The Misdiagnosis of the PlayStation 3 Yellow Light of Death

[@datbanan2717]

come in to find out about an interesting topic, end up finding out how my laptop died

[@wubman535meme7]

Feel for you.. RIP laptop

[@pgrobban]

2011 MBP?

[@luminumlx2604]

ZOTAC laptop probably or Seagate laptop

[@sozzll]

LuminumYT ツ zotac and seagate never made laptops

[@luminumlx2604]

@@sozzll I was joking

[@PackardKotch]

So only the Wii had adequate cooling in the 7th generation

[@REPOMAN24722]

It had nothing to cool, it was super low voltage.

[@PackardKotch]

Super_Slav I think you mean low power. And yeah, there was almost no power but you can’t deny that the cooling did the job adequately and the Wii didn’t overheat

[@PackardKotch]

Syntheon I absolutely understand how underpowered the Wii was but I’m just saying that it’s cooling system was perfectly fine for the job.

[@hpickettz34]

And was still the worst console that generation also.

[@hpickettz34]

@Syntheon Yeah it definitely sold alot to retirement homes and soccer moms.

[@gimp2013]

mine came back to life by itself just by sleeping 4 years in the closet

[@thealien_ali3382]

Mine still works till this day just needs a exchange of cover as it's scratched

[@moderusprime]

@@thealien_ali3382 Till this day? So it died today? Or did you mean "to" this day?

[@PabloRey18]

@Dragon Shippuden I'm calling bs

[@PabloRey18]

@@lukewatson059 but why tho?

[@schemar17]

Pablo Perez sony used the wrong paste

[@Omn1Slash]

I realize I am probably about 2 years late to the party here, but this is one of the most informative, well thought out and presented videos I have ever seen on the YLOD. Very interesting and I can say I have definitely learned alot here. Thanks!

[@barebarekun161]

The resale value of YLOD PS3 jumps up significantly in the west in 3.2.1... No wonder why this seller on yahoo auction in Japan who sold so many used fat PS3 and I wonder why he charged them reasonable amount and none of them got YLOD... Guess them Japanese repairers got it figured out years before this video come out.

[@HighwayStarS2000]

I can hear Louis Rossmann yelling that oven re-flowing doesnt work

[@Toby_Q]

I can't like this video enough. After fixing my 2010 Macbook Pro when they also figured out this was the issue, I question everyone saying reball is the answer to anything. People said the GPU was bad, when all it was is a single cap that can no longer deliver clean power that causes the GPU to crash when switching on and off.

[@lobsterbark]

Reballing is like reflowing for people who can charge you to do it. It's only the first thing to try because you don't know how to or don't want to bother to diagnose and fix it properly, and it's an easy thing to do that has a somewhat decent chance of working. IMO reflowing is only really makes sense if you are ready and willing to just buy a replacement of whatever is broken, and you wanna take a chance at saving that money you would have spent with minimal effort.

[@proaxel7003]

I think I have that same MacBook Pro that’s having that same problem, would you mind linking a repair guide for that capacitor?

[@Toby_Q]

@@proaxel7003 kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqvGmIeVm86JiqM

[@kawawete]

Rehot CPU bro

[@Vespyr_]

It's such a cheap and easy fix you'd think we'd default to this long before a reball/reflow.

[@nowonmetube]

Glad I watched this before I attended the PS3 YLoD "fix" a few days ago.

[@siddharthnambiar5758]

Did it work?

[@Chrisgamechannel1]

It works just renew paste

[@nowonmetube]

@@siddharthnambiar5758 it worked, delidding the RSX and CELL and replacing the thermal paste. No yellow light anymore (it wasn't dead, it just didn't turn on the first tries). But now it actually got the YLOD, and I'll try replacing those capacitors.

[@nowonmetube]

@@Chrisgamechannel1 I did, it worked, but now it's dead, because of the capacitors I guess.

[@EmilePolka]

who thought that a mere NEC Tokin is causing the issue.

[@fss1704]

Yeah, the cracked chip theory doesn't make sense to begin with.

[@SianaGearz]

@@fss1704 Oh it makes sense, it makes quite a bit of sense. But just because it makes sense doesn't mean that it's true or that it's a predominant cause of failure rather than a fringe one.

[@kokodin5895]

@@SianaGearz what dowsn't make sense is the way of fixing that cracked chip, let's be serious here, you can reball and reflow a cpu/gpu /chipset. And yes early 2000's electronics had issues with multiple manufacturing proceses. but that was a easy way to swindle people out of their money and was quickly disproven by proper repair stores. Multiple motherboard chipsets could be temporary fixed with "reflow" and it was big buisness for computert repair shops in the past, but i never heard of reflowing a cpu, even a soldered bga style one in a pc or laptop, because those things were much smaller and used a diffrent technology of flip chip soldering than low budhet, in comparacy motherboard choipsets. and they also suffered much higher thermal abuse. it makes much more sense for sony to use that prosess on their parts, then again amd and nvidia had their share of problems with gpu failure themeselves, amd or ati at the time was an early adopter of new production node while nvidia lagged a bit behind.and had bigger failure rates. i seen ugly repaired ps3's with capacitors dongling outside, working! fat, slim, middle models. and in many cases power suply was the problem or those caps, but i never tryed to reflow or replace the gpu or cpu. what i said to friends who tryed to make me reflow those was i don't have the equipment to rebal the thing and even if i had i could do more harm than good by doing that. and we jist scoped power rails, then cpu caps and everything was clear. I didn't take money for those repairs because i am not a shop, i didn't take outside of friend zone jobs either , just fun bits. and in my case we put multiple smaller caps just to balpark mach capacity of those things, often on top of oryginal ones

[@TheRailroad99]

@@kokodin5895 the good old nvidia bug which killed many laptops with 2008 nvidia graphics chipsets. Indeed a very interesting topic. CPUs almost never die. However with graphics chips it is the opposite: the nv bug wasn't the only issue with mass defective GPUs. AMDs HD6xxx series had a similar issue (most commonly known as the Macbook Pro 2011 issue, but also many Radeon HD 6870 cards had a very short life expectancy). These are only two of those issues. Makes me wonder why especially graphics chipsets have those issues. Maybe because they run hotter. But modern laptop CPUs are TOASTING themselves (for example the i5, not even the highest option, in my Thinkpad L390, constantly hits 100°C, from the day it came out of the factory) and yet still they don't die. And no, my laptop wouldn't profit that much from a repaste, this is how those newer Intel ULV quadcore mobile CPUs work. They intentionally have a much higher power output than the cooling system can handle, and only throttle after a very high temp is reached. And in comparison to GPU dies they seem to withstand those temps for years.

