Need some advice on a PS3 repair

I have a PS3 CECHG01 model. It takes a few times to fire up until it stays on. From a cold boot I get the red blinking light. It starts green, goes yellow for a bit and then continues to flash red. After doing some research it seems to be a hardware failure. So I pulled the hard drive out and tested the drive using Parted Magic to check for pre-failures and read and write issues. The 40GB passed with no issues. Once the console is working I can play bluray movies and psone titles with ease. I don't have any PS3 games at the moment for testing.

 

Sounds like intermittent YLOD (Yellow Light of Death), generally caused by faulty CPU/GPU.

 

Thanks for the reply. I guess I could attempt a reflow if necessary down the road. Not sure if this is normal but I noticed if I leave the PS3 on for a while it will shut itself down. The option that allows the system to shut off after some time is disabled. For example Saturday night I fell asleep watching a bluray and just last night I left Youtube running and when I woke up the system was off. Turned the system on using the power button and on the forth try it stayed on. For now I guess I have a look inside and give it a good clean and re apply the thermal paste

I forgot to mention when I turn the system on it doesn't immediately shut off. It will turn on do some thinking and then blink the red light. I was watching some videos and it seems the systems that needed rework done to them would immediately go red when powered on. Basically it gives me time to eject a disc if necessary.

 

The damage is already done it looks like. Thermal paste might help, but at this point you need to change the thermal paste under the heat spreader. Pulling the heat spreader now, might make things even worse. I wouldn't spend the time to reball a Fat G Model, its not worth. If it was a B or A then that's a different story. I'd start saving up for a slim.

 

Sending this off for repair was going to be a last resort for me anyway so I'll just tinker with it until it doesn't work anymore. It was a very cheap pickup from a local auction I went to last week. They even threw in a toaster oven.