LOG: PS3 YLOD Fix

gam3r · 2 Jan 2011 at 21:57

Zairs said:
this is why i built it up without the casing and then lifted the left side up slightly as i put a cd in, it seamed to get the top bits into the correct places

its good practice, but i wouldnt waste to much time as the console will fail again! best looking at ps3's with broken bluray lasers

I've wasted enough time already lol.

Well...When I insert a disc I don't even get a flashing blue light - could this indicate the problem is something else?

Zairs · 2 Jan 2011 at 22:29

couldn't tell you, only had to realine it once, that was enough for me!
though from what i remember if it aint alined properly then it wont work.
are both cables conected at both ends??

gam3r · 2 Jan 2011 at 22:39

Yep...Ribbon cable is connected to the drive, power connected to the board from the drive. All the ribbons on the back of of the drive double checked and re-seated.

This is what I did to try and attempt to re-align it after the YLOD fix. As it wouldn't take in any discs.

1) I opened the drive up and the drive seemed to be engaged as if there was a disc in it (the previous owner did say they opened it up to remove a game after YLOD) - the flaps at the front were up to stop it from taking in a disc.

2) I reset the drive arms on either side and the little mechanism on the front that accepts discs to the positions where they would be if there was no disc inside the PS3.
The flaps at the front as a result of this were lying flat (so discs could enter the drive)

3) Re-assembled the whole thing.

4) Attempted to put any old cd in. When putting the CD in i noticed that no blue light began blinking and also I had to force the CD half way in before the drive accepted it.

5) The drive accepted the CD and started spinning - still no blue light and nothing in XMB

6) When attempting to eject I just get three beeps and the disc does not come out. It keeps spinning.

I've watched loads of videos on youtube about this and making sure all the bits and pieces are in the right places/mechanisms working as they should and I'm am now truely stumped!

Zairs · 2 Jan 2011 at 22:48

where has this ps3 come from?? do you know the person or did it come from a certain auction site.
it could have been two seperate faults from two different ps3?

gam3r · 2 Jan 2011 at 22:56

Just from an auction site.

Spoke to the person who sold it - they said they never opened it up or attempted to fix it. They only opened the BD to get their game out and that's it.

xanxion · 3 Jan 2011 at 09:54

I think you haven't quite got the alignment right, i did the same myself a quite back, followed the same guide you did, but even then things were not working right, i could put a disk i, but it wouldn't come back out and it wouldn't load either.

The key us to make sure the drives various parts all slot in correctly on all sides, and that the front disk rollers are indeed in place too.

If you get that far and it can take and eject disks but you get nothing but the loading orb in the corner of the screen then the laser sled is dead

gam3r · 3 Jan 2011 at 10:17

xanxion said:
I think you haven't quite got the alignment right, i did the same myself a quite back, followed the same guide you did, but even then things were not working right, i could put a disk i, but it wouldn't come back out and it wouldn't load either.

The key us to make sure the drives various parts all slot in correctly on all sides, and that the front disk rollers are indeed in place too.

If you get that far and it can take and eject disks but you get nothing but the loading orb in the corner of the screen then the laser sled is dead

I'll give it another shot today. When you had the problem did your blue led work? Because mine doesn't seem to work. Theb3 beeps I hear for pushing eject, does this indicate the ps3 thinks the drive is empty?

Thanks

andshrew · 3 Jan 2011 at 15:15

So my May 2007 60GB joined the YLOD club yesterday.

Am I right in thinking that even if I get Sony to do a repair/swap for a refurb it's just going to be a matter of time until it happens again?

I want to get it going again long enough to get some save games off; I've got an old heat gun but it only has 260c or 500c settings, is the 260 one going to be too cool to try and follow this guide?

I was going to try the hair dryer trick just as a quick fix but a bit worried about causing more halm than good!

Going to replace it with a Slim in the long run, will certainly miss my backwards compatibility though

Naan_H · 3 Jan 2011 at 15:34

when i fixed mine i used a heatgun at approx 300C i think, and it only lasted a few mins before it YLOD again. so i got the hairdryer out and used that through the back vents. This got it back working, enough to get save games off, to transfer all info to a new ps3, and for me to trade it in. all in all a good result.

i think its appalling that sony/xbox consoles arent built to last, and i had to go to these lengths to fix it tbh. i feel sorry for the sod that gets my used ps3, but i wont lose any sleep over it.