[@thebeetalls]

@@TheRailroad99 GPUs have a much higher transistor density, so that may play a factor. Also, much of the die space in a CPU is cache which uses far less power than a floating point unit, for example. CPUs have had thermal probes in the hottest areas of the chip so they can be fairly certain about how much thermal headroom they have. Older GPUs however, had less accurate means of measuring temperatures so an nvidia 8600gt reporting 90c temperatures is not at all comparable to an Intel core i7 9700k reporting 90c. Newer GPUs like AMDs 5700xt have dozens of thermal probes spread out along the die and are able to give "hotspot" temperatures(I.e. "CPU" style) as well as "edge" temperatures("GPU" style). A GPU reporting 90c edge temperatures can be experiencing over 110c at the hotspots. Regarding your laptop, as undersized as the cooling system may be, you can sometimes significantly improve performance by undervolting the cpu and adding a small copper shim to increase contact with the die. My HP probook 840 g2 suffered from poor contact yielding 90c temperatures at stock speeds with throttling after just 10 seconds. Now it never crosses 80c despite holding its max turbo speed for 4 times longer and maintaining clocks 180mhz higher afterwards.

[@TheSterlingArcher16]

Yep, it’s been discovered very recently that almost all YLOD launch PS3s can be fixed by replacing the NEC TOKIN capacitors, and the reflow/reball fix worked by coincidence.

[@deathstrike]

As a technician myself (30 years) this makes perfect sense and when they mentioned "NEC" I face palmed hard!! Cheap and poorly engineered caps killed many a Turbografx 16, Turbo Duo, and Turbo Express. I never understood what it was with NEC and caps? I know they go for cost cutting but I've repaired my NEC consoles with simple capacitor kits. NEC never learned from their mistakes in the 90s. *SMH*

[@anjratn141]

@@deathstrike so first thing i should do IS to replace the capacitor? IS that the Hole case

[@deathstrike]

@@anjratn141 No, it's hard to describe in this forum but you need to take a slow and methodical approach. There are many KZbin videos on most vintage and modern consoles that will guide you through the process of opening, testing, diagnosing, and possible repair. I stress the word POSSIBLE, many do not have the proper equipment or expertise. So please, if you are unsure of your skills or your not sure if the problem is major, get your machine to someone who is qualified to fix it. If you feel comfortable working on your machine, check out the KZbin video on your console.

[@anjratn141]

@@deathstrike thanks mate for answering I don't trust any of them since I watching all of them and reflecting people respons, but you didn't answer my primary question is first thing on this mysterious issue to check the capacitor or go straight to gpu fixing problems, sorry for my cheap English I'm still learning

[@mrb692]

Anjra Tn As with any troubleshooting, do the simplest thing first. Replacing a couple of faulty capacitors, while not the easiest task, is definitely easier and cheaper than reflowing or reballing. If your PS3 YLOD’s, it wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

[@EbonySeraphim]

I love this video. I'm a software engineer and see this sort of "repair" strategy from a lot of "peers" in the field. It's reinforced by bad middle management who often reward results over anyone knowing what actually went wrong. Making a problem go away is obviously the goal, but if it's your own product you gotta know what what really went wrong to know how to fix it. Of course Sony doesn't have to be transparent about what is going wrong, but they should (and probably did) know. I had a friend who fixed my launch PS3 60GB (it worked right after the heat gun application to the CPU and maybe GPU - not the capacitors) but it didn't start up when I got home long enough for me to transfer my saves away. This video shed a lot of light on the idea that the exact issue isn't even known, but the reason I saw any difference was a bit of dumb luck.

[@shadowxlink8661]

Great video man! I was 15 when I got my first PS3 (a refurbished CECHA01), and I was absolutely devastated when it got the infamous YLOD. Had it taken to a repair shop to have it reflowed because I didn't know anything about electronics, broke again a month later. Then my cousin showed me how to take it apart and we reflowed it, since it was the only fix we knew of. It felt great having a solution (if only a temporary one) and it always bugged me that there wasn't a more permanent fix, but again I had very little experience with electronics and motherboard repair at the time. Seeing this video made me both super happy and incredibly infuriated. Happy to know that there is all this new information (especially now that I've bought a multimeter and have been slowly learning motherboard diagnosis and repair), infuriated because I'm seeing all this too late and I already threw out both of my OG backwards compatible PS3's since I couldn't bring them back to life from the reflowing repair anymore. If I had them today, they would have become the perfect practice boards for me to probe with my multimeter and hopefully bring back to life. That being said, I really hope more people with their broken PS3's see this video before they decide to toss them out or anything like that. And it makes me really happy to know that with all this info, some common sense, and some elbow grease, we can still save many of these consoles from going to waste and give them a new home with loving owners!

[@Henderburn]

This reminds me a lot of the GPU switching issues with 2010-2013 MacBook Pros. Everyone thought it was the lead-free solder on the Nvidia GPUs, but it was the capacitor feeding the GPU that caused the issue. But because it was right beside the GPU, everyone heating up the board would reheat the capacitor and “fix” their boards.

[@salehvxr]

This turned to a Luise Rossman video real quick

[@rartolak]

The 2011 mbp comes to mind...

[@Mdudeman13]

@@rartolak YES, that's exactly what I was thinking.

[@fss1704]

Yeahhh that was some lit shit!!! you know what i'm talking about... that was like a fireworks board.

[@fss1704]

@@rartolak yeahhhh.....

[@RinaldoJonathan]

They don't have pp bus

[@PikaPerfect]

after watching god knows how many tech repair videos, it seems so stupid to me that NOBODY thought "hey let's replace the capacitors, maybe they're the problem" 99% of the repair videos i've seen check capacitors first, solder connections second

[@anjratn141]

IS it work for you?

[@SLRModShop]

Dreamcast random reset -> The internet : "Reflow the pins of the PSU or bend them !!!!" Everyone : "Ok, I'll do that and spread my new knowledge !" Open a DC and tell me those pins "disconnect themselves" at random while you're playing... Geeee, the amount of fake knowledge out there is beyond belief sometimes. Real solution : Remove the dust (basically free the exhaust of eventual dust), clean the fan, MAKE SURE the fan spins (if not, reflow the 3 pins of the fan's connector on the daughter board) and more importantly : change the thermal pads (with 1.5mm thick ones). That's it, problem solved !

[@danielblack6529]

I believe that the random reset on the Dreamcast can only be caused on the PSU side if you unplug and replug it on the Motherboard multiple times. And because the pins are not designed for that multiple unplugging and replugging you're gonna run into a potential random reset issue or the console not wanting to boot at all and you have to find a fix for it.

[@danielblack6529]

@BaeCityAnri BaeCityAnri In my case pin 1 that outputs 3.3V was dirty or perhaps even worse than that which caused my VA1 Dreamcast to not boot. Cleaning it with IPA helped but only temporarly because soon after thta I would get random resets. Lately I had to put the PSU slightly higher for it to work. Though now I'm getting a different motherboard (also VA1) for my Dreamcast because of screwed up a mod on that one. One more thing: Having a Dreamcast that the GD-Rom drive doesn't do anything can be associated with the bad PSU connection particularly on the pin 6 that outputs 12V.

