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

[M13k0_27]

syscon guide?

how am I supposed to know what's causing the R/YLOD?

Nevermind that, I found what you're referring to, my brain is just fried looking at all of this because I have no real idea what I need/am supposed to be doing, and I'm going through the thread.

syscon guide?

how am I supposed to know what's causing the R/YLOD?

Nevermind that, I found what you're referring to, my brain is just fried looking at all of this because I have no real idea what I need/am supposed to be doing, and I'm going through the thread.

You only need a lot of patience and attention while you make things over the board, with a bit of curiosity you'll be able to do it. There are a lot of information in that thread.

https://www.psx-place.com/threads/f...syscon-first-steps-and-error-reporting.30100/


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[squeept]

On the importance of choosing the correct capacitor values.... I am currently working on an original Game Boy DMG-01. I removed all the capacitors, repaired some water damage, then ultrasonic cleaned it. I wanted to make sure it worked before I started reassembling it, so I tested it out. Everything worked perfectly....

Even though I forgot entirely to put any capacitors back on the board.

I know this has no bearing on a PS3, I just thought it was funny.

 

[Billerd]

Will replacing the capacitors be enough, if they do indeed fix it? I see people delidding the RSX/CPU and I just do not have the balls to even attempt that to reapply paste. Is delidding absolutely necessary to keep the system living long?

 

[Billerd]

I bought a set of 330uf capacitors, and I have a CECHA01fat PS3. They'll work fine, right? Someone recommended that but I'm seeing 470 is necessary except for a specific model.

 

[M13k0_27]

Will replacing the capacitors be enough, if they do indeed fix it? I see people delidding the RSX/CPU and I just do not have the balls to even attempt that to reapply paste. Is delidding absolutely necessary to keep the system living long?

I suggest you to be careful...before removing nec tokins (if you want to follow this route without checking the errors, again, ylod could be caused by everything) try to solder two 1000uf caps on the opposite side of rsx (top) and two on the opposite side of the cell; pay attention to the polarity and don't cause shorts around, scrape away a little bit of green paint for doing it. If applying these 4 caps won't solve the issue, ylod is on another area of the board... DON'T try to reflow, If you don't obtain specific errors this procedure could be dangerous only...

Let we know how it goes.


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[Billerd]

I suggest you to be careful...before removing nec tokins (if you want to follow this route without checking the errors, again, ylod could be caused by everything) try to solder two 1000uf caps on the opposite side of rsx (top) and two on the opposite side of the cell; pay attention to the polarity and don't cause shorts around, scrape away a little bit of green paint for doing it. If applying these 4 caps won't solve the issue, ylod is on another area of the board... DON'T try to reflow, If you don't obtain specific errors this procedure could be dangerous only...

Let we know how it goes.


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I don't have any 1000uf caps, I just dropped $50 on 32 330uf caps like someone recommended.The syscon stuff looked way too complicated even with the guides. I def know reflowing is pointless. I'm just going to replace the nec tokins one bye one and go from there. Don't want to spend any more money right now esp since $50 aint cheap lol.

 

[M13k0_27]

I don't have any 1000uf caps, I just dropped $50 on 32 330uf caps like someone recommended.The syscon stuff looked way too complicated even with the guides. I def know reflowing is pointless. I'm just going to replace the nec tokins one bye one and go from there. Don't want to spend any more money right now esp since $50 aint cheap lol.

1000uf electrolytic capacitors are really cheap, you can try them, they will avoid you removing nec tokins for no reason... (it's just a test, if they works you can proceed).


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[Wodring]

I bought a set of 330uf capacitors, and I have a CECHA01fat PS3. They'll work fine, right? Someone recommended that but I'm seeing 470 is necessary except for a specific model.

I believe that 330uF will work just fine,(i preffer 470uF for space), as long as they are correct voltage and good quality caps, from what i´ve read, the yellow ones are really bad quality(correct me if i´m wrong), what M13k0_27 said is a good option as that will help you not to waste time on a maybe unfixable PS3
OFF TOPIC
if someone could help me to identify this little component from a Dualshock 4 JDM-030 PCB, would be much aprecciated, the controller works, but does not charge nor with usb cable or charging stand, battery and usb pcb are ok, checking it with multimeter gives continuity, i think its shorted, i have another JDM-030 and on this one it does not have continuity
https://postimg.cc/F11ybCRy

 

[RIP-Felix]

...I don't check the thread for a few days and people are already wasting their time and money on this myth.

Now, before you do anything you need to decide which camp your in...There are 2 camps of people:

1. You were hoping to fix it yourself to save some money.
2. You were hoping to fix it yourself for the fun of it.

Spoiler: Camp 1 People

Sell your broke console for parts and buy a working console. It'll save you time and money. Most of the YLOD are due to RSX problems that you can't easily fix and requires equipment that costs more than a new console anyway. Not worth the trouble.

