PS3 Revived by baking it

H

HotShotMedic

Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2006
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gotta give props to mtbmike777 over at overclock.net for starting the thread that led me to try this insane method. I had over 3 years of saved games on my 80gig ps3 that i did not back up (my own stupidity). The other day I went to turn on old faithful to stream some music while I had some friends over, I was met with a triple beep then the blinking red light. After some research I realized I was fucked. So I scoured the internet for some fixes. It didn't take long to find that thread, so I gave it a try tonight. After disassembling my ps3 and prepping the oven/baking sheet I cooked the motherboard for 10 mins at 385F. I propped it up on some tin foil balls to stabilize the motherboard. After 10 mins I shut the oven off and let it sit there for about 30 mins, then removed it and cooled it on the counter for 20 mins. I then reassembled the ps3 and held my breath as I hit the power button! It jumped to life with a beautiful green glowing light., I then got all my saved games off of it and transferred them to my new ps3 slim. The end...
 
haven't gotten that far, i was too excited to get my games off of it. i'll load it up tomorrow and fire up a game.
 
I fixed two YLOD PS3's in this manner, you should be good.
 
It won't last. They won't unless you reball the damn thing. It will last a month if you're lucky. I had to do the same thing with my 60GB, transferring all of my saves to my new 250GB. All is well now.
 
wow .. your one lucky dude .. lol .. i had a 60g that didnt power on at all .. lost all my saved data .. i think it was the ps only but i didnt want to deal with it so i sent it to Sony .. got a new one back and a new HD .. lol
 
Got a link to the thread detailing this approach? I've been using the reflow method with a heat gun, but it only gets the PS3 to work for on average ~30 days before it YLODs again. Would be willing to give this a go to see if it fares better.
 
pretty common fix for ps3s thats been around a while.
glad it worked for u
 
the techs at PSN are currently baking the motherboards for all of the multiplayer servers... hasn't fixed it yet
 
Nice. I'll give this a try once my PS3 dies again (which will be soon I'm sure).
 
The fact of putting the internals of a 360 or a ps3 in an oven is just crazy. The fact that it works is comedy gold. Glad it worked out for you.
 
The problem with both the oven method and the heat gun method is that while they may melt the solder back together given that there is no new flux in there and given that you don't have tight control of the temperature profile you are likely to end up with poor joints that may well fail again.

Really what should be done is the chip completely removed, reballed and refitted (or prefferablly replaced but you can't get the chips so that isn't an option) but that is a lot more work.
 
bboynitrous said:
It won't last. They won't unless you reball the damn thing. It will last a month if you're lucky...
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This. With leaded solder. AND FLUX!

After helping friends and friends of friends with their broken systems/botched repairs, I can attest to this. Most homebrew repairs fail within 1-2 weeks afterwards, but some hang on for a month or three. I've even heard of a few cases where a YLOD or RRoD systems were repaired at home and after a year + are still working today. Supposedly. But you must be smoking that really good stuff if you really think it's going to be permanent or realistically last more than 2-3 months, best case without getting rid of the cause. The lead free solder.

Unless you reball or at least use proper equipment for reflowing solder balls (which costs thousands of dollars, even up to 5 digits for the really beefy SMT rework stations), if you manage a fix there's a 99.9% probability that system will shit itself out dead again within a month.
 
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Franjo said:
The fact of putting the internals of a 360 or a ps3 in an oven is just crazy. The fact that it works is comedy gold. Glad it worked out for you.
Click to expand...

I've done it with video cards for the PC as well, a couple 8800s, works like a charm.
 
Well if my 360 ever dies, it's the first thing I'll try before buying a new one.
 
Just wondering if this will work on a ps3 that doesnt show any video. I get green light and everything seems working, but I get no video from HDMI or Composite? I am willing and have fixed a few share of computers/games/consoles/sticks in my time. So I aint retarded. Lol. Oh wait, though, I am going to be putting it in the oven. Lol. Hmm, /me Rolls Eyes!
 