I credit the guys on here trying hard to get their ps3s fixed, but it seems a massive effort sending it to random guys to fix it through ebay etc. the fact is its always a temp fix, no matter how hard you try. better off quitting while you're ahead and purchasing a new slim one. its a lot less stressful!

andshrew · 3 Jan 2011 at 16:11

Naan_H said:
when i fixed mine i used a heatgun at approx 300C i think, and it only lasted a few mins before it YLOD again. so i got the hairdryer out and used that through the back vents. This got it back working, enough to get save games off, to transfer all info to a new ps3, and for me to trade it in. all in all a good result.

How powerful was the hair dryer you used? How long did you use it on the PS3 for?

Naan_H · 3 Jan 2011 at 16:43

andshrew said:
How powerful was the hair dryer you used? How long did you use it on the PS3 for?

it was my mums old remington one

- will have to go find it. think i did it for 20 minutes, then left it a while to cool. i made sure i didnt melt the plastic on the back. but it defintely did the trick - it must have been on for 2 hours or so after it, including a play session in the shop where i traded it in. the fans never kicked in and it sounded as good as new

xanxion · 4 Jan 2011 at 00:33

Just wanted to say, i talked to the guys over at Nyleveia in their chatroom (i mentioned it two posts ago above), and hes saying DO NOT reflow with a heat gun of hair drier, because it causes damage to the GPU, to quote :

<@Nevada> Well look at it this way, if you disconnect your PC graphics cards fan and fire up a graphically intensive game, how long do you think it would take for it to hit say 120.c and die?, now imagine you're repeatedly heating it up to 150.c or higher every time to reflow?, i really wouldn't recommend it.
<@Nevada> Safest way would be to check everything you can (If you can, check cables for bdrom are connected, check that wifi board is connected, check that PSU is operational (swap with a spare if possible, PSU can cause ylod also)
<@Nevada> If you check all of those and you're still getting YLOD then your issue is without any doubt the RSX GPU, you have two options.
<@Nevada> Buy a new console and reflow the old one yourself, to bring it back to life long enough to backup your data and deactivate the machine on your accounts, or to send it off to be reballed.
<@Nevada> Reballing has a much, much higher chance of being a permanent fix if you do not risk destroying the GPU itself with "reflows".
<Xanxion> But is there a risk with reballing too?
<@Nevada> Well, yes there is however if the machines dead the only risk is losing out on the cash spent trying to have it repaired, that said if it works then theoretically it should work for several more years if not longer
<@Nevada> Assuming the GPU is in a working condition, reballing will fail only if a pad becomes damaged, or if it's reballed badly and some (or even just one) of the solder balls bridges.
<Xanxion> Have you had your console reballed?
<@Nevada> Yeah, i have several consoles, some of them launch units (60gb jp ones) that we use for reviewing games, I'm working out a deal with retronix to offer cheaper reballing services to Xbox 360 and PS3 owners, will be posting about it soon on Nyleveia.com, part of this arrangement involved me having them reball one of our 60gb japanese systems (was ylod but not reflowed)
<@Nevada> they reballed that with lead based (RSX only), received the reballed unit a few days later and it's been running solid ever since (40+ hours running our review copy of lbp2 so far)

He's an ace bloke, gam3r - i asked him about your ejection issue and he said pull off the top of the ps3, take off the metal cover on the bdrom, put something non-conductive under the drive so it doesn't short anything like a mouse mat or something and record a video of you booting the ps3 then pressing eject, and he'll tell you whats up with it.

Just incase you wanna head over there and speak to him yourself, the channels :
#nyleveia on irc.dark-alex.org or you can click the chat link on their forums over at nyleveia.com/forum/

My cousins ps3 ylod over xmas, when they get the info posted up on reballing via retronix i think I'll probably give that a shot for him - though i saw two people earlier on in this thread saying they did and were unsuccessful?

Can you guys tell me if you attempted a reflow before sending the console off to be reballing?, and if you did, how many times did you reflow before sending it - and most importantly, did it get to a point where reflowing wouldn't bring it back to life before you sent it?

Sir_Alan_ · 4 Jan 2011 at 08:12

xanxion said:
My cousins ps3 ylod over xmas, when they get the info posted up on reballing via retronix i think I'll probably give that a shot for him - though i saw two people earlier on in this thread saying they did and were unsuccessful?