[@SLRModShop]

@BaeCityAnri @Daniel Black (Hey Alex !) Corroded pins causing random resets, that I would believe. Not booting at all, that would make sense. But we're talking 0.x% of Dreamcast here. The thing is, people seem to have "fixed" the issue by doing something to these pins, I have a theory on this : While doing it, they've applied some pressure onto the top metal shielding / Heat sink which is what, IMO, actually did something (added to the fact that they've probably cleaned the console while they were at it). I wouldn't be surprised that the issue is a combination of 2 things : The thermal pad getting thinner and the heat sink losing contact with the thermal pad (because of the heat, the metal expanded) Therefore, there was air between the thermal pad and the heat sink, air being one of the most efficient insulation, there was an overheating issue. Out of the 50+ I've taken care of this year, only 2 had a reboot issue. One was due to cold solder joints of the fan connector and the other was a console sent to me by someone telling me random reset was the issue I needed to look into. I cleaned those pins with IPA (I always do, it doesn't cost me anything but at no point I told myself this was part of the fix, plus, they were in good shape), all I did was a cleaning and replaced the pads. It was months ago, no news from the customer so... "no news is good news" like we say in France ! Daniel, "Having a Dreamcast that the GD-Rom drive doesn't do anything can be associated with the bad PSU connection particularly on the pin 6 that outputs 12V." When you have issues with the GDrom, check the GDrom connector itself first, it's very unreliable. For instance (and this is an issue very poorly documented), if your DC hangs on the boot screen for 2 minutes, it just a bad connection between the MB and the GDrom assembly. Unplug, replug and it should work fine. I'm not saying there wasn't an issue with your PSU on this one. But maybe you've disassembled it, checked everything, saw something with the 6th pin (let's say, you cleaned it) put everything back together and the GDrom was working again so you told yourself it had to be that 6th pin. It could have just been a bad connection between the MB and GDrom drive, that you fix without noticing.

[@danielblack6529]

@@SLRModShop Yeah... I personally only ever had one Dreamcast so my own experience on this is very (!) limited. And I had a conversation with one guy who does console repairs and he said that most Dreamcast he got had a bad PSU connection. And I saw one video years ago about a Dreamcast not reading discs where the GD-Rom Drive didn't do anything and the guy just added solder to the pins to be thicker and then it started to read again. And he didn't even clean or remove and reinsert the GD-Rom drive! In any case, I'll think about chnaging my procedure when doing repairs like these. In general we need to inform ourselves from people who repair these about their experience. Thanks for the info! And... Sorry for the late answer...I wasn't pinged and I didn't check myself if someone responded until now.

[@SLRModShop]

@@danielblack6529 No worry, I'm making a huge repair guide that I will share online once it's finished. If you're interested, follow me on Twitter @vvJerome (I'm not trying to gain followers, you can unfollow me as soon as I release it). Today, I've found the RF eye pattern of the laser, you can check online, the info isn't there, trust me... So, you can expect a very thorough guide. I will also share it first with trusted modders so they can correct or add stuff before it goes online, my goal is to create the Bible of Dreamcast repairing.

[@myfellowsonicfans7131]

When it comes to gaming on the internet you can count on people to stubbornly believe the first thing they hear

[@lobsterbark]

I've noticed people who game on consoles tend to believe all sorts of bizzare rumors based on nothing as if they are established fact.

[@scorchx3000]

I believe you mate.

[@user-hg9bp2rm9q]

Kinda like you and this video.....

[@user-hg9bp2rm9q]

@@lobsterbark I’ve noticed people on the internet say all sorts of stupid shit because they know they won’t be held accountable but in the real world they’re silent little pussies because they know there’s a good chance they’ll get the shit beat out of them.

[@GoulartGH]

@@user-hg9bp2rm9q found the console player

[@bordercollie2191]

Fantastic video. I saw the PSX-Place post on this back in July but never really paid much attention to it, and now I kinda wanna get a YLOD PS3 and try this out since they're rather cheap on eBay.

[@theuncanspan]

I lost mine in 2010 and i got so frustrated that i tore the console apart and threw it in the garbage thinking all my pics music and videos are safe in the HDD...big mistake.

[@rtgunzboi]

Mine went out in 2015. Just gave up and tossed it when nothing to fix it worked. The one regret I have now... 😢

[@JGL98]

@@rtgunzboi me tooo bro i had gotten mine as bday gift in like 2012 i regret tearing it down

[@joelacevedo8418]

This is the absolute best, most concise explanation of the YLOD phenomena. My PS3 first generation 60 gig worked for 14 years until died two months ago.

[@JustAnotherGamer1005]

I still have such a PS3 lying around. Never gotten to it to throw it away, in case of a fix. Not really able to fix it myself and probably too expensive to let someone else fix it.

[@ascendantMethEnjoyer]

Send it to me if you don't mind me keeping it

[@dfranzner]

I fixed my Phat 60GB Launch model by just adding Tantalon capacitors to the CPU and GPU line. Needless to say though, it was still sealed all these years, never heated up and never screwed around by "technicians".

[@Schoolboy-Q]

Dirceu Franzner how did you do it?

[@thealien_ali3382]

My 60gb PS3 works fine even till now

[@shocknawe]

Dirceu Franzner How, mate?

[@Dextermorga]

Brownie Love cantalon :D

[@misium]

@Brownie Love tanalon copaciters morons install fluxx compaciters every idiot knows

[@DannyWilliamH]

Nice video. I just heard about these new findings and found this video upon research. My launch 60GB ($600) PS3 got YLOD and has been sitting in my closet since 2010 because I didn't want to do any of the suggested fixes. It was either "reflow" or "reball" from everyone I spoke to. EVERYONE. Reflow always seemed janky to me and it wasn't worth it for a 3 day fix. Reball seemed just as janky but it was much more expensive with just as few guarantees. I'm glad I held out as I'll be trying my own capacitor replacement to see if that works. I'm glad some other viable possibility for fixing has been found as the entire "it's all on lead-free solder" just never made total sense, not for ALL YLOD issues. I'm an amateur repair enthusiast and even I know the PS3 tops out at about 90c. 90c won't affect the solder balls usually. It just never made sense to me. I always thought that: A - The Cell CPU and RSX are complete dogshit or B - Something else is going on. I didn't know what but something else. Based on my quick research I'm finding most fix their previously unfixable console via capacitor replacement.

[@RomeGoLARGE]

I'd love to know what your conclusion are once you replace the tokens

[@DannyWilliamH]

@@RomeGoLARGE I'll definitely add a reply here about the results after I do it.

[@RomeGoLARGE]

@@DannyWilliamH sweet. Thanks bro.

[@RomeGoLARGE]

I forgot to ask, with learning about these new possibilities, do you find it still necessary to replace the thermal paste?

