@@tebo2770 - I find it rather frustrating. Like, lets throw darts at a board and see if that helps fix the microscopic mishmash of circuitry! oh, it didn't! Lets throw another dart shall we?!!
@@buggerlugz6753 I see your point. He's not a professional and points that out quite often. But, this channel is certainly not about the destination, it's more about the journey. I think that if you are looking for a confirmed fix, this wouldn't be the place. And I can certainly understand where that might not be for everyone.
Dude! Thank you for these videos. I'm going through a lot rn and my depression is at an all time high, but these videos help me out so much. I'm always excited for the newest video no matter what you're fixing!! You teach me so much! And have caused me to buy so many new tools. Will be fixing my Xbox One X soon and using your video as guidance (even though you say not to). 😂 I do trust you a lot though!!! Thank you for everything and please keep it up!
I suffer from deep clinical depression, was told last year that as it has shown little sign of abating in last ten years I should just accept it as a permanent thing to deal with, every day is a battle with your demons but they can be bested and it is tiring the same battle day in, day out but by striving, by moving forward you can have a life. I have thought of doing some mental illness videos, ironically I used to be a psychiatric nurse but once you been on the other side, you can't work the job anymore, world of warcraft, repairing old things, polishing shiny things does help, cats too... yes cats are awesome and should be on prescription :)
I can relate to this also.. I check every night to see if Vince has uploaded anything, I'm at rock bottom at the moment. Lost my job, girlfriend, car, and waiting for an operation on my back. If you see this comment vince, you are helping people alot more than you know.
I feel you're off track chasing a fan/overheat issue. Seems like a pre-boot type fault, which would be that "southbridge" chip you were looking at. Nice Louis Rossman callout!
Is an heat sensor on that APU, find the traces of that sensor on google and cut them with a sharp blade. If this doesn't work, you have to make an reflow of that APU without removing it, just get some heat tape on the component around, put some good amount of liquid flux and heat it up. Stay between 300°-350° on your station. The balls under the APU doesn't fail, is the APU itself failing and heating process help to restore the transistors inside the APU. I have this problem on my first gen xbox 360 with the red ring of death and i fix it like i told up. U should try it, u have nothing to loose.
Vince try this when measuring a diode, cap or resistor: heat it up as usual, but instead of taking component off the board, just spin it round off one of its pads, let it cool for a moment or two and then test it. This should help if you ever struggle to get a reading from it and also stops it shooting off into the netherworld somewhere and you losing it. Hopefully this helps others too. (Helps when you watch a ton of fixing video's!)
Good idea than you read wrong resistor value.. Better clean them with some isopropyl alcohol. Or sometimes you can't test diodes because your multimeter is not "strong" enough. And again all the time with a multimeter you are testing the static characteristics of the component, for linear devices it's ok, for non linear devices you could have a fail and you don't see it with your multimeter. I had once a transistor ok ad dc but was pretty bad when used as amplifier.
I really wanted to say Thx Vince for your vids. It's really nice to see you trying to fix something that most ppl would just write off with "well that's most likely the apu and that's not fixable at the moment". You knew what the problem in 99.9% but you still tried the stuff around to see if it really is not some little part. And i really liked that (and only for that i would subscribe to you if i weren't already). I just wish you would upload more often :-) (but i realize how taxing these fixes can be (i do some sound hw fixes fro. time to time in my work) and we all have other stuff to take care of :-) ).
I have an idea! remember when Steve/Tronixfix challenged you to fix a game system? I vote you challenge him to try to fix this ps4! would make for a great video.
Those little "plastic welds" are called heat stakes. if you have a steady hand and a dremel you can usually drill a pilot hole down through them and put a screw in :-)
Exactly what I do when I re-paint matchbox cars, get the gear off e.bay 2mm tap & screws. (use a magnetic s/driver when putting screws in, makes life a lot easier)
Not sure if someone said this already but I did look through the upper comments but the 3rd wire on the fan is for pwm speed control. If you remove it from the connector of the fan the fan should just run full speed.
This is not the case. If the PWM wire is disconnected, the fan doesn't spin. The PWM wire needs to receive a voltage. Usually 0.8-1.2V. 0.8 at minimum speed, and ~1.2 at max.
Hey Vince, I have only got to the part where you were inspecting the clamp but those particular clamps have a design flaw where they come apart and prevent a full contact with the APU, which results in overheating, damaged balls and potentially lifted traces. The traces which lift are "usually" NC pads but sometimes they're important. I've never had a return from a reball job so not sure what some people are talking about when it comes to it being "temporary"
Looked like 5v rail short. Try injecting 5v into that rail. See if the mosfets or caps are shorted (get hot) in the apu power supply where those 4 mosfets are. Just a suggestion
Vince: great perseverance. I haven't had a PS4 board on my bench, but 100's of others. My first task would be to setup bench to run board out of chassis. 1. Adapt a small cooler to cpu. 2. Connect ON/OFF button or figure out how to trigger startup on board. 3. Figure out if power supply (PS) is being switched off by motherboard. If yes, figure out how to trick PS to stay on (e.g. like grounding green wire on ATX PS). Or, use bench power supply to power board -- then you can observe current draw on your rails as well. 4. Connect FAN, LED and a monitor (the windows into it's soul). Once you get stabile power to the board, you can begin your testing. Nice that you have a working board for comparison. Good luck.