Can you guys tell me if you attempted a reflow before sending the console off to be reballing?, and if you did, how many times did you reflow before sending it - and most importantly, did it get to a point where reflowing wouldn't bring it back to life before you sent it?

I attempted no fix of my own on the console before sending my PS3 PCB to Retronix, i simply took it (the console) apart and sent it off. They reballed the RSX, sent it back a month later and the thing was still ylod...

And in case you were wondering it was an 80gb model, bought brand new Sept 2008, died Aug 2010 and treated very well. I can only assume i got an iffy unit from the start for it to have died somewhat prematurely

TheKeiron · 4 Jan 2011 at 10:23

xanxion said:
My cousins ps3 ylod over xmas, when they get the info posted up on reballing via retronix i think I'll probably give that a shot for him - though i saw two people earlier on in this thread saying they did and were unsuccessful?

Can you guys tell me if you attempted a reflow before sending the console off to be reballing?, and if you did, how many times did you reflow before sending it - and most importantly, did it get to a point where reflowing wouldn't bring it back to life before you sent it?

I did indeed attempt a heat gun reflow before sending it off to be reballed, I did it once, though it is possible the console may have been reflowed before i got it (I got the ps3 second hand off ebay)

Fireskull · 4 Jan 2011 at 13:37

gam3r said:
I'll give it another shot today. When you had the problem did your blue led work? Because mine doesn't seem to work. Theb3 beeps I hear for pushing eject, does this indicate the ps3 thinks the drive is empty?

Thanks

If you dont fix it before I will find the youtube video I used and post it here, there is a small grey arm that freely moves about underneath and that needs to be in the right position, there is a small hole next to it and if you can see if the grey arm once you turn the top back over you need to push it the other way, I had this problem a few times until I found said youtube video, if I cant find the vid I will take my sisters PS3 apart and take a pic

**EDIT**

Found the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzHPRGHFjpw

gam3r · 5 Jan 2011 at 21:17

xanxion said:
Just wanted to say, i talked to the guys over at Nyleveia in their chatroom (i mentioned it two posts ago above), and hes saying DO NOT reflow with a heat gun of hair drier, because it causes damage to the GPU, to quote :

He's an ace bloke, gam3r - i asked him about your ejection issue and he said pull off the top of the ps3, take off the metal cover on the bdrom, put something non-conductive under the drive so it doesn't short anything like a mouse mat or something and record a video of you booting the ps3 then pressing eject, and he'll tell you whats up with it.

Just incase you wanna head over there and speak to him yourself, the channels :
#nyleveia on irc.dark-alex.org or you can click the chat link on their forums over at nyleveia.com/forum/

My cousins ps3 ylod over xmas, when they get the info posted up on reballing via retronix i think I'll probably give that a shot for him - though i saw two people earlier on in this thread saying they did and were unsuccessful?

Can you guys tell me if you attempted a reflow before sending the console off to be reballing?, and if you did, how many times did you reflow before sending it - and most importantly, did it get to a point where reflowing wouldn't bring it back to life before you sent it?

Thanks - top bloke

will get a vid.

gam3r · 6 Jan 2011 at 21:11

gam3r said:
Thanks - top bloke

will get a vid.

So here is a video ( or two) of the drives behaviour:

This one is probably the best one:

PSX · 7 Jan 2011 at 11:46

xanxion - many thanks for the new info here! Hoping we can get more positive reports back from Retronix for repair successes.

Alex

fail at the internets · 10 Jan 2011 at 17:09

So i've opened my ps3 to fix the ylod but i've broken one of the purple/black heatpads ontop of the nectron chip.

I can't seem to find spares online

wat do?

andshrew · 12 Jan 2011 at 14:47

Naan_H said:
it was my mums old remington one - will have to go find it. think i did it for 20 minutes, then left it a while to cool. i made sure i didnt melt the plastic on the back. but it defintely did the trick - it must have been on for 2 hours or so after it, including a play session in the shop where i traded it in. the fans never kicked in and it sounded as good as new

It worked.

Took 4 attempts and was about to give up but thought I'd give it one more try.... nuked it for about 15 minutes on full pelt with a 2000W hair dryer and it's just booted up long enough for me to grab the saves I wanted.