PS3 60GB Phat Preservation

Hey guys, I just pick up a 2nd 60GB Phat PS3 with BC support for $40 USD.
Reason why it was so cheap? the guy said in the last two days, halfway throughout a game, the system shut down by itself with the blinking red light (No YLOD yet). A quick check at the warranty sticker, it seems to be intact, I bought the unit and when home to test it.

*Unit powered up no issue, Check the firmware and was 4.30, Set the PS3 to safe mode and perform a SYSTEM restore*

Wanting to know what was the cause of the shut down, I decided to monitor the temp by placing a thermal sensor at the back of the unit (Grill near the HDMI port) and loop a blu ray movie.

After 1st Loop, the temp was hovering around 48.5c, system still have yet to shut down by itself.

For the 2nd Loop, I decided to place my table fan blasting the wind directly to the back of the unit. Within 20secs, temps were brought down to 35.5c.

Running further test by playing the GT4 PS2 game for 10mins...no issue. Temp hovers around 35-38c.

After this small test, I conclude that PS3 60GB that despite the "huge" internal fan cooling the RSX and CELL, its was insufficient regardless! The heat generated was too much to bear, and not using lead for the RSX and CELL BGA chips is another reason for the breaking of contacts leading to the need to REBALL should the system experience YLOD.

Thus I will suggest owners of the 20,60GB Phat set and Playstation TEST models, do exercise additional cooling measures are in place. I know I could get a huge ass fan blowing the PS3, but i was wondering is there any other methods to preserve this Monster?

 

I have a few troublesome Xbox360 that were previously repaired but RRODed repeatedly before being given to me. I extensively modded them to run MUCH cooler and they still rebreak after like 3 weeks after reflow. But those are extreme cases, cooling sure helps.

One day ill try reball, when i get equipment.

I do not have a PS3 but when i find one im sure to mod it for cooling.

 

Those Phat Xbox experience higher failure rate compared to the phat PS3 counterpart, we could do ten million times of reballing but one day those chip will just die due to the rapid heat exposure given to them. I was thinking of venturing into water cooling of the PS3, but i felted that it might be overkill.

I miss those days where consoles were built like a tank like the Phat PS2(not counting the laser unit) or the classic gameboy.

 

I sure hope you don't mean with a heatgun because that wasn't a reflow anymore than sticking it into an oven at 450F is a reflow.

The 360's failure was a multitude of problems. The most known is the crappy lead free solder that has identical looking cold and good joints. The second is the placement of the GPU/CPU in the middle of the board where flexing will occur the most. The original XBox has the same basic placement but it generated far less heat than the 360 did and on top of it used leaded solder which will flex a good bit compared to lead free. There was some scandal about the 360 having a piece of foil in the thermal paste early on but I still don't know what that was about.

A reball with leaded solder will extend the life of any 360 but it likely won't stop it from dying the same way. Everything will die eventually but it'd be nice if the 360 died because of bad caps or a lightening bolt rather than a flexed board.

 

You could say it's not a 'proper' reflow and i would agree since you are not using a tool that was designed for this purpose and is not optimal. But its definitely a reflow if you get the temperature high enough for the solder to melt.

I used
HeatGun + underheater + flux + Shielding for delicate parts + Temperature probe and IR thermometer to make sure i reached the solder metling point.

It may not be the best method but lacking a rework station i did what i could with the tools i had.

But i stopped bothering with that, if i get a rework station ill go directly to reball.

 

Not really related but remind me my co worker recently got a Divorce and threw out a lot of stuff when he moved to an apt. Told him I got a Wii U and he said he's not really into games and on fact just threw out his PS3. I asked if it worked and he said ya but it was an old 60 GB phat model!! And he didn't want to deal with selling it. He literally just threw it in the trash because he thought it was worthless. Amazing. Mi gave him a good scolding. Also I have always had my
launch PS3 60 GB model mounted vertically, outside of a cabinet, with zeo problems. Is there any evidence that setting it up that way with good airflow j makes them last longer or am I just lucky?

 

My best friend has left his ps3 sitting on the floor of his roach infested apartment since launch day. He also leaves it on for 10-20 hour stretches at a time. Still works 100% without a hitch. It's never unplugged, always sitting in at least standbye.

I've known other people that took better care of theirs that got a YLOD within a year or two. It seems that either the quality control on these was just kinda all over the place, or it's just random.

 

My cousin has a phat 60gb, that he bought when it was released, that ps3 as far to many hours of gaming on his shoulders and still works like champ, just luck o guess

 

Hmmm, this got me wondering, could it those "Made in Japan" lasting those that are "Made in china"? But nevertheless, my bet is on the lead free solder that sony is using~

 

Have you checked the inside? Maybe all fins inside are covered in dust? How ever the 60GB even though it got a big fan it only idle at best. I personally have put up 4 fans running at 9 - 12V forcing the heat out. It does a huge different for the inside temperature.

 

It better If you do the custom changes, The GPU and CPU on PS3 should add one each washer in the screw hole to gain extra pressure. So it will clamp it tight. Really need a good thermal paste too which is big different to cheap paste.

And most importantly is clean the PS3 because the dust can really regenerate the heat even more than what you think. PS3 has the code combine button that automatically reversed the fan to blow out the dust.