[@DannyWilliamH]

@@RomeGoLARGE I'm going to. These mass produced devices (consoles, GPU's, etc) are notorious for having garbage thermal paste. I'm not going to de-lid or anything but the paste on the IHS is absolutely getting removed and replaced.

[@TheMightyNim]

watchdog (BBC) was the name of the show

[@nicklespale22]

got em

[@LackOfO2]

Thanks

[@paulcastle7942]

I think he's talking about another show, most likely an american one because there was no mention of either Gas in the motherboard or of the repaired PS3's failing afterward, nor was Watchdog pulled off the air, it's a UK BBC Show and SONY simply don't have the power to pull BBC shows off the air.

[@rtgunzboi]

I ended up throwing out mine in 2015 after about a half year trying to get it fixed. Lost 6000 songs, 30 music vids, and about 200 pics I had on it 😢. Wish this video was posted then I miss it to this day, the one true regret I have

[@MobiusGT]

damn i had 2 fat ps3 that also both died playing ff13

[@thealien_ali3382]

My 60gb works still this day

[@jjhack3r]

Stop playing ff13

[@misium]

Ff13 of death

[@jjhack3r]

@Trujillo 2020 I play all the demanding games with no issues. Thanks to water cooling.

[@suspiciousbacon]

I can play ff13 and GTA and other stuff, but every time, without failure it crashes when I play watchdogs. (It's a slim)

[@V1kram]

I think the heaviest problem with the PS3 is error coding. Most of the problems would display the yellow light, instead of a coded beep sequence or semilar.

[@hamasakikenji4554]

Just tried this theory of heating the nec tokin of a cech2001a ps3 slim ylod (bought off Craigslist for next to nothing has factory warranty seal cleaned and untouched/scratched)on to the repairs I blocked off the rsx with kapton tape heat the Capacitors at 300c for 1min each side reinstalled everything together and it worked as it should. Just wanna leave a comment saying yes it worked for "me but for anyone eles who know right?

[@TristanSpeno]

hamasaki kenji oh, I destroyed a ylod ps3 with my friends 4 months ago

[@HoudiniFontmeister]

Maybe replace them with either the same chips or an equivalent. That would fix it for longer. This is good to hear though

[@hamasakikenji4554]

@Arnold101Knight I have already replaced my cap to tantalum caps from a dead cech3xxx board. I believe these nec tokin act iffy because of heat and solder making microscopic cracks plus have you seen these thing melt/shatter when people attempt to remove them carefully

[@HoudiniFontmeister]

@Arnold101Knight the heat seems to cause the cracks to connect temporariliy. Which is why it's not a Perm Fix like replacing them are. :) It could also be the heat Charging the Caps but idk if thats as likely lol

[@OnYourSquare]

"REHOT CPU/GPU BRO!" The #1 solution given by guys on Internet forums. (lol) Such terrible advise.

[@jkon156]

Love this video man. I work in contract manufacturing, I used to be SMT but now I'm on QC building 3D AOI profiles. I have an OG YLOD PS3, and have access to a large parts stock that my company will have no issue with me grabbing a couple tantalums to see if this works on the PS3. I'd be more than willing to collaborate on this project for a video with documentation of the process if you'd like, It would be fun to help the community in some small way

[@jkon156]

should be noted I pretty much have free reign over the rework stations and reflow ovens, with very adequate lighting and good photography skills. I can properly document this

[@retractingblinds]

I think a great follow up would be steps to diagnosing the failure points. A sort of Louis Rossman approach.

[@RomeGoLARGE]

Good suggestion

[@ilanrodriguez6127]

Hey, also the PS3 heatsinks have an issue as well. They have too much vertical space below the motherboard and ultimately PULL on the GPU AND CPU hard. The thermal paste bond between the IHS and Heatsink + gravity lets the heatsink tug on the RSX and CELL IH and pull it down. This physical force ultimately stresses the solder balls. I strongly believe this breaks connections whenever the RSX or CELL heats up. When these things get hot, the solder almost flows but slowly. (it'd take alot of thermal cycles) For my PS3 with the infamous GLOD, the screen started to artifact and a small sparkgap noise came out of the console whenever the RSX hit 75C. It hardlocked immediately after. This tells me some solder balls that deliver high current to the chip disconnected and caused a hardware error. (This caused a GLOD for me occasionally + interminent artifacting) I flipped the ps3 upside down so the heatsinks (because of their weight+gravity) push the chips onto the motherboard. (just like what the coin method fix for GLOD tried to achieve) AND MY THEORY WAS RIGHT! IT NOW WORKS SMOOTHLY! Its been 6 months of constant usage and 0 noises, 0 artifacts, 0 freezing, 0 problems and played through a bunch of games at 68C. It seems like every aspect of the PS3 was fucked to begin with. 😅

[@kengruz669]

Exactly. It's unbelievable how the design- and all the inherent flaws in it- were approved. The only explanation is that they felt pressure to rush out Playstation V3 (PS3) w/o an intensive several-thousand-hour testing period on 100 machines. If several thousand hours seems extensive, consider that a new console buyer would easily average a minimum 2 hours/day. Let's say average over1000 hours year.

[@mrratchet]

In the middle of learning how to solder so I can replace the NEC Tokin capacitors. Even removing them seems difficult and there isn't a guide in English on the KZbin's yet. My CECHA01 and CECHC03 will survive.

[@Jaydan121]

My mate Vince recently did one..

[@mrratchet]

@@Jaydan121 Good timing. Saw it when it released.

[@AlexKiraly]

Vince team, unite

[@gorgi991]

yeah also saw the vince video,and this one popped up randomly,youtube sure do spy on us

[@cavemaned7522]

I used a cheap heat gun off of Amazon, put it to 400 degrees took roughly 15-20 seconds came right off. Plastic did melt a tad but was no issue. I fixed my 40gb ps3 with this method

[@javaguru7141]

"Trapped gas" could refer to buried vias that are basically metal-plated holes connecting two parallel wires inside the PCB itself. A large board can have thousands of these. Naturally, those holes have harmless space in the middle unless filled in by some material in a separate operation...

[@Stremon82]

God, yes. THAT. I previously got a YLOD PS3 that didn't behave like a problem with the soldering. But no matter where I asked and how I asked, they just told me "reball it!!". I did reball it. It didn't change a thing. I ended up breaking the motherboard after too many reopening and testing... Damn I hate those fake common knowledge.

[@mikem4432]

I heard that a lot, your not the only one so dont feel bad.

[@mikem4432]

For anyone that is truly interested in electronics repair i highly recommend some folks like Louis Rossmann video as he goes from diagnose to repair electronics demonstrations to get an idea of what your really getting into.

[@tyonorshapzc7tjfvb7-caz]

itz just a money thing, thats it, i knew that when the first said back in 2006-7 that it isnt what they sayin ^^ ;) as a PC guy we all a step above all other, thats a good thing :)

[@hailhydra5061]

I had two sony 60gb phats die. One that Sony “fixed” and one “fixed” by an ebay person who used real lead. I temporarily fixed it and got as much as I could im trade-in. Wish I still had it.