My career has been in computer programming (mainframe and Windows). Your problem (and approach) here reminds me of debugging ancient mainframe COBOL code. It was a very similar (and often painful and frustrating) process, often having to change code to test a hypothesis, then put it back and change something else . . and repeat . . .and repeat. Very similar, and that's what your "debugging" here reminded me of. Enjoy your videos! Thanks for doing them! -- Mike
Regarding the plastic things vs screws at about 10 minute. Even if those just account to a few cents (or pence for you brit :) )bean counters can enjoy those due to scaling when producing many units. Reminds me of my Golf IV, where in a lot of models they used plastic hooks for something regarding the window lift mechanism. After a while (granted a few years) those had a habit to break down, often with the result of the window being stuck in "down" position, that is window lowered and open. Then those plastic things needed replacement. They did it for free, but used plastic hooks (or noses again). So after a few years broke again, repeat. From all I read they used plastic to safe a cent or so per car, but if you scaled it up to all cars sold it was a good amount of money they saved. Of course disclaimer: Just because people assumed and speculated this did happen for saving, of course this must not be true. But it sounds plausible. If it's true the moral is: Saved the company a lot of money, but caused the end user quite some grief.
Vince I recently fixed a Beats Pill speaker usb port, I wouldn't even have tried this without your videos, your camera equipment does not do justice to the tasks you carry out, it does not show how small some of these components are. I thank you for the videos and my daughter thanks you for the fixed Speaker xx
Without the schematics it is tricky indeed. Power rails can usually be identified by locating a pair of caps and an inductor. Then why not run a thin wire from there to your multimeter so you can reassemble and check voltages when powering it up. There are some good videos on the adamantit channel about it
Vince, I was wishing that fan to stay on after each attempt of repair ('Flight Of The Phoenix' moment). I would imagine that the white wire going to the fan is a PWM signal (pulse width modulation). The PWM can increase, decrease or even stop the fan depending on the pulse signal. If you notice on your working slim the fan speed at start is slow for a few seconds before it ramps up. All modern PC motherboards have this feature.
Your determination is admirable, Vince....I've enjoyed watching lots of your videos. Some fans are PCM so you could have scoped the white wire but since you used the hair dryer it showed cooling wasn't the problem.
Have you checked the eletrolytic capacitors? There are at least 6 and I believe you can check for ESR with them in circuit. They look like the ones that failed too easily in Adrian's Basement fixes of old Macintoshes. The Macs are much older than this PS4 slim. I'd say you should always start checking the passive components first, diodes, capacitors, resistors and inductors.
Good video 👍🏻 my guess, corrupt firmware on the nor chip. Sure I've seen a video of the chip connected to a PC & software used to re-write the firmware. Definitely a software related issue than a hardware one
Hey Vince, I love your content. I wanted to share my inputs on this particular video. Yesterday, I received a PS4 Slim (CUH-2008A) with the exact same issue. I did remember the revisit video you posted and took the point where you mentioned someone said to check one capacitor on the corner of the APU that should not be shorted. I took apart the console and found the exact same short you did and at that point, I did not have much hopes. But I wanted to see what happened if I feed in some power to the rail and which component heats up. I took a 5V, 3A power supply (that's the only one I have) and connected it in parallel with my multimeter probe wires. I connected the probes to the capacitor and saw the voltage drop to 2.76V and it was taking 2.5A. While I was checking what was getting hot, I suddenly saw the voltage bump to 4.88V and I immediately disconnected it from the shorted rail. Then I rechecked what was hot and it was indeed the APU but very slight and hard to notice. I checked resistance of that shorted rail to ground and no wonder, it was no longer a short but about 400 ohms of resistance. I put back everything together enough to test and it works! Reassembled it properly with thermal paste replaced and it works in all its glory. I played Ghost of Tsushima for about 3 hrs and it runs perfect. I have no idea what happened but I believe it happened due to static damage. Had it not for your video, I would probably have never figured out the short at all. Thanks a lot and I hope you find this useful as well.
Sorry I don't mean to leave loads of comments, but a no fan spin issue is generally related to a fault with the southbridge not the APU. Also the southbridge controls the usb ports so that would make sense. A reflow of the southbridge typically fixes this issue
@@Mymatevince awesome I look forward to it :) I sent you a message on Facebook (I know you don't read them often) and it basically says if you ever need a bga rework station hit me up, you're welcome to use it any time (though I'm not sure how much it would cost to send as it weighs 17kg lol)
there's no need to break the plastic rivets. If you open the slim from the other side your last piece in your hand would be the chassis with metal riveted shield. No problem at all. Great channel as always Vince!
I'm not at the end of this video yet but.. You remind me of myself so much haha, just before I started watching this vid, I was swapping bga's on a smart TV main board (it's 2 in the morning).. You just can't sleep if you don't know if something is the problem or not
I have seen someone use an old soldering iron bit and melt strimmer/weed wacker line to reform those plastic tabs you cut off. The guy was doing it to plastic tabs replacing a laptop keyboard, it didn't look pretty, but seemed to work.
@My Mate Vince - reason for the fan moving when you quickly changed voltage from you external powesupply, is that the fan i a PWM fan with 3 wires, and one of the wires it a Tach signal, and you changing voltage is a tach signal, so the fan moves a bit :)
Right. If it were me I'd block off the surrounding areas round the APU with kapton tape or something so it can't move laterally and reflow it for good measure. The same can be said for the soutbridge. If it can't move sideways or up & down you really can't go wrong with shorts underneath the chip. See sometimes they don't get quite enough paste on the pads and some can pull away but remain in contact which is why simply pressing down on the chip sometimes doesn't work. The surface tension makes the solder snap to a dome shape and if there's not enough it can't connect when you push on it. My suggestion is to immobileize it, heat it until it's loose, and lightly push down until the solder is cool enough. I reckon it's worth a shot but it's ultimately your decision weather you want to try it. Good luck mate, cheers.
