all of them on board.

My only worry is how to solder them without burning the plastic cover of Tokin.

Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk

 

[RIP-Felix]

Why should I replace the Tokin caps with tantalum since they will fail soon or later ...?

Why does everyone believe this?

1. Fat PS3s were prone to the YLOD whereas the slims are less so. Slims and super slims, used less or no NEC/TOKINs. So they "hypothesize" the caps are the reason. However, there is a counter hypothesis. The fat model PS3s had the 90nm RSX and CPU, which produce much more heat. They also had beefier power supplies, that dump a bunch of heat into the console. And the Fat's airflow design was less efficient. Heat kills electronics, the fats had more. A YLOD is a general hardware failure and there are may types of YLOD. IMO, the second hypothesis fits the data better.
2. NEC stopped making them. SONY stopped using them. This "must" mean that they were a flawed technology. The counter hypothesis is that they went end of life because other technologies, such as tantalum polymer caps came down in price or up in performance and undercut the proadlizers. Maybe they were hard to manufacture. Who knows, there are a myriads of reason a company will abandon a product. Many of which have nothing to do with them being prone to failure.
3. NEC/TOKINs were used in laptops around the same time and they started failing too. It was widely known to be caused by the tokins. That was the claim made by the OP. I'm not sure there was an industry wide failure of NEC/TOKINs that led to devices everywhere to die. Seems like that's the kind of thing you would be able to easily find a technology journal report about. To be fair, I haven't researched the academic journals available on that technology, but if someone here would like to it could help us bring some evidence of validity to this claim. Otherwise we're really just taking the OP's word on this. And he's the guy that claimed "Statistically speaking, 90% of the YLOD its due to these capacitors, as long as the unit hasnt been touched, chances are that its the NEC/TOKIN Capacitors, due to they high failure rate." Nothing documented on this thread supports this claim. He tried this on 1 CECHC04 with instability in notoriously difficult to render games (GT6 and TLOU). So that's the original use case. There are other types of YLOD that have nothing to do with the filter caps (blown fuses, bad VRM, other capacitor failures, HDD failure, etc.) So right off the bat, that claim can't be true. If he made that up, he probably made up more than just that.

I'm not saying there's no seed of truth here, but the evidence needed to support the "myth" claimed in bold above never materialized.

 

[truemaster]

the truth is between. ive heard on assemblergames the nec/tokin thing again on ps3 and laptops too. but at the time ps3-xbox360 were in devenlopmend. the 90mm gpus tend to break solder from inside the chip not to main pcb-chip contacts that most people believe. thats why measurements with correct tools are needed. if someone including my self dont have the tools will blindly follow reports that maybe is the case with the ones problem or maybe its not.

 

[k24a1]

The ETPSF270M6E looks to be the best way to go if you're not going to buy new old NEC/TOKIN from eBay or Aliexpress.

has someone installed these caps before? this might seem like a viable option. i'd like to see photos of what people have done with these caps if possible.

 

[Pacorretaco]

Guys, I have been wondering... Why should I replace the Tokin caps with tantalum since they will fail soon or later because of the ESR?

I found original Tokin capacitors that cost almost the same with the other tantalum capsand juat replace 1:1 all of them on board.

My only worry is how to solder them without burning the plastic cover of Tokin.

Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk

I think @RIP-Felix slightly misunderstood your question.
But he's quite right in stressing that the big problem/misunderstanding of the "tokin fix" is the "when" to do it rather than "how" to do it.

Most of the problems come when people set out to "fix" their system by replacing tokins without proper diagnosis... When their tokins are just fine in reality.
Often the result is simply unsuccessful.
Often the result is a console beyond repair.
Other cases the result is even a false positive, due to the fiddly nature of most of the common ps3 problems.

But you are talking about the very rare case where a NEC Tokin capacitor replacement is actually warranted.
And that's where the kind of replacement actually matters. Be it less or more.

However I myself am not qualified to say, and I don't think there's enough long term evidence of how the tantalum is or isn't a good match for the tokins.

My guess is it might be fine enough, if the parameters of the tantalums are not too outside of the originally intended.
I'd call myself happy if console fails because of this before something else breaks.

Replacing the proadilizers with another proadilizers may not be that bad idea either. But as you say the installation is a lot more invasive. These probably won't be available forever and you'd also be always a bit unsure of the health of whatever you get in the mail.

But here's the funny part.
A good place to find healthy NEC/TOKIN capacitors is actually these old ps3s precisely!

So make sure you have the tokin fault before removing any of them from your beloved board! Dont do it on a false assumption!