[@apri1979]

I personally had the luck and neither a „Red Ring of Death“ nor a „Yellow Light of Death“, but friends of me bought at least 2 Xbox 360s each. One to play games, one to send to Microsoft.

[@Mitchfaberskateboarding]

awesome video so clear and easy to follow along! thank you for your time in taking to make this video. i have a ps3 ylod and it sits sadly on my shelf reminding me how much fun i had with it.

[@nitrax8629]

Interesting video, never knew those capacitors were an issue! I've heard about the thermal paste under the IHS drying out over time, causing the system to run hotter than it should or shut down after a few minutes (this failure mode happened to my CECHG unit), and that nVidia GPUs in many laptops from the period the PS3 launched, between 2006-2008, had bad underfill processes causing them to fail, but this is new to me. At least the 360 has a secondary error code with its RROD to narrow the problem down - on PS3 you are just guessing.

[@VGDocs]

as weird as this sounds it's a compliment: This video makes it seem too easy to understand the problem in question :P amazing tutorializing on how BGA works for those who don't know!

[@Chocoburger]

I have a launch PS3 that hasn't experienced the YLOD yet. I want to open it up, clean it out, add new thermal paste and new thermal pads to replace the old originals. Is there anything else you can recommend to do to keep an early PS3 alive and well in the long term? Something that doesn't require extremely difficult soldering? Would you be willing to make a video series on maintaining game consoles for the long term? I'd watch all of them.

[@calleha01]

Jailbreak it and adjust the fan settings. The default fan settings let the console go way too hot before properly cooling it down.

[@Chocoburger]

@@calleha01 OK, I'll keep that in mind, thanks. If anyone has more tips, please share!

[@jjhack3r]

I water cooled mine for $35. Brought the temps from 85c to 45c...

[@mememan7515]

It's a DINOSAUR

[@Chocoburger]

@@jjhack3r This is interesting, I'll look it up. Thanks!

[@thealien_ali3382]

And here i am my 60gb PS3 still works

[@mistamontiel00]

You mean the full hardware backwards compatibility one? ..there's such a unit that never had issue!? LOVE

[@pomidortv797]

Mine too. EU launch model.

[@jarodatkinson5306]

Great video.... explained perfectly. Could you do a video explaining how to diagnose each fault on the board? It would be awesome to see "Ok here's what we think is the problem"... and "Here's how you know!".....

[@moccaloto]

I love the production quality of these videos. Excellent graphics, script, and delivery

[@FFFFindoor]

It reminds me of a job I had during college. A lot of computers on campus would fail due to bad caps on the motherboard. I spent a lot of time replacing them. At least it was easy to find on those motherboards as the caps would swell up.

[@Sofiadlocs5667]

Gracias por poner subtítulos, thanks for the subtitles. Me suscribo a tu canal gran información hace tiempo buscaba contenido de este tipo, I subscribe to your channel I had time looking for this type of content.

[@Sampsonay]

I've actually repaired six PS3's by replacing the NECs with tantalums. Havent had a system fail again since :)

[@TGApuleius]

Do you do this as a side gig? If so, I have a YLOD PS3 that could use some help.

[@maytizevb]

ps3 super slim no have nec tokins

[@EmilePolka]

@@maytizevb yep, I think the 25xx and 3xxx Slims uses tantalums and also the 4xxx series. Since this models doesnt suffer that much on YLOD, instead most of them experience we call blackout issue.

[@nickkestler4848]

Is this a difficult process?

[@chasefournier]

I have a 25xx model with the blackout issue. I have a working super slim I’ve been swapping caps with, haven’t tested all of them yet

[@Hesher]

I wish I could discover your channel earlier. This and many other videos of yours are so interesting. Man, good work!

[@Matthew-.-]

Check out the PS3 "eraser" mod. I did it and my PS3 temps dropped 10C. This fix shows that earlier models of the PS3 simply didn't have enough mounting pressure for the CPU heatsink to stay cool. This isn't a sketchy mod either. It's just recreating what Sony did in later models that included a plastic cover for the CPU hole that increases mounting pressure. Additionally adding CFW to your PS3 shows that Sony prefers running your consoles hot all the time in favor of low fan noise. My early model PS3 idled at 80C before the mod and the fans were sitting at less than 20%. To put that into perspective PS3s have an emergency shut off at 85C due to high heat. That is very little headroom and running the consoles that hot all the time is bound to lead to issues. The CFW has custom fan controls which I'll be using from now on so it doesn't die an early death. Fans aren't even much louder if you repaste and do the eraser mod.

[@mikem4432]

For many many people that before this had never even diagnosed a failed board, most folks accepted or tried whatever they heard on the message boards about reflow, reballing. and such. Anyone that knows anything about fixing problems with PC or Apple products need to be checked for shorts to find the problem even taking out components to test them until the fault is found.. not a easy process. It seems now many are pointing to the NEC/Tanum capacitors failing badly, and that has been confirmed so far as I know. Great video by the way.

[@DisplacedGamers]

Thanks, Mike. There is definitely a difference in the pursuit of knowledge and making a diagnosis between those that repair vintage PCs and those that repair consoles. Hopefully we see more people investigating the PS3’s faults these days vs one fix solves all.

[@ItsRickysChannelSHORTS]

Was that show you are referring to BBC watchdog?

[@28KKaann]

"how could this happen?" - "Sony refused to hand out schematics...."

[@Dextermorga]

I am impressed, somebody who actually knows what he is talking about. Well done.

[@aegonthedragon7303]

The issue with diagnosis is that the YLOD is so vague that it can be literally anything. Simple component came loose, NEC caps, overheating, or (in my case) the bga failed on either the rsx and/or the cell-be. Because most lacked the knowledge to read the syscon, the misdiagnosis happened and continues to happen.

[@Evil_Chronic]

I recently bought a CECH-A01, from what I can tell it’s never been opened. Had a ton of dust balls (actual balls) inside the machine that I could see without opening it, all around inside it. There is a heating issue after the system being on for 20-30 mins. I can hear the fans get louder. Doesn’t sound like 100% speed. My question is, since it is an old console should I put new thermal paste under the IHS for the RSX and the CPU? I would get it professionally done of course. And does anyone know someone who does it in the US? Currently I just see someone on eBay I might use.

[@nexxusty]

Professionally done? I am a "Professional" at that and I've done it maybe 3 times. It's not hard. Have more respect for your own capabilities. Or don't, whatever.

[@cachemist4149]

I don't know crap about PS3s, but if they're anything like general purpose computers thermal paste is fairly simple. Clean out the dust and see if it does any better. If it does, problem solved!

[@Evil_Chronic]

nexxusty yeah I’ve decided to do it myself. Bought a trash fat console for $20 just to make sure I don’t have an issue on the one I actually care about.