What I generally do with those 'annoying plastic welds' is cut them off flush, and then very carefully drill a hole into the pillar that remains leaving what is in effect a stand off I can screw a suitably slim self tapper into. It does require a fine drill bit and steady hand, and also suitably fine screws, and a bit of luck. If the plastic is soft enough/pillar is of sufficient diameter it works. And if it doesn't, well you haven't really lost anything. I also save every screw/bolt/nut/fixing I ever take out of unrepairable items for possible future use. It helps to sort them into similar groups with some sort of multi-compartment storage container.
hey Vince, the fan is expecting a PWM "Pulse Width Modulation" signal, which sets the speed. I'm not sure what voltage this specific fan runs at, but 100% speed should just be "voltage always on", if you wanted to turn it on. As you noted, it wasn't a heat issue though so it probably isn't helpful, but it's something I figured you'd be interested in knowing :)
@My Mate VINCE, Looking at the design it`s very close to a laptop design syscon chip is like the EC chip on the laptop that control the low level stuff like voltage rail, fan speed, etc. Normally on laptops the EC will talk to the southbridge or PCH , would like you to test the the data pins of the USB port in diode mode to ground (red probe on ground and black probe on the data pins)
Thanks AR, I checked all the data pins using diode test and they looked OK (no shorts). From memory there were 4 pairs on each USB so these are USB 3 ports. I have filmed a revisit video on this today using the comments to help :-)
BGA and thermal stress are a disaster. Best thing is to leave the devices on all the time to stop the problems. It shows how expectations have changed over the years because 20 years ago they would all have to be recalled as not fit but people accept that electronics die after a less than five years.
By the way, all the power rail are monitored and controlled by the SYSCON chip including the fan which is a PWM type. Even the fan has a 12v supply, the PWM signal must be present to spin it which is coming from the SYSCON chip.
APUs and GPUs use a BGA (Ball Grid Array), when the balls crack to 'fix' it properly you'd need to re-ball. IIRC the reason this stuff is happening so much is due to using lead free solder, and also an inadequate cooling system.. To be honest, I put this down to poor and cheap quality... These systems are made to a price point, as everything is... but certainly not to an expected life greater than a few years. - (In order to do BGA properly you need a proper rework station as it heats on both the top and bottom at exactly the right place, and you also need to get the BGA templates from China). I recommend checking out Louis Rossman's channel, he's done BGA work before, and hates it, but there are videos on there.
something really simple to maybe try is to change fan. Being PWM controlled and if fan not working with voltage into it maybe that is the problem in first place.
15:30 actually, SAC (the commonly used lead-free) solder is better with thermal cycling, but worse with drops, such as when one drops the PCB down on its side. The shear strength tends to damage SAC joints before it damages SnPb joints this way. This means that basically if you don't touch the system, the lead-free BGA chip should last longer than a leaded BGA chip in a system that is turned on and off regularly. SN100C lead-free solder is a better replacement for leaded solder, but has been patent-encumbered since the 90s until last year.
Hey Vince, thanks for posting. My sons went last night , it's the same defect as what yours displays. I'm gonna have a go at mending the damn thing. I'm an amp tech and work with a lot of point to point work these boards are not of this Earth lol. I like Caps and Resistors and pre amp & power valves not thermal electronics paste. Still it's knackered anyway, i'll get it going.
27:57 to answer, yes pretty much. Normally the 1st batch still can have debug circuits attached that were only fitted for testing the prototype. It depends alot on their schedule :)
I would try a reflow with a hot air rework station. No, it's not going to be a permanent fix and I understand that, but it would be an alternative method for a possible fox instead of putting physical pressure on the APU, which could warp the board in the long run. You don't know how many 360's I've seen that owners used the "screw fix" and when I take them apart, the board would be warped in several places, and by that point it's usually beyond repair unfortunately.
You likely need to generate a PWM signal on the third wire of the fan. It will control the fan speed and will turn it in. Also regarding the fan, if you blow air on it to make it spin, you turn it from a motor into a generator, feeding voltage back into the board. so I think it's bet to have it disconnected then,
Lovely video as usual. Quick question but would you ever repair a vape if you got sent one? Doubt you smoke but it would be fun if you can repair a few mods, I don't imagine they're the safest to work on but I'm sure it'll be a good learning experience.
@@Bousatsu1 Nice mate, do you know if you've fixed any IJOY Captains by any chance? I have two PD270s that both have different problems with them which has stopped them from working. I'd like to get them repaired at some point but I don't know anything about fixing electronics and a lot of people consider repairing vape mods dangerous because of the batteries possibly igniting or exploding instantly. Otherwise I could've tried something myself. Both power on but my first PD270 doesn't detect any charge in the B slot while the second PD270's fire button started becoming unresponsive, eventually the fire button stopped working completely.
Seems that after all the years you have been doing this, it would make sense that your soldering skill would get better, but it hasn't. Now this is from someone that has years of experience.
Hey Vince, what solder & flux do you use in these videos? I keep getting burned buy cheap generic stuff thats difficult to work with. Any Solder & Flux Brand recommendations?
Every electronic device does what's called a Power-on-self-test, or POST. This is a BIOS-level test. If the device fails the POST, it won't boot up. There are a number of things that are checked during the test, and any one of them could cause it to fail. On PS4, the BLOD is simply a NO-POST (a failed POST). In the case of PS4's, it's generally the APU that fails, but technically it could be anything. Some devices, like the PS4, have different color lights for different NO-POST error codes. The YLOD is also a NO-POST.
I foresee an APU reball in your future... (Havent watched the vid yet :P) If that is the case it is best to replace the APU as the wire bonding inside the APU is likely forming "cold joints" as well. That is why reballs when you DONT replace the processor always tend to fail again down the line. A lot of time there are faults inside the chip as well due to the heat cycling and poor cooling.
The third wire on these motors are the control wire. It tells the motor when to run and how fast to spin. So there has to be a control chip somewhere. But trying another fan first would save a bunch of time.
I think the bluray drive works because perhaps it have independent controller for operation it, like reading the data and APU will decode use it, that's my guess.
