Good evening, everyone! Recently I was lucky enough to come across and win a 40 gigabyte PS3 on eBay that still functions. While I am waiting for the system to arrive, I began to think about ways to preserve the system. I thought about everything from adding a water cooling mod to a mineral oil cooling solution for the motherboard. My question is if I should even bother...will the system, regardless, overheat and wind up killing itself in the end? What have others done, outside of reballing with leaded solder (which is presently not an option for me)? Thanks!
I"m pretty sure the 40 and 80GB non backwards compatible PS3 are pretty reliable (Relatively speaking), suffering more from laser failure issues than YLOD, although I have seen some YLOD. The launch model backwards compatible 20 and 60GB ones had design and manufacturing flaws including ROHS compliant solder I think, these led to early YLOD failure of the units. Both My 60GB failed within 2 years, along with all my friends launch models... My non BC 80GB and early slim are still going strong. I think a few 80GB units with Metal gear bundled in had backwards compatibly, US only IIRC. Other than looks it has no advantage over a slim. The only advice I can give is to replace the stock thermal compound, its probably all dry by now, clean the fan and vents, then use it in a well ventilated place and enjoy!!
THIS GREAT NEWS! I picked the PS3 up from the Good Will eBay site for $20 because only the Blu Ray drive had died! It has hackable firmware, so I can live without the drive working.
The backwards compatible PS3 have the most common YLOD problems (CECHAxx-CECHExx). Also the 40 GB non-BC (called CECHGxx) has common YLOD problems. I have a CECHGxx and I've had YLOD on that one several times. The CECHHxx (also a 40 GB model) is the first model that is not overheating resulting in YLOD. It has a new board layout and a change from 90 nm GPU to a 65 nm GPU which generates a lot less heat. From there on the fat models have performed well (CECHQxx being a 160 GB and the last one before slim arrived). I also have an 80 GB CECHKxx and it is still going strong.
Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle is COK-002. So it's not full BC. It's identical to EURO launch model (only GS chip is hardware, EE is emulated).
I have a PHAT 80GB PS3 (with bigger hard drive) & I did a preventative YLOD fix on it about 2 years ago & it's still going strong. It doesn't have a working bluray drive on it, but I do watch a lot of movies through it so it's on a lot.
I think the summary of this should be - Go for ones that have backwards compatibility, but not the earliest launch models (maybe like a short time after launch). In regards to maintaining it, I often wonder if there's a benefit to having the console stand upright on its side rather than the conventional flat. To me it appears air flow is a little better this way, so my recommendation is have it stand on the side, not the normal flat way. (It may just be the placebo effect but it could be real, who knows. I do this all the time because I found it to be cooler when set like this.) Even though the drive is dead, replacing it is not a challenge so long as you're careful. Use this chart to ID what drive/lense assembly you have to make sure that if you replace it, that it is the correct one. I also suggest readont the notes on the section right below the chart. http://www.ps3devwiki.com/ps3/Bluray_Drive#Bluray_Drive_Revisions And if it's hackable than even better!
I had one of the 40gb's CECHG and it had the YLOD (well artifacting and freezing). I was running cfw at the time and having a blast, sadly. They were the lower-budget PS3 offering and they are not very reliable, at least from my research. I would definitely recommend the thermal compound removal, and one thing people seem to forget is that there is even more compound to replace UNDER the metal heat spreaders that sit on top of the CPU and GPU. Another suggestion I have is to get the fan homebrew (Control Fan Utility) and make it run a bit stronger than normal, I've seen dramatic temps changes from a few upward ticks of the fan speed. I'm currently rocking out a BC CECHA-01 with custom firmware that had YLOD when I got it and was sitting on 3.41. I had it professionally reflowed and I know personally a very cheap reballer if it ever needed to come to that. I also have the MGS4 backwards compatible 80gb with 3.55 ofw. This thing sat in my friend's closet for years when 3.56 came out because he refused to buy or use another Sony product when he realised OtherOS was being removed! Got it off of him for $70 and it can sit in my closet for a backup. I may have a BD-Drive if you need one, I have a bunch of parts lying around from dead Phats. And since you have cfw you can remarry these drives. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but some ISOs used to need a disc in the drive to work. And btw, since you'll have cfw, you can actually play many PS2 games on your non-bc PS3. Look up a tutorial on PS2 Classics Placeholder. It's basically a tool that will turn your PS2 ISO into a PS2 Classics title like the ones Sony sells in their store.
This step can be avoided if you just remove the drive from the daughterboard and replace the drive assembly. Remarrying is only needed if you have a different daughterboard installed. Generally thats the worst case scenario if the board is also dead, but just the drive portion can be changed without changing the daughterboard.
I have a cecha launch model. Still going strong. Just use rebug firmware and we man to control fan speeds. Never a problem
