extended YLOD fix?

Hey guys, I need some help as I am a bit stuck at the moment. Not that long ago I fixed my friend's ps3 with a simple reflow, put on new as5 and got rid of all the dust. It ran fine for 3 weeks then went back to YLOD. Are there any other fix methods to save a ps3 without reballing? Thanks!

 

YLOD is like herpes it can be treated but never fully cured. Best best is to get a new one as Sony's design on the PS3 phat model's equals fail!! Even when mine got reballed it lasted 4 months max. My 360 that got reballed has been running strong for over 3 years.

 

Reball is not a fix for broken chips. Failed GPUs should be replaced, not reballed.

 

Sure! Place it in the microwave for a few seconds and your toasty PS3 will no longer have the YLOD. It will instead have NOYLOD.

 

When you remove the fan assembly next time, check it has made proper contact with the heatsinks, the thermal paste will have spread and you will be able to tell if it's not making proper contact, if it's not making proper contact you will need to file away some of the metal on the fan assembly 'ears' so the fan sits lower down on the heatsinks. Don't file away to much or the fan assembly may become loose, you may need to file more away on one side than another, I kept reapplying the paste and screwing it down until i was happy it was making proper contact. I think the motherboard flexes when it gets hot away from the fan assembly so you need to be sure it is making really good contact with the heatsinks. You'll also need to reflow on a low heat setting, i use a heat gun with flux. Finally make sure to do the filing away from the motherboard as you don't want that shorting stuff out.

 

LOL very true, but at least the RROD can be fixed for pretty long periods of time.

genius! I'll make millions fixing ps3's this way!

I guess I'll be leaving it as it is then, I'm in no position to soder a new chip on to the board. Thanks for the help anyways!

 

RROD/E74 can be fixed permanently, you just need to reball with leaded solder and replace default heatsink with low profile video card one with fan.

 

I will eventual try reballing ( when i finally buy a reworking station). I have a bunch of given away 360 consoles around and i can only fix them for about 3 weeks of normal use with Heatgun and underheater. Nowaday there are nice reballing kits on ebay with the stencils for both PS3 and 360. Also many tutorial videos on youtube, it feels like a good time to discover the joys of reballing

 

That is what I've been considering as the main problem is the lack of solder which causes the infamous problems. But the way I have learned without reball works for up to like a year or so if not more. You remove the xclamps along with a reflow and use screws to securely fasten the board to the chassis as another factor the causes RROD is the vibration the mobo experiences because of shitty xclamps. And it also makes heat transfer a lot better, so it makes it so you can seel them and give really long warranties without a large fear of RROD.

 

I tried all the techniques to the limits of what i had available (heat gun+ griddle) : using M5 screws and washers instead of X-clamps, credit card pieces as support. Major airflow mod + fan speed control, got the CPU,GPU temperature monitored and with the mod it was just warm.
Repair still dont last more than a month, but admittedly i did not use flux.

However, the consoles i got are likely bad cases, 5 of them have been reflowed by previous repairmen many times over and failed repeatedly, at some point they just wanted to get rid of them and i got them. I have a 6th one that is pristine, never been opened before. Owner gave it to me after it RRODed. Im keeping it for later. I have one console that is beyond repair through reflow, It was my first try with flux. I used alot of it and I think I heated it too much. There must be solder bridges between the balls, the error it gives me is characteristic of those bridges. A prime candidate to practice reball

I decided i was no longer gonna bother doing heatgun reflows. Ill get a proper rework station eventually and have a comeback to those blasted consoles. A buddy of mine has a PS3 that YLODed, if i can get good result with reballing 360s, ill offer him to do it on the PS3.

 

Ew yeah, I would never buy ones that have been repaired and failed. At that point you are in need of either a new chip or a reball(and at the moment for 600 i'm not interested in reball). I also slightly don't trust reball, it prolongs the fix but on consoles like the ps3 or 360 half the time it fails months later. But I have grown to trust this fix as the first time me and a friends tried it a year ago we still have kept the bad boy running. And anyways, considering we can easily get rrod xboxes for 5 bucks I'm happy.

 

As of now Im lacking first hand experience with reball but my feeling is that reball with leaded solder is a good fix. I would do complete reballs just to make sure, Hana, RAM, CPU, GPU and southbridge, nothing less.

Edit: And yeah, as you pointed, those RROD consoles can be had for dirt cheap or even free, so this is awesome opportunity to learn these techniques. Personally i just find it fun to fix stuff.

 

If you don't want to go for a reball (which you really should) one way of making sure your reflow lasts as long as possible is to make sure you replace the thermal paste & adhesive under the heatshields of the CPU and GPU. Reflowing or reballing without doing that is just wasting your own time.

Getting the heatshields off the CPU & GPU can be a bit of work and you'll need some fine sandpaper to lap both surfaces (be careful with the VRAM chips on the RSX BGA) before replacing them to get rid of the old adhesive. Make sure you use decent thermal adhesive to stick them back on after replacing the thermal paste.

 

I would reball if i could but I lack a reball station so its impossible for me to do so at the moment. But i will give that a shot, I have some artic silver brand thermal adhesive around so I'll see if that offers any longer of a fix.

 

I`ve been reballing for over 3 years now and can tell you, there is no such thing as a `permanent fix`. If you are wanting to a do a DIY solution, I would recommend just doing a reflow. reballing requires proper equipment and can `permamently` kill your XBox 360 if not done well.

A good reflow requires proper underboard heating. I recommend using a griddle from Walmart.
You`ll also need a good heatgun, thermal probe and good quality flux. That`s how i used to do it back in day before making a fulltime business out of reballing and console repairs.

 

In your opinion, how long should a good reball job be expected to last?

 

I warranty my reballs for 6 months. I have a 95% success rate when it comes to meeting my warranty period. The rate used to be 70%-80% which is okay however it is very time consuming doing repeat treatments on consoles and it also puts extra stress on the board which can impact console performance/longevity.

One of the most crucial and overlooked things I've found is that the motherboard needs to be squeaky clean before reattachment. Any residual LEad-free solder on the pads can cause the Chip - Board connection to become fragile and lead to a failure again. I send out an email to my customers every 4 months or so to find out how there console is going as a followup and actually have a quite a few customers with consoles that lasted over 1-2 years. Please keep in mind that some people really clock hours on their consoles whereas others are more casual gamers.

Anyways, my 2 cents...

 

Pm me a price, my friend my be interested in your services.

 

These things have to survive reentry?

 

LOL, this totally cracked me up XD