9:53 those plastic welds aren’t to save money I guarantee it’s made that way so people doing DIY repair can’t easily fix it themselves or the company can see if someone’s tampered with it if there broken
I disagree, at least to some extent. Apple does the same shit. It's why there's no longer a home button; saving a few cents on each phone when you're selling millions means a savings of millions of cents (divide by 100 and the savings $10,000 per million units sold), and the end user has to eat the cost. It's part of the reason there's no more headphone jack, too (the other part is Apple gets royalties for every product that licenses the lightning connector). It *might* have that end goal in mind, too, but at the very least: a few cents per screw * number of screws replaced with heatstakes * number of units sold = $$$
Great videos Vince keep them coming I need some advice if possible as I was replacing a xbox one s controller housing and managed to brake the rumble packs wires on both sides as the wire snapped off the board i managed to solder the left side but not the right not sure whether I can email you a picture and show you what i mean?
A bit late to the party but do you know for sure the hard drive is working? I didn't see where it was swapped with the working one, however it may not make a difference because they are different revisions. The last thing it was doing was downloading a game. A failed update or bad hard drive can cause a lot of problems similar to this. IGN has instructions on replacing and reloading the OS on a PS4 hard drive. Just like in a PC, these problems all sound hard drive, BIOS, or RAM issues.
Hi Vince, I bought a Linx Vision controller for a DIY SBC project after seeing your amazing Switch XL project from ages ago! I’ve got it wired up as USB and the Xinput works great, but I’m trying to open up the controller ends (after removing the 2 visible screws), but to no avail. How did you open them up to change the button layout? As there is little to no info online about their disassembly.
I think from memory the plastic back that looks like a rubber grip clips off. Or maybe the front bit clips off to give access to the 2 screws to then remove the back cover. Sorry I can't remember as it was a long time ago, but something clips off the bottom half of the controller to reveal more screws :-)
the white wire to the fan would be a data wire, so that the ps4 could tell the fan to speed up or slow down, as 12v and ground would spin the fan at full speed, whereas a data wire would send a signal to the fan that says I want to cool the cpu at a fast or slow speed. otherwise the fan would only have 1 speed as full speed or off.
sort of like a 2 pin pc fan, compared to a 3 pin fan, and a 4 pin fan. it might be a 5 volt signal, with the chip inside the fan saying if there is a 5 volt signal then slow the fan down. and then like a 4 pin fan being something like 3.5 volts or something. and working sort of like a desktop fan with varying switches doing different speeds.
but my personal guess would be [APU] telling the [south bridge] I am getting too hot, the [south bridge] sending a 5v or data to the [fan], and then the fan running at the required speed whether it is 12v or 5v speed. but could be compnents between everything as well.
Just a little side tip ... If you replace the thermal paste with strawberry jam (or whatever your preferred flavour), when the machine is running it will give off a lovely smell like pop tarts. Works just as well with computers of all kinds ! Try it - but make sure you have some munchies to eat as you will get hungry :)
This is the most chill channel with the most chill comment sections anyone else agree
its the perfect balance of education and hypnotic!! 😅
I agree. Relaxing and positive. No negativity. That's why I watch.
@@tebo2770 - I find it rather frustrating. Like, lets throw darts at a board and see if that helps fix the microscopic mishmash of circuitry! oh, it didn't! Lets throw another dart shall we?!!
@@buggerlugz6753 I see your point. He's not a professional and points that out quite often. But, this channel is certainly not about the destination, it's more about the journey. I think that if you are looking for a confirmed fix, this wouldn't be the place. And I can certainly understand where that might not be for everyone.
Stfu
Its a joke
Your patience is absolutely honorable. Thank you for another interesting video.
Wenn er die Southbridge tauschen würde, läuft das Teil wieder ^^
i don't watch repair videos that give up at first
Think it's amazing how you have progressed from your earlier fixes, patience really does pay off and skills to remove these chips really impressive.
Dude! Thank you for these videos. I'm going through a lot rn and my depression is at an all time high, but these videos help me out so much. I'm always excited for the newest video no matter what you're fixing!! You teach me so much! And have caused me to buy so many new tools. Will be fixing my Xbox One X soon and using your video as guidance (even though you say not to). 😂 I do trust you a lot though!!! Thank you for everything and please keep it up!
I suffer from deep clinical depression, was told last year that as it has shown little sign of abating in last ten years I should just accept it as a permanent thing to deal with, every day is a battle with your demons but they can be bested and it is tiring the same battle day in, day out but by striving, by moving forward you can have a life. I have thought of doing some mental illness videos, ironically I used to be a psychiatric nurse but once you been on the other side, you can't work the job anymore, world of warcraft, repairing old things, polishing shiny things does help, cats too... yes cats are awesome and should be on prescription :)
I can relate to this also.. I check every night to see if Vince has uploaded anything, I'm at rock bottom at the moment. Lost my job, girlfriend, car, and waiting for an operation on my back. If you see this comment vince, you are helping people alot more than you know.
@@reacey On the plus, you lost your GF
@@jamesw242..
@@reacey buy a dog Best thing I've ever done.
man i love these videos makes me become a better technican. just learning together
You need try adamant it and Northridge fix Channels you going and learn more from those guy's...
Reliance Gaming me too
I feel you're off track chasing a fan/overheat issue. Seems like a pre-boot type fault, which would be that "southbridge" chip you were looking at. Nice Louis Rossman callout!
Is an heat sensor on that APU, find the traces of that sensor on google and cut them with a sharp blade. If this doesn't work, you have to make an reflow of that APU without removing it, just get some heat tape on the component around, put some good amount of liquid flux and heat it up. Stay between 300°-350° on your station. The balls under the APU doesn't fail, is the APU itself failing and heating process help to restore the transistors inside the APU. I have this problem on my first gen xbox 360 with the red ring of death and i fix it like i told up. U should try it, u have nothing to loose.