..."But my saves!", you say? Well...yeah! That's a fair counterpoint!

1. Perform the Pressure test to see if applying pressure to the RSX will allow your console to boot. This confirms a BGA defect and possibly allows you enough time to backup your saves.
2. If the pressure test doesn't work, consider the SYSCON error codes. It only costs $5 for the USB-Serial adapter and is easy to perform. IMO, the reason is to see if you have a 3034 (requires reball). If you don't, then it could be an easier DIY fix. But a 3034 is a death sentence for camp 1 people...
3. You can try using hot air over the RSX area. You're not reflowing it, just trying to warp the board a little. This is why many people initially thought the NEC/TOKIN fix worked, because the heat needed to remove/install tantalum caps mechanically reconnects the solder balls so the console will boot until the stress relaxes. The YLOD returns in days to weeks, long enough to get your saves backed up. But you don't have to remove the NEC/TOKINs and replace them with tantalum, that was a red herring! It was the heat that warped the board that actually made the YLOD go away (temporarily). The real fix in about 90% of cases a reball. 5-9% of the time it's a blown fuse, shorting cap, MOSFET, IC, or PSU. Maybe 1-5% of the time it's faulty tokins (by far the least likely thing).

Anyone looking to just fix their PS3 is stymied by SONY's anti right-to-repair practices. Without previous experience, proper tools, PS3 repair knowledge, schematics, project boards, donor boards, and working boards for reference, it's not likely a novice can easily fix their console.And if you're hoping to save money, forget it. Just buy another console, it'll save you time/money in the end.

Spoiler: Camp 2 People

Understand first that this can get expensive. Fixing PS3's involves learning to reflow/reball them. Doing this without destroying it is very tricky. You will likely destroy your first few boards before getting it right. Also, the equipment costs many hundreds of dollars. So you need to decide if that's what you singed up for or not.

 

[RIP-Felix]

I bought a set of 330uf capacitors, and I have a CECHA01fat PS3. They'll work fine, right? Someone recommended that but I'm seeing 470 is necessary except for a specific model.

Depends on the ESR/ESL. What is the model number?

1000uf electrolytic capacitors are really cheap, you can try them, they will avoid you removing nec tokins for no reason... (it's just a test, if they works you can proceed).

Electrolytic wont work because their ESR/ESL is an order of magnitude too large for processor decoupling.

 

[Billerd]

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/EEF-LX0E331R/?qs=APoVD1cryDLtPjbZTVuFyw==
These were the capacitors recommended to me, person said they worked just fine.

 

[M13k0_27]

Depends on the ESR/ESL. What is the model number?

Electrolytic wont work because their ESR/ESL is an order of magnitude too large for processor decoupling.

Surely... I've seen them working on a video, maybe that was just a case.


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[RIP-Felix]

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/EEF-LX0E331R/?qs=APoVD1cryDLtPjbZTVuFyw==
These were the capacitors recommended to me, person said they worked just fine.

Those should be adequate, but if your NEC/TOKINs are fine, then they are a waste of time and money.

The YLOD is a general hardware failure that can be caused by many things. It REQUIRES troubleshooting to diagnose, before a "fix" can be recommended. Chances are that your NEC/TOKINs are fine. However, in the rare case that they are not you should know this is still an experimental "fix." While yes, the NEC/TOKINs can and do fail. They DO NOT fail on mass, as if they're defective, like was claimed in the OG post. Tantalum capacitors are not the "Real YLOD fix." Reballing is not a con! The idea that all this time the NEC/TOKINs were the real cause of the YLOD is a MYTH. We choose to reject reality in favor of the lie, because it seems easier to fix. And that is myth #2. The 6-layer PS3 and it's internal ground planes make the PS3 VERY difficult to solder to. Worse, the heat needed to solder in the tantalums causes the motherboard to warp, which causes false positives - mechanical BGA re-connection until the board relaxes naturally over time and thermal cycles. Eventually they disconnect again and the YLOD returns. That's why some many people initially reported success.

Surely... I've seen them working on a video, maybe that was just a case.

Depending on the model they can allow the console to boot for the short time it takes to film a video. However, their high ESR would cause them to fail very quickly. COK-001 motherboards have 36x 0.1uF MLCC capacitors in addition to the the NEC/TOKINs on the RSX. They were removed in cost-down models. They filter out HF noise that bulk caps don't (electrolytic and tantalum). An ongoing hypothesis in this thread has been that that COK-001 motherboards can get away with only tantalum caps and perhaps even electrolytics (for a short period of time at least) because HF noise is dealt with by the array of MLCC's already on the board. Whereas if you have any revision motherboard after that, you would need to add MLCC caps in addition to the Tantalum or Aluminum Polymer caps. This hasn't been thoroughly investigated yet. It's one of the reasons I'm making the PS3 Tantalizer:

When I'm happy with it, I'll release the OSH park design file to the public. It'll make soldering the tantalum to the board easy, and the Tantalizer board to the PS3 motherboard easier. It's still in alpha testing.

