PS3 repair (blinking red light)

I picked up a launch model Japanese PS3 a while ago and recently it had been overheating. So I thought I'd open it up, clean it out and replace the thermal compound with a better quality one. After going all that, now it won't start up! When I press the power button, I get a beep, the light turns green and the fan spins up, but then I get a brief orange light flash a number of beeps then the red light starts continually blinking. This sounds like the symptoms of the "orange light of death" but in my case, the console was functioning fine before I disassembled it. It was able to boot up and everything it was just overheating a lot. This says to me that the infamous solder should still be fine. I've confirmed that the heatsink and the processors are making contact since thermal compound made its way to the heatsink. What do you think guys?

 

It sounds like you may have put too much thermal compound and have managed to short the processor. Some thermal compounds are quite conductive and could be causing a short. Try taking the system apart and checking that compound is not spread onto anything other than the chip. If it has, rubbing alcohol should be your friend to cleaning up this mess and you can most likely recover your system easily.

It's been a while since I've been inside a PS3, but it could possibly depend on how you tightened the heatsink back on, as it may have been putting a lot of pressure on one side of the processor which could flex the board and break the joints (you said it had been overheating, which can weaken the solder joints and make them more susceptible to breaking. You could try a reflow with a heat gun, but this would only be a temporary fix (at least, in the majority of circumstances). If a reflow fixes the problem, you definitely have bad solder joints somewhere. I hate to say this, but there is almost no permanent fix for the YLOD/OLOD/RLOD. You can prolong the console's life greatly, but it will inevitably fail again, and again.

 

Nah, there's no thermal compound anywhere it shouldn't be. Plus, it says it's non-conductive. I think you're second point might be correct, as I do recall screwing in the heatsink clamps screw by screw, so this would have caused uneven pressure.

 

Mybe you cracked solder while taking out motherboard

 

Maybe. I'll try heatgunning them and see if it works.

As a more long-term solution, did Sony correct this issue in later models?

 

Naturally consoles with 45/40nm chips are more reliable.

 

Okay, I've heatgunned the two chips and now the console starts. Kinda. I get a green light, but nothing outputs to the TV and the controller can't sync to it. I can insert and eject games (it even spins up the game) and put the console into standby mode, but that's about it. When I connect the controller with a USB cable, the lights just keep blinking, it doesn't sync. I've tried the video rest thing (from standby, hold down power button until you hear two short beeps) but the second I touch the power button, the system starts up and the green light comes on.

 

Try sending your system into safe mode.

 

Nothing. Went through the steps mentioned on the site you linked to, the console acted correctly (right number of beeps, right light color) but I still don't get anything on screen.

 

Try removing the hdd and then turn the ps3 back on to see if you get video.

 

Nope, still nothing :\

 

Did you try to split the GPU IHS ? Sound like you screwed the GPU of the system. -_-;

 

"Split"? I did heatgun it like the CPU. Though you'd think if there was a major problem with the GPU, the system wouldn't start, and would give flashing lights like the YLOD.

 

YLOD is a generic error it doesn't mean the GPU is faulty necessarily.

All YLOD mean is "something is wrong, I can't boot so I'll panic...".


When the GPU is damaged buy pass the primary power on test from Syscon, the console tries to start. If communication from the CELL BE to the GPU fail, you have a boot up stall, which seems to be what you have now.
I asked if you did split the integrated heat spreader from the GPU because idiots on Youtube like to do so.

 

Nah, I didnt take off the heat spreader, just hot air gunned it like the CPU. Its kinda strange that the system is functioning mostly normally (I.e normal lights, disks can be inserted and spun up) you'd think that something major like GPU failure would cause the console to freak out and no even reach the point where it take disks.

 

Not strange at all. It's a old system and you certainly did flex the board when you separated the heatsink assembly from the board.

VERY COMMON MISTAKE... lol

The proper way of doing it is separating the heatsink assembly from the aluminium cage without open it. You remove only the four big screws and the wire that powers the blower. Then you split it while the mainboard is still on the cage.

After that you proceed to open the cage.

 

Now that I think about it, the heat sink for the GPU was really stuck. The copper heat pipes even bent a little before they finally separated. Sounds like this might have been what did it as opposed to flexing of the main board itself when removing it from the cage.

Though I would have hoped that re flowing the solder would have fixed this damage. Perhaps not. Dang. Do you know a way to recover save data from a hard drive?

 

Send it to service (reballing).

You can't recover data from the harddrive unless you can make it work again.

 

I thought ps3 toolset could decrypt the disk now?

 

Sony can service them? Will do they ones that are out of warranty and have no seal? And more importantly, will they replace the solder with a lead based one? I'd love to keep this launch model, but if it's going to have the same problems later on, even after servicing, I'd rather just get a new, later model one.