PS3 "The system has become hot" message

I've dealt with several PS3s but this one's got me stumped... friend's 40gb PS3 is giving this error message:



Never seen this message before this. Tried giving it a reflow but same thing.
Basically you turn it on, it runs for about 10-30 seconds and then gives this error and shuts off. Even tried running it with the fan on max (very loud!). Research doesn't bring up too much info other than the obvious that it's overheating or possibly damaged heat sensor (it doesn't feel very hot, usually fat PS3s get warm pretty quickly).

Anybody here personally dealt with this error message before? I don't have high hopes to fix this one because it doesn't seem like there's any way to fix it other than maybe some crazy cooling system.

(Please don't write "change the thermal paste", I'm well beyond that.)

 

Its the old thermal paste. Between the heatsink and the cpu/gpu,
and most important between the IHS and the processor. The thing is also with this, that it can be very hard too get it off.

 

Did you even read what I wrote??

Tried it all. No luck. Seems like a lost cause. At least the Blu-ray drive (and everything else) still works.

 

Sounds like the cpu heat sensor is faulty, like u already said. The old xenon xbox sometimes got this problem, the only solution was to cut the cpu temp sensor trace but this was very risky as the console would not shut off if it got a real temp problem. Not sure where the temp trace is on a PS3 mobo.

 

My buddys slim ps3 was doing this after I reflowed it,not as fast as yours but was around 10 to 15 minutes.

All I did was add 2 pennies on each cpu and gpu brackets and it worked great.

 

I already found a fat PS3 locally for cheap which had never been opened and wasn't reading discs. Swapped in friend's Bluray drive and now it works fine.

@Pikkon
The penny trick sounds smart, I'll have to remember that.

 

Due to a bad reflow, probs nothing you did, leadfree solder is crud at the best of times haha

 

Haha yeah I did
Why I still said was because most of the people dont change it under the IHS, and there is also where it makes a big differents.as that one also dries out over times.

and it was just a suggestion

 

Apple moved from PPC to Intel because they couldn't produce a laptop never mind cooling a full-size tower, Sony & Microsoft then made consoles neither could keep cool.