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PS3 worth opening up?

S

Sniper82

Lifer
Acquired a good deal on a 80gb model that came out after they did away with backward compatibility on them. It has the cooler running gpu and works fine. I'm just wondering since its out of warranty is it worth opening it up and applying good thermal compound to help lower the likeliness of the YLOD?

I'm not scared to open it I know what I'm doing just wanting opinions as to whether its worth the trouble.
 
Sniper82 said:
Acquired a good deal on a 80gb model that came out after they did away with backward compatibility on them. It has the cooler running gpu and works fine. I'm just wondering since its out of warranty is it worth opening it up and applying good thermal compound to help lower the likeliness of the YLOD?

I'm not scared to open it I know what I'm doing just wanting opinions as to whether its worth the trouble.
Click to expand...

You probably don't need to worry about it, but it won't hurt unless you screw it up (which you shouldn't, as it's easy).
 
its a tedious process. Especially getting the last metal/aluminum piece. I couldn't get it off cleanly so I gave up. I believe my thermal paste has gotten all crusty and didn't want to use too much force to get it off.

I ended up buying a new slim and putting the 40gb aside. thing drove me nuts, fan would kick into highest setting within a few minutes even just @ the dash.
 
Leave it alone. Once you break the seal, Sony won't repair it. Doesn't matter if it's still in warranty or not. Besides, it is a tedious process like Herkulease said. You have to take the whole thing apart to get at the heatsink. Adding new/better thermal compound doesn't really help anyway. It's a temporary fix at best. Using the Gilksy method (heatgun trick and new paste) will only repair a YLOD for a month tops before it goes again.
 
mmntech said:
Leave it alone. Once you break the seal, Sony won't repair it. Doesn't matter if it's still in warranty or not. Besides, it is a tedious process like Herkulease said. You have to take the whole thing apart to get at the heatsink. Adding new/better thermal compound doesn't really help anyway. It's a temporary fix at best. Using the Gilksy method (heatgun trick and new paste) will only repair a YLOD for a month tops before it goes again.
Click to expand...

I repaired my old 40gig almost a year ago and it's still working fine. How long the repair lasts depends on well it's done. It's not a "tedious" process unless you are a klutz. It is much easier than working on most laptops.

That being said, I wouldn't mess with it unless it develos a problem.
 
boshuter said:
I repaired my old 40gig almost a year ago and it's still working fine. How long the repair lasts depends on well it's done. It's not a "tedious" process unless you are a klutz. It is much easier than working on most laptops.

That being said, I wouldn't mess with it unless it develos a problem.
Click to expand...

It's tedious in the sense that it's time consuming. Especially on the first go.
It also depends on which YLOD repair method you use. There are two.

Heat the board using an oven, or with a heat-gun. The first one is a more permanent fix but not many people have ovens lying around that can do 500 F. You wouldn't want to use your kitchen stove for that. The heat-gun is more temporary. It usually doesn't hold for very long before the system yellow lights again.

Repair rates are all over the map in both cases though. When Sony repaired my 60gb after it YLODed, it lasted for 8 months before failing again. The Gilksy method lasted about a month and a half.

Generally speaking, launch PS3s seem to start failing after the two to three year mark. It's the exact same problem with the 360s. Hot parts combined with inadequate cooling and low quality tin solder. The 360s tended to go more quickly because the heatsinks and fans were too small. The PS3s tend to go over time. I suspect the solder becomes brittle from the constant softening and hardening. Regardless, the only true permanent fix is to have the CPU and GPU reballed using lead solder.
 
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