...which I guess make this a good time to give you guys an update on that. I got version 0.1a in (pictured above) and they were a mess. The VIAss along the + rail edge were not plated well or were torn out by the router when the edge cuts were made. So solder won't wick well. It did solder easier than the souldkilla design, but barely. So I read up on "castellated edges" and how OSH park expects them to be indicated on the design. I made some changes and ordered another set of boards. Maybe in a week I'll have 0.2a in hand to see if the revisions worked. Still working out the alpha bugs...

 

[marciolsf]

Maybe it's time to archive this thread? mark it as read only, and start one with a summary that starts with something like

"DON'T CHANGE THE TOKINS UNTIL YOU GET THE ERROR CODES"

I feel like there's a lot of good stuff in here, but at the same time there's a ton of wrong info around the replacements. Most people will read the first few pages, figure that dropping the tokins is the way to go (heck, that's what I did, but well over a year ago, and it was already pretty lengthy by then). Then they'll jump to the end to start asking questions, but skip all the fundamentals that were discovered in the last few weeks (like all the epic work that @RIP-Felix did).

I think starting over will just save people a lot of time/effort/headaches, and give them a more clear direction of they should before they ever consider replacing the tokins.

 

[marciolsf]

Tantalum capacitors are not the "Real YLOD fix." Reballing is not a con!

I think that's the total truth, right there. It only took us 150+ pages to get there But newcomers (and there's new people all the time) will 99% of the time just see the "tantalums are the fix". A lot of the content in this thread is causing more bad than good (if I'm not over-exaggerating my point).

 

[RIP-Felix]

You can't fight google analytics my friend! People are going to arrive here looking for and easy DIY fix. The truth is hard to accept.

Really the OG post just needs a disclaimer. The title has already been changed to "research," which is the value in keeping the thread open IMO. I think the most important points to make in a potential disclaimer are the following (ATTN MODS):

1. This is not "fix" for all YLODs.
2. Reballing is a known fix for "some" YLODs.
3. There is no evidence to suggest the NEC/TOKINs are defective.
4. Please troubleshoot your YLOD to see if this tutorial if right for you. (link to SYSCON thread and posts about the steps of troubleshooting)
5. If you want to try this mod, please read the thread thoroughly! The first few pages make this sound like a magic fix and it may make you impatient. Please resist the urge to DIY until you have a read the whole thread. It takes a few weeks, but that'll give you enough time to decide if this fix is for you. Hint: If you don't have the patience to read the whole thread, then this mod isn't for you.

 

[Billerd]

If reballing is not a "con" then why is it every reported reballed PS3 eventually fails again/is a useless temporary fix.

 

[RIP-Felix]

If reballing is not a "con" then why is it every reported reballed PS3 eventually fails again/is a useless temporary fix.

Simple, they don't. That is, I challenge the assumption that every reball fails prematurely. And that if it does, it was because the console was not diagnosed properly. Just because it failed again, doesn't mean a reball wasn't necessary.

...but perhaps I should qualify that statement. "Eventually" every electronics device will fail. They have perishable components. Hot consoles die sooner. The heat that lead to a reball in the first place was likely to have damaged other components or reduced their expected lifespan. It's possible that after a reball that the NEC/TOKINs subsequently fail, or the RSX's solder "bumps" under the die have cracked. Ultimately, something we cannot fix will break and the console will die.

So right now it appears that RSX issues are the leading cause of YLODs. However, as more and more consoles are reballed and as the other components age, other causes of the YLOD (like the NEC/TOKINs) could become more likely. Eventually the leading cause could be the filtering caps. Things change over time. So it may not be true now, but it may be in the future. That's why this thread still has merit. The NEC/TOKINs can and do go bad, they just aren't the leading cause of the YLOD...yet!

 

[squeept]

If reballing is not a "con" then why is it every reported reballed PS3 eventually fails again/is a useless temporary fix.

Because there are a whole lot of scammers out there that didn't actually reball anything when they said they did. People doing shims, washers, heatguns, baking in the same oven that they make food in, reflows, using shitty equipment, poor practices and technique, etc.

In fact, I think I have my first customer return on the way back that's actually from the spreadsheet, and it's one of the ones that I finally decided NOT to pre-emptively reball...

 

[RIP-Felix]

So you've never had a reballed console fail. That's what you're saying?