[@Evil_Chronic]

cachemist the Heat spreaders (IHS) are glued down with silicon. So it’s a little more complicated than just replacing thermal paste. Basically it’s like delidding your CPU.

[@kengruz669]

@@Evil_Chronic NSC Modz here on youtube has developed a method to de-lid these which is borne from his intense work on untold number of PS3's. (Check out his videos.) He's a somewhat wacky, extremely talkative, nice guy in Germany. His videos go on too long but are instructive. He has multiple ones on the IHS, and how easy it is to *destroy them* w/o patience, proper technique, and proper tools, and he shows you how to do it, and extended videos on proper re-pasting of the whole shebang.

[@iamlinxx_]

I know this show you are referring to I think it was Watchdog here in the UK or another consumer related show. They were fixing the PS3's in the back of what looked like a truck and did say that some of them had stopped working again since the repair

[@wubman535meme7]

I remember that video from a while back!

[@moandaindesigns]

Man thanks for the info. I did not realize those were caps and how faulty they are. Sadly I already got rid of my PS3 Fat and moved to a slim. For those that still have a fat, could you provide a link to the replacement caps you mentioned in the video?

[@amritpalhh9836]

Now it’s also discovered it can be the nec token capacitors and the older rsx chips are less reliable I believe in comparison to the later ones but a transplant can help it apparently or a orbis chip. We can also diagnose a failure or find an error code based on the syscon chip I believe.

[@JamieBainbridge]

Great scientific analysis. I repaired a friend's PS3 several times by "home-reflowing" the board on my electric frying pan. My thought process was the same as yours, I had assumed it was "some" solder joint or other component which liked being heated up again, but I wasn't assuming I was reflowing the CPU or GPU or anything targeted like that. As you say, it's a very heavy hammer of a fix. So heavy I was actually concerned with surface mount components falling off the underside of the board if I heated too much!

[@SianaGearz]

Backside components are attached with epoxy, which is usually dyed red. They first populate the backside, and during reflow, the epoxy sets, and then the main component side. If they could fall off, they would have fallen off while main component side was reflowed during manufacture.

[@mutalix]

You got a new sub friend, fantastic video, thank you! Also the very first time I've heard yld and the NEC capacitor as a probable cause, its nearly always blamed on the solder or reballing.

[@serisak]

Is it just me who has never seen it as yellow? I could only see it as separate red and green lights.

[@cutesheep3311]

It didn't stay yellow, it would be green, flash yellow, then switch quickly to red and stay on red

[@nexxusty]

Same as the other guy. You have some colour blindness. Look it up. It's VERY clearly a yellow light. Not debatable.

[@OriginalPineapplesFoster]

_"... but hopefully understandable."_ THANK YOU for demystifying such an integral part of our devices. In 2000 I built my own computer and since then I've tinkered with lots of hardware. In all that time, I've never encountered even this simple an explanation of a CPU. It's been the equivalent of "I'll do carpentry but call an electrician." Now I feel much more confident about where to start when I want or need to learn more. 👏✌️🍍

[@game_master_rukia]

The solution is to replace the nec tokin caps

[@Kig_Ama]

can u easily replace them?

[@game_master_rukia]

@@Kig_Ama that I don't know but it does require the use of a flat bladed knife

[@iamtheflu]

They don't come up easily. Takes a while working at them with a hot air gun to pull them up.

[@RaimarLunardi]

@@Kig_Ama define easily... they are a pain to extract... once removed you can put the new caps and thats it (remember to put them on correct side)

[@RaimarLunardi]

@@iamtheflu though, I've seen some people just "cut them" and solder caps on the side... Not clean, just lazy... but works fine.

[@MrSteamedchicken]

It’s mad back in the day people were comparing this to the Xbox’s red ring when it was happening to over half Xbox’s and Ylod was happening to well under 1%

[@timmydirtyrat6015]

Trapped gas in the circuit board? Could someone please explain to me what that even means?

[@Those2menoverthere]

Timmy Dirtyrat has to be marketing garbage. (Just guessing that it means nothing)

[@jjhack3r]

Bubbles pushing up the traces. If it's bad enough, it could break a trace and ruin it.

[@ErnestJay88]

Yup, i knew solder crack wasn't the primary issue, because some people also get YLOD after their PS3 wasn't played for a long time (stored in the box in a clean and dry place for years), and then they want to play some PS3 games, they turn on their PS3 and suddenly YLOD, last time the PS3 works perfectly. That's why some retailer said "even if you're not playing your PS3 anymore, it's recommended to turn on your PS3 at least once a week for 30 minutes"

[@blairanonymous4081]

I came for answers and left with more questions

[@GeneralLee131]

There was a massive problem with all sorts of semi conductors that used lead free ball grid array solder joints. It affected everything that used them at the time, even desktop GPUs. There are many studies of it. Lead free solder required more than 2x the temperature of 40% lead solder to fully turn to liquid and reharden correctly. This also hit around the time of the great capacitor plague where the world market was flooded with a stolen unfinished capacitor substrate formula that caused premature failure of electrolytic caps. It was a terrible time for reliability of every electronic device.

[@sulaman4280]

This mainly on the 60gb version which had the ps2 backwards compatibility and was more heavier and a way more metal inside compared to the 80gb models and models that came after that

[@mrratchet]

What? They're basically the same models in terms of layouts and content. I've got a CECHA01 60GB (US model) and a CECHC03 60GB (UK model). The CECHC03 is what the CECHE01 (80GB PS3 US) was based on. They are almost identical internally outside of the Emotion Engine and PS2 RAM chips being removed.

[@sulaman4280]

@@mrratchet I can tell they are not identical u can easily tell the difference the 60gb ps4 has the 4 usb ports and the crome finish on disc slot and the spider man font were on 2nd and 3rd generation ps3s which were the 40gb and 80gb had paint and 2 usb ports and the 40gb model has the same plug in layouts at back as the 60gb ps3 but on the 80gb it was on left side apart from that both the 2nd and 3rd generation ps3s which are identical at front but 60gb is not because it has crome and two extra usb ports

[@mrratchet]

@@sulaman4280 Ah no, I see you meant that the 80GB CECHK01 (the 2 USB ports with no PS2 BC). I thought you were referring to the CECHE01 80GB (4 USB ports with PS2 BC).

[@Gazdatronik]

I have used the oven reflow technique on computer cards. But my oven was not "special," it said "Black&Decker" on it and I also made toast in this oven. The reflowed cards would usually get another 6 months out of them,

[@christianfernandez8077]

I used the blow-dryer method to fix my ps3 temporarily. Does this mean my YLOD was actually a solder problem rather than a capacitor one?

[@javaguru7141]

A hair dryer doesn't get air hot enough to melt lead free solder, so no.

[@Agadendro]

Did the same, managed to get the disc and transfer all save files to a slim system, thank god.

[@Random.Walker.]