 

[nyislander]

So make sure you have the tokin fault before removing any of them from your beloved board! Dont do it on a false assumption!

How do we verify the Tokin capacitors are the reason for the fault?

 

[RIP-Felix]

How do we verify the Tokin capacitors are the reason for the fault?

Oscilloscope. Failing that, process of elimination. Eliminate other commons causes first through multimeter troubleshooting and the SYSCON error codes. Be sure it's not a fuse or HDMI encoder, something like that. Press down on the GPU (pressure test) and see if it will boot. If it does, BGA defect.

I think that covers it.

has someone installed these caps before? this might seem like a viable option. i'd like to see photos of what people have done with these caps if possible.

Yes, I did. On the oscilloscope it had better noise rejection than a working Tokin array. I posted PS3#2 update on Page 143:

PlayStation 3 #2: Update
Yesterday I removed the rest of the NEC/TOKINs and installed 18x 270uF, 2.5v, 6mOhm ESR TaPol caps. Total capacitance = 4860uF matching SONY's specifications and the ESR is 0.333, which is better than the NEC/TOKIN array. I used 3x 20AWG solid core conductors for the + rail bridge this time (larger than PS3#1). While the soldering is a bit sloppy, it's electrically sound. The resistance after installation was 2.8 - 2.9 Ohms +/GND, indicating they are installed correctly without shorts. Pictures:

Spoiler

Result = YLOD, no change.

Discussion:
Originally I replaced only one NEC/TOKIN on the bottom side of the board (for both the CPU and RSX):

Spoiler

That worked great and was super stable during the first few days of testing. I was able to jailbreak the console and install webMAN mod to get fan control away from the SYSCON. I tested NBA Live 2010 for 1 hour. No problems. Then I download/installed all the updates to Gran Turismo 6 which took all night (it's a seriously HUGE DL). The console was on for about 18hrs strait. The next day I played GT6 for a few hours, temps were completly under control (<70C). I concluded that the console was fixed and shut it down.

Over the next few weeks I may have turned it on a couple of times, but it mostly sat unused. Then I picked up a PS2 title cheap from a local thrift shop. I thought, "I haven't tested a PS2 title yet." So I poped it in and within 2 minutes the console YLOD!

So that brings me this weekend. If the BGA was fine and the NEC/TOKINs were the problem, then replacing them should have fixed the PS3. But it didn't! The EE research I've done suggests that 4800uF is important for the best performance of the circuit SONY engineered (COK-001 motherboard). Theoretically, I should not need more capacitance. @squeept's oscilloscope measurements suggest this as well. Although his probing technique could have been better, they do show more noise above and below 4800uF. That seems to confirm the theory. So I highly doubt that adding more capacitance at this point would make a difference.

The only way forward for me now is to reflow/reball the RSX. This makes two consoles that have failed shortly after trying the "Tantalum Fix." While yes, I confirmed the tantalum "fix" temporarily made the YLOD disappear, so far in my experience it has not lasted more than a few power cycles. This may be discouraging news, but my piddly two experiences, @squeept's many experiences, and the evidence we've gathered so far is consistent with the YLOD being primarily a BGA problem. The idea that, "we have all been assuming the BGA was at fault, when all along the capacitors were the culprit" is a tantalizing narrative, but that doesn't make it true. As a scientist, I'm obligated to suspect it's a red herring.

 

[nyislander]

Oscilloscope. Failing that, process of elimination. Eliminate other commons causes first through multimeter troubleshooting and the SYSCON error codes. Be sure it's not a fuse or HDMI encoder, something like that. Press down on the GPU (pressure test) and see if it will boot. If it does, BGA defect.

I think that covers it.

Right, oscilloscope - most of us don't have that! I've checked multiple JL points & all fuses (obviously). SYSCON results are cryptic - they point in a direction but are not specific.

Any other words of wisdom for the Tokin "dead end"?

 

[Pacorretaco]

Right, oscilloscope - most of us don't have that! I've checked multiple JL points & all fuses (obviously). SYSCON results are cryptic - they point in a direction but are not specific.

Any other words of wisdom for the Tokin "dead end"?

Yes, you are absolutely right. But that's precisely the point. It's not easy.

Everytime someone thinks it's easy, another hard to replace system gets destroyed. Or another dubious ebay ad cashing in on the hype pops out and people buy it.