Vince try this when measuring a diode, cap or resistor: heat it up as usual, but instead of taking component off the board, just spin it round off one of its pads, let it cool for a moment or two and then test it. This should help if you ever struggle to get a reading from it and also stops it shooting off into the netherworld somewhere and you losing it. Hopefully this helps others too. (Helps when you watch a ton of fixing video's!)
Good idea than you read wrong resistor value.. Better clean them with some isopropyl alcohol. Or sometimes you can't test diodes because your multimeter is not "strong" enough. And again all the time with a multimeter you are testing the static characteristics of the component, for linear devices it's ok, for non linear devices you could have a fail and you don't see it with your multimeter. I had once a transistor ok ad dc but was pretty bad when used as amplifier.
Have you ever seen a cap go flying after heating it? Wow I nearly took my eye out once, they explode and fly off like a rocket lol..
Love this idea Mark, thank you :-)
Smart idea, I hope to see some of your fixing jobs ...
I really wanted to say Thx Vince for your vids.
It's really nice to see you trying to fix something that most ppl would just write off with "well that's most likely the apu and that's not fixable at the moment". You knew what the problem in 99.9% but you still tried the stuff around to see if it really is not some little part. And i really liked that (and only for that i would subscribe to you if i weren't already).
I just wish you would upload more often :-)
(but i realize how taxing these fixes can be (i do some sound hw fixes fro. time to time in my work) and we all have other stuff to take care of :-) ).
Man, I was always anticipating a sudden solution at every moment. Hell of a try, though. 👍
I've never wanted to see a fan spinning more in my entire life! Unlucky with this one.. looking forward to the revisit!
I have an idea! remember when Steve/Tronixfix challenged you to fix a game system? I vote you challenge him to try to fix this ps4! would make for a great video.
My comment here to bolster your suggestion. It could be an excellent learning video for all parties. Anyhow I second the motion.
Joseph Mitchell I watch both
Great to see you posting videos again Vince. Loved the video as always.
I actually read BLOOD on the title.... thought right away "oh boy, this one is gonna be interesting..."
Those little "plastic welds" are called heat stakes. if you have a steady hand and a dremel you can usually drill a pilot hole down through them and put a screw in :-)
Exactly what I do when I re-paint matchbox cars, get the gear off e.bay 2mm tap & screws. (use a magnetic s/driver when putting screws in, makes life a lot easier)
As a high schooler that is extremely bored I appreciate the videos. Thanks Vince!
I will be in 11th grade in August, and I'm bored too!
I'm a fairly competent technician... You sir are a master. Thanks for sparking my interest in more than the mundane.
I can always count on vince for a nice long chill video. 👍
Not sure if someone said this already but I did look through the upper comments but the 3rd wire on the fan is for pwm speed control. If you remove it from the connector of the fan the fan should just run full speed.
This is not the case. If the PWM wire is disconnected, the fan doesn't spin. The PWM wire needs to receive a voltage.
Usually 0.8-1.2V. 0.8 at minimum speed, and ~1.2 at max.
Hey Vince, I have only got to the part where you were inspecting the clamp but those particular clamps have a design flaw where they come apart and prevent a full contact with the APU, which results in overheating, damaged balls and potentially lifted traces. The traces which lift are "usually" NC pads but sometimes they're important. I've never had a return from a reball job so not sure what some people are talking about when it comes to it being "temporary"
I love both of you guys content please keep up the good work , I now work on system repair thanks to you two awesome people thanks 🙏🏻
I love watching your videos while my freetime at work but I really like the short repare version
Looked like 5v rail short. Try injecting 5v into that rail. See if the mosfets or caps are shorted (get hot) in the apu power supply where those 4 mosfets are. Just a suggestion
Really wouldnt be surprising, as it turns out most PS3 YLOD aren't caused by the RSX or Cell rather the Caps that go to them.
doubt it would turn on at all in that scenario
bruh 5v rail short would literally not even turn the console on.
@@RandomGuy-om1vy Yeah. The only power source that can do so is the 12v I think. Correct me if I'm wrong
Oh mate, I read "Trying to Fix PlayStation 4 slim with BLOOD" and I was like yeah I know this day would come... Oh well, great video anyway xD
Same here :)
I saw that too! ☠️
lol same
Vince: great perseverance. I haven't had a PS4 board on my bench, but 100's of others. My first task would be to setup bench to run board out of chassis. 1. Adapt a small cooler to cpu. 2. Connect ON/OFF button or figure out how to trigger startup on board. 3. Figure out if power supply (PS) is being switched off by motherboard. If yes, figure out how to trick PS to stay on (e.g. like grounding green wire on ATX PS). Or, use bench power supply to power board -- then you can observe current draw on your rails as well. 4. Connect FAN, LED and a monitor (the windows into it's soul). Once you get stabile power to the board, you can begin your testing. Nice that you have a working board for comparison. Good luck.
I don't own any game console but I watched 60% video from this channel.
My career has been in computer programming (mainframe and Windows). Your problem (and approach) here reminds me of debugging ancient mainframe COBOL code. It was a very similar (and often painful and frustrating) process, often having to change code to test a hypothesis, then put it back and change something else . . and repeat . . .and repeat. Very similar, and that's what your "debugging" here reminded me of. Enjoy your videos! Thanks for doing them! -- Mike
Great start to the weekend when a vince video pops up!
Ah! Vince! You know exactly when I need a new video to take my mind off of life stuff! Thank you!!! Love your stuff! As always! Keep it up! ❤️
Regarding the plastic things vs screws at about 10 minute. Even if those just account to a few cents (or pence for you brit :) )bean counters can enjoy those due to scaling when producing many units. Reminds me of my Golf IV, where in a lot of models they used plastic hooks for something regarding the window lift mechanism. After a while (granted a few years) those had a habit to break down, often with the result of the window being stuck in "down" position, that is window lowered and open. Then those plastic things needed replacement. They did it for free, but used plastic hooks (or noses again). So after a few years broke again, repeat.