KrAzYaZnFLiP808 said:
Just wondering if this will work on a ps3 that doesnt show any video. I get green light and everything seems working, but I get no video from HDMI or Composite? I am willing and have fixed a few share of computers/games/consoles/sticks in my time. So I aint retarded. Lol. Oh wait, though, I am going to be putting it in the oven. Lol. Hmm, /me Rolls Eyes!
Click to expand...

I've run into a couple with no video like that. Do you at least get sound or is it give both no picture and audio?
 
bboynitrous said:
It won't last. They won't unless you reball the damn thing. It will last a month if you're lucky. I had to do the same thing with my 60GB, transferring all of my saves to my new 250GB. All is well now.
Click to expand...

Came in here to post this. It's a quick but temporary fix, and from what I can tell, only earlier models are affected. I had an original 60 gig from launch that had a YLOD a little over 6 months ago. I paid to have it fixed as I didn't want to fuck up and burn the hell out of it. Worked flawlessly up until the weekend right before the PSN went down when it had another YLOD.

Edit: You're better off selling the YLOD PS3 to somebody who will try and fix it + resell, then put that money towards a slim. I was able to sell the 60GB PS3 mentioned above, broken, for $100, and I paid a little over $150 for a new(ish) slim (just a few weeks old).
 
I bought a 60gb PS3 from Ebay last month. The seller said he refurbished it to the best of his ability, eg. put in better thermal paste, better clamps, the newer PSU from the 40gb PS3s that runs much cooler, etc.

Unfortunately, it died on me a few days ago. In the XMB, it just shut off with a blinking red light. When I powered it on, it blinked yellow, then beeped, and then stuck back at blinking red.

Unfortunately, I'm not saavy enough to open up the PS3. I saw on the internet that some people cover all vents except the back, run a hair-dryer into the back vents for a while until the PS3 gets very hot and then give it time to cool down. They do it to revive it temporarily to at least get their disc out or backup their saves, etc.

So I did it for 15 minutes, the PS3 turned on and worked for 30 minutes and shut down again. I tried again for 30 minutes and so far, its been working for 2-3 days. I'll see if it dies on me again. If it does, I'm done with consoles until the next generation at least. I've already had a PS3 from 2008 fail on me and my 360 had the E74 error, MS fixed it quickly in 2009, but now the DVD drive is rattling and grinding extremely loud and having trouble reading discs. Both Sony and MS have dropped the ball in build quality this gen.
 
Does this mean that 360s and PS3s have cheap solder on them or something? The fact it goes to shit then can be fixed by putting it in an oven? I remember trying to solder something on a video card once and it was really tough to do because apparently the solder is higher quality and doesn't melt as easily (though I have also heard of people baking video cards to fix them).
 
It's lead free solder as mandated by the eurocrats*. Supposedly better for the environment but requires higher temperatures to work with and more prone to cracking than traditional leaded solder.

The combination of lead free solders (note: not all lead free solders are created equal and it took a while to find the best formulations after the eurocrats mandated them) with poor thermal design and high power high ball count chips has lead to very high failure rates on some devices.

* and thanks to manufacturers trying to keep their production lines the same regardless of where the products will be sold used in products sold everywhere.
 
I played some red dead redemption online with my re'flowed ps3 the other day for a few hours, it worked normally but i don't trust it any longer. Im gonna sell it I think, with full disclosure of said procedure of course.
 
nerdydesi said:
but now the DVD drive is rattling and grinding extremely loud and having trouble reading discs. Both Sony and MS have dropped the ball in build quality this gen.
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1. That's an easy fix. When removing the drive from the console there are metal inserts on the sides of the shell. slightly bend those barbs back out (a 30-40 degree angle is fine) around the front of where the drive fits in the chassis. Clean out the drive entirely of dust and grime with 91-99% isopropyl and Q-tips. Usually a ring of dust, dirt, and hair accumulate around the spindle making the disc off balance. Dirty rails and gears full of dust and hair can cause the loud grinding noises you hear when the console accesses a disc. Any rails or gears that were previously lubricated can be recoated with white lithium grease (you can find it at your local Sears for less than $4). Reassemble.