The correct answer is: It's warms NEC Tokin capacitors back to life but it is not a very long lasting repair and we can’t know how long it will work.

[@josephhooks1292]

I thought it was widely accepted/known that both the 360 and ps3 used thin and cheap silicon for the motherboards. With the heat from them causing the board to flex too much which in turn broke the solder loose from the board.

[@StaticVapour590]

Hell yeah, finally someone can back this "theory" up. I have been telling numerous people to not reflow anything, it's those NEC/TOKIN capacitors causing issues. Reflow is the only solution when the GPU is damaged to the point it's artifacting, but you are going to replace the RSX all together then.. That's the only point you really need to touch those solder balls. PCB on PS3 is very thick and solder does not melt that the temperature the PS3 is capable of outputting

[@fss1704]

Don't question, just open one of this caps and you will see the fucking black blob of melted tantalum in the middle of the capacitor, then you show this to your friend and solder new capacitors.

[@OnYourSquare]

Todays consoles have an extremely high thermal mass to prevent overheating during those extended gaming sessions. But I wouldn't recommend a GPU reflow either. Getting the board up to temp. requires a ton of heat and a ton of air flow, making it difficult to be precise, especially if you're using a hot air gun. You're more likely to bridge the solder balls rather than get them to resolidify in place. Plus you increase the likelihood of damaging something else.

[@StaticVapour590]

@@fss1704 I opened one of those on my own PS3 when i delidded it, it was fine to my surprise :)

[@StaticVapour590]

@@OnYourSquare + Software already throttles back and shut it down. Damage is more done by "reflowing"

[@OnYourSquare]

@@StaticVapour590 That what I said. They are more likely to damage the unit, indiscriminately blasting heat across the board. We offer repair, recovery or restoration of data damage for Apple products with circuit damage. And one of the things we see most often are boards people simply BLASTED with heat, in a hail Mary attempt to fix it. So when I see people giving out that TERRIBLE advise, I have to say something. Save the next guy from wasting his time on a roached board.

[@foxhazhax4845]

I tear down, deep clean and repaste all my consoles at least once every 2 years, true cooling maintenance isnt everything but it goes a heck of a long way 🦊💜

[@Grijano]

They did the reballing in my PS3 launch model and it worked just for 2 weeks. Threw the console to the bin and never bought any Sony product anymore.

[@juckis]

hey thanks for this video. youtube has today suggested some of your videos to me and i have enjoyed them alot, this was final nail in the coffing for me, you got yourself another subsciber. i have couple dead ps3 and this video inspired me to take new look at them, lets see if they some day in future work again. maybe i finally change capasitors to my sega game gear too

[@TheRailroad99]

The bump issue with the bad underfill was very common. I just have to say two words: "nvidia bug" But I think many chips in this transition period had similar issues, it took a while for the chip fabs to adopt to lead free solder. A reball can sometimes be a fix, for example in a lot of AVRs from 2008-2015. All used texas instruments DSP chips. However some of those DSPs (I think chip date 2011-2012) had defective bumps as well. The failure was the same. The fix of reballing fixed most of them, but some died again. Those with the dead chip. If you have one of them, just replace the chip with the newer version that does not fail. (Even with the good chip, add a heatsink, otherwise the solderballs below can crack)

[@Gtrips07]

Have a HK receiver that had the defective balls. First one replaced under warranty second one I reheated myself and it was fixed

[@Ghozer]

I used to repair PS3 YLOD's, we never touched the cooling (other than a re-paste, due to often drying out), and never reflowed anything... What we used to do, was... A full clean of the system, Then place it in a warm/hot place for 24 hours (we had a cupboard we setup with thermal sheets internally, a thermostat and heater/cooler system to regulate, we used to keep it at around 50c internal temp) (this brings all components up to a thermal equilibrium, so any expansion/compression due to temperature differences is eliminated. After allowing to cool (in the same location, at a controlled speed) Then, we would perform a full reset of the system via safe/recovery mode. This worked on 8 out of 10, and the return rate was very low, and any that were returned were often a good 6+ months later, and often a different issue... Odd occasions we would replace capacitors or voltage regulators, we would usually test components if a PS3 was returned. This wasn't my methodology, it was what I was told to do :)

[@InconsistentManner]

You failed to talk about the other major problem with the Yellow Light of Death... Bad Blu Ray Laser Modules... I used to repair PS3's through eBay at a rate of about 10 to 20 a week in 2008 and 2009.. This was a major problem that was easily fixable by getting a Japanese made laser module vs the factory provided Chinese part.

[@DisplacedGamers]

Yes. There were also problems with power supplies going out - various revisions of the PSUs run hotter while others are more efficient, etc. My primary focus for this was the most generally accepted "assumption." One of my good friends that bought a PS3 not too long after I bought mine had the blu-ray drive go out on his system. Frustrating, for sure.

[@deedoubs]

Would that really cuase a yellow light situation? The PS3 didn't actually need a funcitoning bluray drive to start or even to run games since it had an online store and all.

[@dukemagus]

You say "failed", I say "now I have an excuse to ask for a part 2"

[@matt4193]

How come? I've yet to stumble upon a yellow light caused by a bluray laser module.

[@wonderingmonitor1996]

Just looking into this as I'm thinking about reviving my phat PS3 60 GB. Loving how you keep an open mind and are not afraid to say that a lot of lore and solutions out there are just assumptions and people echoing. The hard part: guess I'll have to learn how to properly diagnose mine before decide what cause the YLOD on mine. Cheers mate!

[@luminumlx2604]

6:37 a bunch of bent pins

[@jjhack3r]

Look at all those pinises

[@szr8]

I've fixed those before with a mechanical pencil, which really takes me back. :)

[@jjhack3r]

@@luminumlx2604 omg nobody gfs

[@luminumlx2604]

@@jjhack3r what is gfs?

[@jjhack3r]

@@luminumlx2604 nobody gives a fucking shit

[@Rscreen]

3:15 what game is that?

[@itsOGP]

Kills me how no one states most consoles that got YLOD weren’t treated or ventilated well enough. Everyone forgets technology needs a proper environment.

[@you2be839]

Mine got YLOD after left unused in the past 2 years, it worked flawlessly up until then and that's why I'm blaming it on the loss of capacitance over time of these NEC-Tokin capacitors.

[@dexterthewulf3637]

I love how you bring up the thing with the GameGear about the capacitor failure. Mine kinda works but not the speaker and quiet left audio on headphones, and screen requires a very long warmup

[@evmaxx31]

I used to work at a console repair shop during the height of the RRoD and YLoD occurrences. We would reflow the PS3 motherboard in reflow oven with only the 2 chips exposed and it would fix it 9 out of 10 times, and we would rarely get returns. And the 1 out of 10 times the reflow wouldn't work, reballing would usually do the trick. We must've done hundreds if not thousands of PS3's during that time. I'm not disputing what you claim, but I thought I'd share my experiences with it.

[@Clay3613]

Was the HDD data safe from corruption?