From all I read they used plastic to safe a cent or so per car, but if you scaled it up to all cars sold it was a good amount of money they saved. Of course disclaimer: Just because people assumed and speculated this did happen for saving, of course this must not be true. But it sounds plausible.
If it's true the moral is: Saved the company a lot of money, but caused the end user quite some grief.
Vince I recently fixed a Beats Pill speaker usb port, I wouldn't even have tried this without your videos, your camera equipment does not do justice to the tasks you carry out, it does not show how small some of these components are. I thank you for the videos and my daughter thanks you for the fixed Speaker xx
Well done on the fix Haggis, thank you :-)
Even if you didn't fix it it Vince. What you have learned is invaluable.
Without the schematics it is tricky indeed. Power rails can usually be identified by locating a pair of caps and an inductor. Then why not run a thin wire from there to your multimeter so you can reassemble and check voltages when powering it up. There are some good videos on the adamantit channel about it
Vince, I was wishing that fan to stay on after each attempt of repair ('Flight Of The Phoenix' moment). I would imagine that the white wire going to the fan is a PWM signal (pulse width modulation). The PWM can increase, decrease or even stop the fan depending on the pulse signal. If you notice on your working slim the fan speed at start is slow for a few seconds before it ramps up. All modern PC motherboards have this feature.
Your determination is admirable, Vince....I've enjoyed watching lots of your videos.
Some fans are PCM so you could have scoped the white wire but since you used the hair dryer it showed cooling wasn't the problem.
Have you checked the eletrolytic capacitors? There are at least 6 and I believe you can check for ESR with them in circuit. They look like the ones that failed too easily in Adrian's Basement fixes of old Macintoshes. The Macs are much older than this PS4 slim. I'd say you should always start checking the passive components first, diodes, capacitors, resistors and inductors.
Is there a heat sensor maybe it failed so it’s detecting a continuous overheating condition which is making it think it can’t turn on
Good video 👍🏻 my guess, corrupt firmware on the nor chip. Sure I've seen a video of the chip connected to a PC & software used to re-write the firmware. Definitely a software related issue than a hardware one
I always thought the fans were PWM on the PS4, I loved this video!!! This was a great off day treat.
It is PWM - PWM doesn't need 4 wires, just two for power, and one for tach....
Hard luck Vince you can't win them all. Very enjoyable all the same. Mick 👍🍻
Hey Vince, I love your content. I wanted to share my inputs on this particular video. Yesterday, I received a PS4 Slim (CUH-2008A) with the exact same issue. I did remember the revisit video you posted and took the point where you mentioned someone said to check one capacitor on the corner of the APU that should not be shorted. I took apart the console and found the exact same short you did and at that point, I did not have much hopes. But I wanted to see what happened if I feed in some power to the rail and which component heats up. I took a 5V, 3A power supply (that's the only one I have) and connected it in parallel with my multimeter probe wires. I connected the probes to the capacitor and saw the voltage drop to 2.76V and it was taking 2.5A. While I was checking what was getting hot, I suddenly saw the voltage bump to 4.88V and I immediately disconnected it from the shorted rail. Then I rechecked what was hot and it was indeed the APU but very slight and hard to notice. I checked resistance of that shorted rail to ground and no wonder, it was no longer a short but about 400 ohms of resistance. I put back everything together enough to test and it works! Reassembled it properly with thermal paste replaced and it works in all its glory. I played Ghost of Tsushima for about 3 hrs and it runs perfect. I have no idea what happened but I believe it happened due to static damage.
Had it not for your video, I would probably have never figured out the short at all. Thanks a lot and I hope you find this useful as well.
Sorry I don't mean to leave loads of comments, but a no fan spin issue is generally related to a fault with the southbridge not the APU. Also the southbridge controls the usb ports so that would make sense. A reflow of the southbridge typically fixes this issue
Obviously you can't reflow the APU without a bga rework station. If you need me to do it for free get in touch:)
Cheers Coder, I have been filming a revisit on this one earlier today :-)
@@Mymatevince awesome I look forward to it :) I sent you a message on Facebook (I know you don't read them often) and it basically says if you ever need a bga rework station hit me up, you're welcome to use it any time (though I'm not sure how much it would cost to send as it weighs 17kg lol)
That was quite entertaining, I hope we get to see a revisit video where you manage to actually fix it.
there's no need to break the plastic rivets. If you open the slim from the other side your last piece in your hand would be the chassis with metal riveted shield. No problem at all. Great channel as always Vince!
If it's at all repairable you're the man to do it. I'm 2 mins in can't wait for the ending.
I'm not at the end of this video yet but.. You remind me of myself so much haha, just before I started watching this vid, I was swapping bga's on a smart TV main board (it's 2 in the morning).. You just can't sleep if you don't know if something is the problem or not
I have seen someone use an old soldering iron bit and melt strimmer/weed wacker line to reform those plastic tabs you cut off. The guy was doing it to plastic tabs replacing a laptop keyboard, it didn't look pretty, but seemed to work.
@My Mate Vince - reason for the fan moving when you quickly changed voltage from you external powesupply, is that the fan i a PWM fan with 3 wires, and one of the wires it a Tach signal, and you changing voltage is a tach signal, so the fan moves a bit :)
That is my thought exactly as well. Without the signal from whatever chip controls it even though it has power it is not going to spin.