People who had no previous experience with these things start hunting down the few remaining units that couldn't be fixed in 14 years. Thinking it's just a matter of following a straight forward "tutorial that works 90% of the time". Sometimes just for the sake of having one of those working again... Sometimes even for profit. I've even seen people who would do this to a fine working console so that... "It runs forever"

You want to replace the NEC/TOKIN capacitors in your system just to see if it works? Fair enough. I can see why you might want to think like this. But be aware that you are betting your money on a lottery ticket. Will they be indeed the reason for the problem?

If it's a 90nm backwards compatible system... They probably won't.
If it's the typical YLOD that is shorter than 5 seconds... They probably won't.
If your console responds to the funny "heat test"... They probably won't. (Remember the grandious "towel trick"? Yet there were no tokins on the 360)
If you saw graphical artifacting of any kind... They probably won't.
If you have a GLOD... They probably won't.

If your backwards compatible problem is any other than the original "shutdown under heavy load" "Game-specific YLOD" or whatever you want to call it... NEC/TOKIN capacitors are probably not your problem.
And if you do have this issue... It can actually be solved most likely without removing any of your old NEC/Tokin capacitors. So not even in this case is needed to make irreversible alterations to the system.

But, you may still think... "can't trust someone who uses the word "probably" that much. Well, you can still go ahead and do your thing. Or you can do proper diagnosis. If not with oscilloscope, you can get secondary error code with the help of a cheap dongle.
It won't be as "easy" as following the "90% tutorial" but your scared to death console will be grateful.
(And don't forget, sometimes all it takes to revive these fat girls is to talk to them nicely)

Now calling something a "fix"... Not that easy

 

[Revak3115]

@squeept i believe i somehow received a PS3 that you worked on previously, i got it back in may and redid the NECs on the RSX since it had YLOD, and it still works to this day btw. and i noticed some work done on it. only reason im saying this now is because i seen your eBay listing with the same work done on the ps3's you do. this ps3 had a big silver warranty sticker and i took a look at the insides and this is what it looks like, is this your work? if not, whoever did work on this before definitely took notes from you lol. sorry for the bad quality this photo was from may (still have this system btw)

 

[RIP-Felix]

Right, oscilloscope - most of us don't have that! I've checked multiple JL points & all fuses (obviously). SYSCON results are cryptic - they point in a direction but are not specific.

Any other words of wisdom for the Tokin "dead end"?

I say the word Oscilloscope and you couldn't see beyond it...

Yes, you can easily press down on the GPU to see if there is a BGA defect. Use some aluminum heat sinks & see if it boots with extra pressure (Pressure Test). If it does, you need a reball. If it doesn't you may still have a BGA defect, but it's less likely.

Spoiler: Instant YLOD or 2-5s YLOD - Can't boot console

Let's say you :

• Disassemble the console then put it back together. Test, no change.
  Spoiler: Why?

  If you have a BGA defect, minor changes in pressure to the chip may allow it to boot. If you take it apart and install tantalums or other mods, you'll never know if boots because of the mods you did, or simply the pressure/reassembly that did it.
• Thoroughly Inspected the board for damage, cleaned off all corrosion, and touched up all the dodgy connections with flux and solder. Cleaning thoroughly afterwards of course.
  
• Confirmed every pad missing a component is supposed to be unpopulated.
  
• Checked every fuse (Continuity means it's good). Replaced any bad ones.
  
• Checked every cap (Resistance below 1 Ohm means it's bad). Replaced any bad ones.
  
• Checked the Liner Voltage Regulators and MOSFETs (1.5v VDDIO & VDDA, 1.2v VDDR, 1.8v VDDQ, and etc. Double check these in schematic of the A model. It's the same for later models, but the part numbers and location on the board is different. And some combined the MOSFET inside the VRM).
• Performed the SYSCON to see if any error code implicate an HDMI encoder, or other weird component. Or perhaps can clue you into another area to check. You fix those or there weren't any decipherable ways forward.
  Spoiler: speculation

  IMO a 3034 seems to be a BGA defect. I had one on PS3#2, which didn't respond to the tantalum fix (proven on Oscilloscope they were fine). Must have been BGA. And I have one on PS3#4, stock, sealed, unadulterated 2s YLOD I'm using for testing. Pretty sure it's a clear BGA defect and it only has a 3034 error. Tokins tested fine.
• You perform the Pressure test and the console still doesn't boot.

That's when I would say you've exhausted all your avenues, done you due diligence, and are ready to take a shot at the TOKINs. Having said that, it's still difficult to install them properly and getting good wetting on the solder. In my experience, it required hot air. That's hard on the area right next to the chips, stresses the motherboard, and could pop a BGA connection. If you didn't have a BGA defect before, you could now. So check the SYSCON error codes after the replacement to be sue they didn't change.

