Chosen Solution
so i took apart my ps3 and cleaned out all of the dust and the thermal paste from 10 years ago still is good and there is plenty, me or my family have not used this ps3 a lot from the past 10 years we had it. Last year i found it and booted it up and it ran like a champ and the fan was kinda load and right as i was about to put in my WiFi password it just beeps at me and turns off and then it showed a yellow light and now that i have repaired it (Also because i accidentally jammed a ds game in there 7 years ago and i had to get it out of there) the ylod still appears and i have tried fixing it but i have not taken the hard drive out. is there a solution to fix this without using a solder machine.
Derek Marques It will most likely be a short term fix but it may work for you. The red flashing light and the console shut down due to excessive heat. I believe what you are starting to see is the classic symptom of a very near YLOD. I would either try and repair it myself, using the guides from here Yellow Light of Death Repair and this part or get someone to do it for you. Here is a very “quick and dirty” explanation of what causes most of the YLOD/RROD. It is not always a failure of the solder balls which connect the Flip Chip BGA package to the motherboard. It does happen and you can see why [ http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=223|on here] More commonly however is that the failure is due to the chip design itself.
As you can see the “bumps’ are what actually connects the die to the substrate to make the chip complete. If these bumps fail the die does no longer make contact with the substrate and thus no contact with the circuit board. The chip has failed.
Here you can see the space where the bump has failed and no longer makes contact. We are talking microns of space here. So a bit of pressure on the top of the die potentially closes the gap. Same with a reflow, it may allow some of material from the bump to reshape and starting to make contact again. The heating / cooling of the chip during use is what will eventually cause it to fail again. Yes, a new fan and application of new thermal paste are always a great start.