[@odd4189]

What about the ones who failed and didnt tell you and just bought a new one?

[@evmaxx31]

@@Clay3613 HDD was almost always fine after a successful reflow/reball. I've only really seen a few cases when that happens, and it's because the HDD itself went bad.

[@evmaxx31]

@@odd4189 Well, I suppose I can't account for those. But among the people I knew who I've repaired their PS3, I saw only a couple fail again, and that was maybe a year or more later.

[@Clay3613]

@@evmaxx31 So what causes a PS3 to turn on then turn right back off into standby mode?

[@notsuoh16Bit]

Fixed well over 1000 PS3s with my custom reflow technique when I was in business here in Australia, my warranty was 6 months, I had a return rate of less than 5% and I made $1000s of dollars. My tool was a $25 heat gun, but my technique was what made the difference. The problem I believe was isolated to the CPU and GPU area, the rest of the board I kept cool during the reflow and the process only took 8 mins, which includes the warm up and the cool down process as well. Nice video.

[@TheSwartz]

I just used a single X-ray to diagnose all 12 patients I saw tonight. At least insurance liked this flawed logic.

[@waltersobchak7275]

What kind of patient do you have you are no doctors shut your mouth

[@jaythatguyyouknow5135]

Why doesn’t this dude have a bigger platform? I have seeen others say this and I have to agree, DG is an extremely underrated channel and if you’re into electronics repair and video games here’s the dude to watch.

[@dukemagus]

Cutest support capacitors ever shown on video

[@chadstelk3957]

Fantastic! I am so glad the scientific mind still exists. I hope you explain everything you learn in video. Well done.

[@Machistmo]

6:35 UGH bent pins on that 486!

[@Michael-rv5ib]

I have no real clue why I clicked on this video, but I found it pretty interesting. Good job on it too!

[@erwinmaes3105]

this why i never buy the launch model, but wait for the slim model after they worked out the bugs

[@killbotjames22]

Erwin Maes And then that’s where my launch model Xbox one gives out and I have to get the next iteration.

[@KingMar70]

Well not always tbh I still have my launch PS4 working flawlessly to this day.

[@kathrynradonich3982]

My launch PS3 still runs just fine. I don’t play it nearly as often as I used to but it fires up every time I go to use it.

[@ras_krystafari3333]

Ps4 seems to be good. But yes this is generally good advice to live by

[@joesaiditstrue]

after more research in the PS3 repair community, the issue is still usually the RSX, not the NEC Tokin caps. There's a new modchip available that lets you swap RSX chips from a donor PS3 btw

[@BeinZilex]

I still feel like it could be the nec/tokins because they were very prone to failing

[@lekhapratap1652]

The one problem that the PS3 has and there’s not even a big enough sample. Bravo

[@RonFerlman]

My fat PS3 only just this year started getting the yellow light but it still turns on all the way and works for now

[@TheRestartPoint]

Great video thanks. What did Sony and Microsoft learn from the PS3 and 360 which has enabled PS4 and XBONE to be much more reliable? I have an original fat backwards compatible PS3 that still works! But the drive can be a little temperamental

[@DisplacedGamers]

Well one part of the FC-BGA improvement was the die shrink. Computers around this era that pushed for more raw power one way or another really put out a LOT of heat, and the industry started to focus more on multi-cores, CPU/GPU optimization and cooling. Consoles pulled in the reigns a bit concerning pushing forward with raw speed. That is better for a "longer short term" life of the consoles for sure. Microsoft straight up learned the hard way due to rushing production of the Xbox 360, and I am sure they said "let's never do THAT again" after paying billions to right the wrong.

[@SincereGhostwriter]

@@DisplacedGamers This generation of consoles actually puts out around the same amount of heat but in a smaller surface area now that they both use an APU.

[@uzaiyaro]

I am *not* an electronics engineer - just a hobbyist who knows very little, and who has a lot to learn. I never did like reflowing stuff, one, because it doesn't actually fix the problem, it just masks it while creating more, and two, it's not good diagnostic practice. It's not diagnostics at all. It's like replacing an engine with one from the wreckers just because you have a bad coil pack because you can't be arsed actually working the problem. It may work. It may blow up in your face. But it definitely doesn't fix the problem. I did learn that the PS3 failed because of a "power supply problem" - but never bothered to look into what it was. I think I did many years ago, but that was then and this is now, and I've been inebriated a lot since then. A secret sauce high speed decoupling capacitor in a package I've never seen or heard of before definitely sounds like it could be a problem. Many years ago when tantalum caps were new and they looked like little bulbs (they weren't SMDs yet - almost nothing was), these would often fail literally explosively, and even nowadays, mechanical stresses can cause bypass caps, for example, to fail explosively. EEVBlog had a video of a power supply, which I own a later copy of, where a bypass cap placed over the output would be mechanically stressed when the DC baluns were attached, causing it to short internally and explode. The fix - which was applied to my copy, in case you were wondering - was to remove the cap. I guess it's a valid fix, but I'm in two minds about this. The other part of me thinks that the thing was there for a reason, and while removing it would not make the product cease to work (muntzing, anyone?), I wouldn't mind betting that it adds a little weird harmonics to the mix in doing so, even if it has very little real-world significance. I don't really have an oscilloscope capable of testing this, though, I only have a very, very basic PC based scope useful for simple waveforms and the simplest of triggering and math and that's about it. I'd love for someone to send me a real scope, I'd love you long time, but while strange things have happened, that's a bit too strange to ever happen. If you've read this far, thank you. I'm going to bestow the single biggest nugget of knowledge I know about diagnosing literally anything that runs on magic pissed off pixie juice. Thou shalt check voltages. If you don't have a voltage there, the thing isn't going to work. Many, many, many times, you are dealing with a power supply problem. Can you guess what else might have had a power supply problem? Exactly. If you look closely on a lot of PCBs - not all of them - but a lot of them - you will see test pads for all the different rails that that thing uses. *Use them.* Test them. Make sure your voltages are there. Make sure they are *stable.* If they are, then you may dig further. But check voltages and their stability (if practical) first. Thanks for reading. I'm always learning, and again, I know very little, just enough to get myself in to trouble, not so much out of it.

[@fahriakalin5936]

years ago I got spooked by the YLOD reports so I never bought a PS3, but now that the problem has been identified, if these NEC/TOKIN capacitors are actually the source of the problem then I might just consider buying one

[@asturides]

Just don't get a fat model, as those are the ones that usually get the YLOD. Happened to me on 2 fat models, but have a slim since about 5 years ago, still working great.

[@carlosgomez_c137]

After reflowing and reballing hundreds of PS3s, another problem detected was the board bended itself because the high amount of heat it receive from bad dissipation of the cooling system. Sometimes a thin copper piece between heatsink and GPU/CPU, with high quality thermal compound, solved the problem of both chips stopped making full connection with the board, cracking some solder balls when board started to bend.