Spoiler: Intermittent or Random YLOD - Unstable Console (Not overheating)

Follow all the previous troubleshooting steps. On this one you can try the Piggyback method. This adds the least amount of heat to the area. If the instability were caused by a simple lack of capacitance it could make it stable and implicate the caps. However, @squeept already showed a console that ran fine with just 3 NEC/TOKINs, so there's probably more to it than a simple lack of capacitance. Probably the bad caps need to be removed, as they are causing the interference. Simply adding more capacitors is counterproductive. The bad ones have to go. This has been discussed before. An oscilloscope really is necessary here. If the tokins are fine, then this is almost certainly a BGA defect.

Now, if all of that sounds difficult, then congratulations! You have been paying attention. If you were hoping this was a miracle, that it would save you the trouble of "troubleshooting," then you are playing blackjack instead of counting cards. One is gambling the other is a systematic approach that tips the odd in your favor. Your skill and tools will decide if you're gambling or investing.

@squeept , if you would be so kind as to place a set on NEC/TOKINs in your drying oven at 120C for a month, that would be much appreciated. I would like to test a Hypothesis. I want to see if a Multimeter set to AC voltage (TrueRMS) can pickup the 100mV ripple. It should read 20-50mV. If so then people could use a simple multimeter to diagnose their tokins. Kinda like how you can see if the diodes on a rectifier are bad. Of course, it won't help someone with an instant or 2-5s YLOD, as your meter needs time to settle on a reading. Might be useful on intermittent or randon YLOD that are stable in the menu. IDK, probably not going to work.

 

[squeept]

@squeept i believe i somehow received a PS3 that you worked on previously, i got it back in may and redid the NECs on the RSX since it had YLOD, and it still works to this day btw. and i noticed some work done on it. only reason im saying this now is because i seen your eBay listing with the same work done on the ps3's you do. this ps3 had a big silver warranty sticker and i took a look at the insides and this is what it looks like, is this your work? if not, whoever did work on this before definitely took notes from you lol. sorry for the bad quality this photo was from may (still have this system btw)

Holy shit, yeah, that looks like mine. I've always used that red silicone. I haven't had those white thermal pads in YEARS, so that's an old one. Like 3 or 4 years ago. Don't know why they wouldn't get in touch with me first, unless it's been so long they straight up forgot who they bought it from.

If you got it off eBay, would you mind sending me the username in a DM? I'm curious when it's from, how long it lasted, and if it was reballed or not. I don't think I was reballing by default that long ago, and it definitely pre-dates when I would have been checking the caps.

edit: @Revak3115 hit me with the last name in DM. Can't find it in my records. It's either from 2017 or earlier (my Paypal records only go back a few years and I don't think I've ever moved any PS3 anywhere but eBay) or it changed hands multiple times.

 

[squeept]

@squeept , if you would be so kind as to place a set on NEC/TOKINs in your drying oven at 120C for a month, that would be much appreciated. I would like to test a Hypothesis. I want to see if a Multimeter set to AC voltage (TrueRMS) can pickup the 100mV ripple. It should read 20-50mV. If so then people could use a simple multimeter to diagnose their tokins. Kinda like how you can see if the diodes on a rectifier are bad. Of course, it won't help someone with an instant or 2-5s YLOD, as your meter needs time to settle on a reading. Might be useful on intermittent or randon YLOD that are stable in the menu. IDK, probably not going to work.

I've got 10 more systems waiting in the pile. If I don't find a naturally failed set in there, I'll start cooking some and see what happens.

 

[aminiani]

Hi..i need the JTP-001 datasheet pdf but i cant find it..can you please give me this?

 

[RIP-Felix]

@squeept i believe i somehow received a PS3 that you worked on previously, i got it back in may and redid the NECs on the RSX since it had YLOD, and it still works to this day btw. and i noticed some work done on it. only reason im saying this now is because i seen your eBay listing with the same work done on the ps3's you do. this ps3 had a big silver warranty sticker and i took a look at the insides and this is what it looks like, is this your work? if not, whoever did work on this before definitely took notes from you lol. sorry for the bad quality this photo was from may (still have this system btw)

When you say you redid the NEC, do you mean you replaced them with new/old stock? And that worked? Sorry if you posed this already, I am working my way back through this thread page-by-page, but I'm only up to February. Besides, it sounds like you didn't mention this console. Just to confirm, this console is still working today? Model? I'm keeping track of this in a spreadsheet as I read the thread, but ALOT of people are leaving out these critical details.