F#$%! YLOD Strikes Again! (opinions needed)

[TheRev]

Get an XBOX

I kid I kid, Sony fannies do that all the time with XBOX issues.

I guess you could get a new PS3 and swap out the Hard drive?

[Stark]

Get an XBOX

I kid I kid, Sony fannies do that all the time with XBOX issues.

I guess you could get a new PS3 and swap out the Hard drive?

Yeah, as stated, this would format the old HDD.

[flojocabron]

Once the system busts, you will be repairing it every few months. One of my friends has repeatedly done it, and says that some thermal paste works better than others.

I've seen him do it at least three times in the last few years.

He's kept it alive for some time now, he put a huge noisy fan in it. He can control the speed on it with a knob. He doesn't use it all that much anymore since he got another ps3.

I think pretty much all first gen Ps3's are dying now.

[ATARI800XLfan]

why not just send it in to Sony for repair?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Get it re-balled with leaded solder. Sony only fixes it with lead-free solder (environmental reasons) which melts at a lower temperature and causes the system to fail again. Third party shops that re-ball use leaded solder which should be a permanent fix.

Second, don't pay anybody any amount of money if they do a re-flow. Re-flowing a console is done by heating up the board to attempt reconnecting the 1000+ failed little lead-free solder joints that hold your main CPU and the GPU chips (the brain and graphical components) to the board. Re-flow repairs are complete and total BS, acting only as a band-aid before the solder melts again. Most of the time it consists of a guy with a heat gun (glorified hair dryer) just heating up the board and praying it works before he ships it back to you.

In other words:

Re-Balling a console with leaded solder permanently fixes it.

Re-Flowing a console is just a fools game and you'll be wasting your money on patches that lead to nowhere.

Sending it to Sony is just as worthless as getting it re-flowed, because they're just going to send it back with the same type of lead-free solder that failed in the first place.


Lastly, don't attempt to do it yourself if you're not used to dealing with the innards of modern electronics, or you've never been inside of a current gen console. It's honestly a thousand times more complicated than anything inside of an Genesis, SNES or even the overly-engineered consoles of the last generation.

[8bit]

Thanks for the great details response Mod_Man. I do have experience with modern electronics (ive broken down an iphone 4 and put it back together for a screen repair and Ive taken apart an Xbox360 for a mod) but I am still not keen on putting a motherboard in the oven. I think I will look for a reputable place to re-ball with lead based solder and give it a go. If it dies again after that I am done and I'll just have to play ps2 and ps1 games on the older consoles with wired controllers.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions guys. It was good to vent a little and get yall's helpful feedback. I think I am ready to move forward from here with a good game plan.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Awesome to hear I could be of help!

P.S.-Make sure that wherever you send it that if you have it re-balled to ensure they use leaded solder and re-ball both chips!

A lot of re-balling places use lead-free because they're banking on the chance you'll come back again when it re-breaks, and most don't re-ball both the CPU and GPU. So, ensure that they do, and they use leaded solder when doing it!

[8bit]

^^ Will do! I'll report back in a few weeks when its done.