Some consoles I've found that using some thin, 1/4" wide foam weatherstripping cut into small "bumpers" 1/8" inch long spaced apart on the bottom of the tab where the DVD drive rests and a reasonable strip along the top near the front shuts up really noisy drives for the most part.

2. I agree. With the lead free solder/insufficient cooling isssue and a rush to market (especially on Microsoft's part) this generation, I doubt neither company would be so foolish to do this again.
 
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Sure enough, it died again tonight. I'm gonna try baking it and see how it goes.
 
Tudz said:
Does this mean that 360s and PS3s have cheap solder on them or something? The fact it goes to shit then can be fixed by putting it in an oven? I remember trying to solder something on a video card once and it was really tough to do because apparently the solder is higher quality and doesn't melt as easily (though I have also heard of people baking video cards to fix them).
Click to expand...

High quality =\= High melt temp =\= Cheap

This is really a stupid situation.

These lead free solders cost more, have a higher melt temp, and a greater tendency to crystallize. Three of the last things you would ever want in solder.

This whole RoHS compliance kick is BS. So you can't bury old lead soldered PC boards in a landfill. BFD! They should be recycled anyway. You don't see them replacing your car battery that probably has about 15LBs of pure lead in it do ya? Hell no, they just recycle them.

I flat out refuse to use lead free solder. I even have to keep a cheap crappy pencil around for when I have to actually repair consumer grade electronics. I can't use my nice station. The heat kills the tips in short order. This process is just another imposed burden on the industry. The company won't take the hit. You can bet on that. They just pass it on to consumers and employees like you and I. Then we are stuck shipping broken crap in a merry-go-round back and forth. Like that doesn't hurt the environment..:rolleyes:
 
Oops-- made a booboo. I forgot to take the battery out before I put it in the oven. At first I thought the smell was just cookies (from the previous time the oven was on), until I heard a pop :p The battery popped out of the socket and split in two. Afterwards I noticed some black markings on the underside. Oh well, this would be the 6th or 7th time I've had to reflow (first time baking), so its time to move on. Point and laugh folks.
 
Tudz said:
Does this mean that 360s and PS3s have cheap solder on them or something? The fact it goes to shit then can be fixed by putting it in an oven? I remember trying to solder something on a video card once and it was really tough to do because apparently the solder is higher quality and doesn't melt as easily (though I have also heard of people baking video cards to fix them).
Click to expand...

not just the 360 and ps3 all things that have RoHs compliance are made with shitty solder it is more brittle and over time will crack nothing is safe unless it never gets hot. Video cards motherboards all have had this issue... Though sony and microsoft could fix this issue right now if they really wanted to. All they have to do is put pins on the processors and graphics chips and any other trouble some chips and solder the pins through the boards... or to use the chips un changed they could make a socket with pins like the current intel style sockets...
 
if you use a heat gun you have to really heat that thing up to the point where you can move the chip around....

as for the RoHs compliance that means the solder is either lead free or reduced lead content and tin is the substitute. RoHs solder works fine on joints that do not experience repeated heat cycles but sucks for anything that gets thermal cycled a lot like chips (BGA ones in particular) The fix is to use an extra metal layer in the chip design.....

Sony and MS will never use a through hole design or a socket as

1. through hole board designs are far more complicated
2. costs significantly extra
3. parts are not meant to be replaced (it's a fixed platform)

The only reason PCs use sockets for processors is for upgradability.......

The reason they went to surface mount technology was to

1. reduce costs
2. reduce complexity (could you imagine the size your video card would be if it was all through hole technology/
3. increase board density (more parts from the same amt of circuit board)
 
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