Vince....This made my day ..... Thankyou for sharing i really enjoyed it
Wonderful another fix it video by my mate Vince
Check the cap in the corner of the APU.... It well be shorted and it should be not
Thanks so much. That cap is shorted so i have been filming a revisit video on this. Thanks for the tip :-)
Right. If it were me I'd block off the surrounding areas round the APU with kapton tape or something so it can't move laterally and reflow it for good measure. The same can be said for the soutbridge. If it can't move sideways or up & down you really can't go wrong with shorts underneath the chip. See sometimes they don't get quite enough paste on the pads and some can pull away but remain in contact which is why simply pressing down on the chip sometimes doesn't work. The surface tension makes the solder snap to a dome shape and if there's not enough it can't connect when you push on it. My suggestion is to immobileize it, heat it until it's loose, and lightly push down until the solder is cool enough. I reckon it's worth a shot but it's ultimately your decision weather you want to try it. Good luck mate, cheers.
The best fixing channel
What I generally do with those 'annoying plastic welds' is cut them off flush, and then very carefully drill a hole into the pillar that remains leaving what is in effect a stand off I can screw a suitably slim self tapper into. It does require a fine drill bit and steady hand, and also suitably fine screws, and a bit of luck. If the plastic is soft enough/pillar is of sufficient diameter it works. And if it doesn't, well you haven't really lost anything. I also save every screw/bolt/nut/fixing I ever take out of unrepairable items for possible future use. It helps to sort them into similar groups with some sort of multi-compartment storage container.
hey Vince, the fan is expecting a PWM "Pulse Width Modulation" signal, which sets the speed. I'm not sure what voltage this specific fan runs at, but 100% speed should just be "voltage always on", if you wanted to turn it on. As you noted, it wasn't a heat issue though so it probably isn't helpful, but it's something I figured you'd be interested in knowing :)
#13 yeah, love these videos. Learning a lot, thanks Vince.
Worked. Thanks! Before this I haven't turned it on for about 40 months.
@My Mate VINCE, Looking at the design it`s very close to a laptop design syscon chip is like the EC chip on the laptop that control the low level stuff like voltage rail, fan speed, etc. Normally on laptops the EC will talk to the southbridge or PCH , would like you to test the the data pins of the USB port in diode mode to ground (red probe on ground and black probe on the data pins)
Thanks AR, I checked all the data pins using diode test and they looked OK (no shorts). From memory there were 4 pairs on each USB so these are USB 3 ports. I have filmed a revisit video on this today using the comments to help :-)
BGA and thermal stress are a disaster. Best thing is to leave the devices on all the time to stop the problems. It shows how expectations have changed over the years because 20 years ago they would all have to be recalled as not fit but people accept that electronics die after a less than five years.
By the way, all the power rail are monitored and controlled by the SYSCON chip including the fan which is a PWM type. Even the fan has a 12v supply, the PWM signal must be present to spin it which is coming from the SYSCON chip.
APUs and GPUs use a BGA (Ball Grid Array), when the balls crack to 'fix' it properly you'd need to re-ball. IIRC the reason this stuff is happening so much is due to using lead free solder, and also an inadequate cooling system.. To be honest, I put this down to poor and cheap quality... These systems are made to a price point, as everything is... but certainly not to an expected life greater than a few years. - (In order to do BGA properly you need a proper rework station as it heats on both the top and bottom at exactly the right place, and you also need to get the BGA templates from China).
I recommend checking out Louis Rossman's channel, he's done BGA work before, and hates it, but there are videos on there.
something really simple to maybe try is to change fan. Being PWM controlled and if fan not working with voltage into it maybe that is the problem in first place.
An absolute joy to watch
15:30 actually, SAC (the commonly used lead-free) solder is better with thermal cycling, but worse with drops, such as when one drops the PCB down on its side. The shear strength tends to damage SAC joints before it damages SnPb joints this way. This means that basically if you don't touch the system, the lead-free BGA chip should last longer than a leaded BGA chip in a system that is turned on and off regularly. SN100C lead-free solder is a better replacement for leaded solder, but has been patent-encumbered since the 90s until last year.
lead free sucks if they used silver or leaded solder these things wouldn't have that problem
Hey Vince, thanks for posting. My sons went last night , it's the same defect as what yours displays. I'm gonna have a go at mending the damn thing. I'm an amp tech and work with a lot of point to point work these boards are not of this Earth lol. I like Caps and Resistors and pre amp & power valves not thermal electronics paste. Still it's knackered anyway, i'll get it going.
I love this channel keep up the great work bro
5 volt rail must be shorted... Thanks for another video vince!
Vince, that was a good fix. Ik it was looked after properly and the APU randomly caused it. Probably the APU was overheating.
Thank you for a channel I can fall asleep so easy too. 😴 ❤
Nice video vince
22:57 Thought that was me getting an eBay notification lol...
Same
27:57 to answer, yes pretty much. Normally the 1st batch still can have debug circuits attached that were only fitted for testing the prototype. It depends alot on their schedule :)
Thanks for another interesting video Vince.
I would try a reflow with a hot air rework station. No, it's not going to be a permanent fix and I understand that, but it would be an alternative method for a possible fox instead of putting physical pressure on the APU, which could warp the board in the long run. You don't know how many 360's I've seen that owners used the "screw fix" and when I take them apart, the board would be warped in several places, and by that point it's usually beyond repair unfortunately.
You have A Bad South Brigde IC. The South Bridge Controlls the fan, and all the parts on the ps4
You likely need to generate a PWM signal on the third wire of the fan. It will control the fan speed and will turn it in.
Also regarding the fan, if you blow air on it to make it spin, you turn it from a motor into a generator, feeding voltage back into the board. so I think it's bet to have it disconnected then,
Sick setup bro !
Lovely video as usual. Quick question but would you ever repair a vape if you got sent one? Doubt you smoke but it would be fun if you can repair a few mods, I don't imagine they're the safest to work on but I'm sure it'll be a good learning experience.
IV fixed a fair few vapes. Made good money buying faulty, fixing and selling on as refurbished 👍🏽
@@Bousatsu1 Nice mate, do you know if you've fixed any IJOY Captains by any chance? I have two PD270s that both have different problems with them which has stopped them from working. I'd like to get them repaired at some point but I don't know anything about fixing electronics and a lot of people consider repairing vape mods dangerous because of the batteries possibly igniting or exploding instantly. Otherwise I could've tried something myself.
Both power on but my first PD270 doesn't detect any charge in the B slot while the second PD270's fire button started becoming unresponsive, eventually the fire button stopped working completely.
the problam was from the south bridge its dead if you change that chip the console will work
That fan, I believe, is a pulse width modulated fan. Power, ground, and duty cycle. Three circuits. Many cars use that set up.
Seems that after all the years you have been doing this, it would make sense that your soldering skill would get better, but it hasn't. Now this is from someone that has years of experience.
Start injecting voltage with a bench power supply my man! Love your videos btw!!!
Hey Vince, what solder & flux do you use in these videos? I keep getting burned buy cheap generic stuff thats difficult to work with. Any Solder & Flux Brand recommendations?
Every electronic device does what's called a Power-on-self-test, or POST. This is a BIOS-level test. If the device fails the POST, it won't boot up. There are a number of things that are checked during the test, and any one of them could cause it to fail. On PS4, the BLOD is simply a NO-POST (a failed POST). In the case of PS4's, it's generally the APU that fails, but technically it could be anything. Some devices, like the PS4, have different color lights for different NO-POST error codes. The YLOD is also a NO-POST.
Can depend on supplied the components. Different companies act differently.
I foresee an APU reball in your future... (Havent watched the vid yet :P) If that is the case it is best to replace the APU as the wire bonding inside the APU is likely forming "cold joints" as well. That is why reballs when you DONT replace the processor always tend to fail again down the line. A lot of time there are faults inside the chip as well due to the heat cycling and poor cooling.
The third wire on these motors are the control wire. It tells the motor when to run and how fast to spin. So there has to be a control chip somewhere. But trying another fan first would save a bunch of time.
great vid vince!! keep going!!
You sound really tired or in a bad mood. I hope everything is ok. Thanks for the video.
I think the bluray drive works because perhaps it have independent controller for operation it, like reading the data and APU will decode use it, that's my guess.
Idk why but I love you and you're voice.
quality. good work
9:53 those plastic welds aren’t to save money I guarantee it’s made that way so people doing DIY repair can’t easily fix it themselves or the company can see if someone’s tampered with it if there broken
The labels can be forged, once the lugs are broken, that's it. It does save money as well, one press in the heat machine fixes all at once.
I disagree, at least to some extent. Apple does the same shit. It's why there's no longer a home button; saving a few cents on each phone when you're selling millions means a savings of millions of cents (divide by 100 and the savings $10,000 per million units sold), and the end user has to eat the cost. It's part of the reason there's no more headphone jack, too (the other part is Apple gets royalties for every product that licenses the lightning connector). It *might* have that end goal in mind, too, but at the very least: a few cents per screw * number of screws replaced with heatstakes * number of units sold = $$$
You don't need to take off those plastic welds to take it apart. just go another side.
Great videos Vince keep them coming I need some advice if possible as I was replacing a xbox one s controller housing and managed to brake the rumble packs wires on both sides as the wire snapped off the board i managed to solder the left side but not the right not sure whether I can email you a picture and show you what i mean?
I'm amazed every time I see a PS4 mainboard - theres virtually nothing on it, a smattering of chips and a few connectors and thats it!
@MineSweeper dude it doesn't dont be childish
MineSweeper get shrekt m8.
Vince could you power the fan off a separate source to keep the board from overheating for testing?
A bit late to the party but do you know for sure the hard drive is working? I didn't see where it was swapped with the working one, however it may not make a difference because they are different revisions. The last thing it was doing was downloading a game. A failed update or bad hard drive can cause a lot of problems similar to this. IGN has instructions on replacing and reloading the OS on a PS4 hard drive. Just like in a PC, these problems all sound hard drive, BIOS, or RAM issues.
Hi Vince, I bought a Linx Vision controller for a DIY SBC project after seeing your amazing Switch XL project from ages ago! I’ve got it wired up as USB and the Xinput works great, but I’m trying to open up the controller ends (after removing the 2 visible screws), but to no avail.
How did you open them up to change the button layout? As there is little to no info online about their disassembly.
I think from memory the plastic back that looks like a rubber grip clips off. Or maybe the front bit clips off to give access to the 2 screws to then remove the back cover. Sorry I can't remember as it was a long time ago, but something clips off the bottom half of the controller to reveal more screws :-)
the white wire to the fan would be a data wire, so that the ps4 could tell the fan to speed up or slow down, as 12v and ground would spin the fan at full speed, whereas a data wire would send a signal to the fan that says I want to cool the cpu at a fast or slow speed. otherwise the fan would only have 1 speed as full speed or off.
sort of like a 2 pin pc fan, compared to a 3 pin fan, and a 4 pin fan. it might be a 5 volt signal, with the chip inside the fan saying if there is a 5 volt signal then slow the fan down. and then like a 4 pin fan being something like 3.5 volts or something. and working sort of like a desktop fan with varying switches doing different speeds.
but my personal guess would be [APU] telling the [south bridge] I am getting too hot, the [south bridge] sending a 5v or data to the [fan], and then the fan running at the required speed whether it is 12v or 5v speed. but could be compnents between everything as well.
Drama and suspense will the damn fan keep spinning.
Just a little side tip ...
If you replace the thermal paste with strawberry jam (or whatever your preferred flavour), when the machine is running it will give off a lovely smell like pop tarts. Works just as well with computers of all kinds ! Try it - but make sure you have some munchies to eat as you will get hungry :)