This guys first vid was just like Half Life. HL1 was Valves first game and it was crazy good, and so was this video for RIP-felix, it was the firsy vid for him and I have rewatched it 2 times already
The one thing I, too, found annoying about the original release were indeed the Star Wars memes and especially how drawn out they were, so while I wouldn't have complained about it, I do appreciate the change.
You may never see this, but I "repaired" my ps3 about 10 years ago by heating the board with a gun and using new thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. it lasted a few months, but it was exactly how you described the bump failure. I mean watching the video literally unlocked memories of me "repairing" my ps3 twice and what it went through. second time, only lasted a few days. launch edition ps3 btw, so definitely the 90nm rsx. While my ps3 is long dead, and it will never live again, I thank you very much for going through and making this video. To tell all of us users what ACTUALLY happened to our YLOD'd PS3's.
I had a COK-001 (hehe cok) and it survived years of abuse, it only really died bc i wanted to repaste it but broke off the locking tab. I wanna buy another one and frankie it. But I don't have 40k to blow on a BGA unfuckeriser (rework station but my brain already half-unloaded english)
Truly an amazing video. The original was fine given how much good information was in the non meme parts. I've been holding on to a buddies PS3 for the past 4 or 5 years waiting for a proper solution to come out. I do have a reballing kit with like 500 stencils, but I knew that it would not be a long term solution to reball the RSX so we shelved it. I never would have thought that the RSX would have had the same pinout through all those revisions. I commend you for the great work you put in to this. Thank you.
i honestly really appreciate that you considered doing this, but honestly your initial video was so fucking good. you should be proud of it and not think any of it was cringe. thanks for such an informative video/documentary/essay/etc
Just watched the full video yesterday. Star Wars bits gave me a little chuckle, but with how long they were I do think this is probably the optimal way to watch now. Excellent work, excited to see what you do in the future.
My original PS3 was the 60gb version and it lasted 10 years before it hit YLOD. Turned out the Solder had cracked in some places and needed to be replaced. God seeing that Yellow light brought tears to my eyes. I ended up sending it to someone on Ebay and they replaced the Solder. Fan was crazy loud for a bit after that, but it worked, and the fan calmed down shortly after. Love the video!
This is without a doubt one of, if not the best console hardware based videos I’ve ever seen. I’ll be looking for even more content like this concerning hardware specifications. You’ve reeled me in to this side. Lol
Great video....I used the heat gun on the cpu & rxs on my own console & a friends...it fixed the problem for 1 week for my ps3 & 2 days for my freinds!.. Really good to see a video with this much depth..go raibh maith agat!
While the OG was fine to me, the fact you actually took constructive criticism to heart and decided to change your style rather than just whining about mean comments and getting demotivated is a sign that you're gonna go far if you keep at this whole YT thing. Again, great video.
This has been one of the best cases for "weaponized autism" I have seen in hobbyist circles. You may not have autism and whether you do or don't isn't important. However, what is important is that you have inspired me.
I stumbled upon the original when I was supposed to go to bed, I ended up staying up all night and watched the whole video like two times, truly incredible work!
Your video helped me much better understand not just how the PS3 works in general but you've also finally provided a RELIABLE source for WHY these earlier models go wrong. This video alone will hopefully clear up a lot of misinformation there is when diagnosing a PS3 and what should be done to fix one. Cheers
I honestly enjoyed the first video. While I believe that constructive criticism is a good thing, your artistic language is your own. I'll still re-watch this one ;) It was so entertaining.
THIS. Suggestions are good, but I wouldn't mind if there was only one movie, with memes. That's your style. It's something that defines you and will define you. My YT channel is like a really small video room, people talking about what I could change to reach more views. I don't want to. Either it clicks for someone or it doesn't. I want to make movies on my terms:) Good work nonetheless!
Thanks again for this excellent work. I was thinking about some of the issues in your previous version, but I was so impressed with the work that I didn't want to nitpick. I feel that we never got the real story from the companies, because that would involve finger pointing, admitting to culpability and legal issues for all involved. I almost fell for the NEC TOKIN thing, and not going for it until I can get a proper fix with a 40 nm chip.
I watched the original full video, it was so amazing! I can't imagine how much time it took you to complete it. Because it was such a great video and you totally deserve it, I'll watch this one too! Merry Christmas!
Thanks for making this and getting me up to date. Wading though forums just takes so long for possibly incorrect info is a nightmare and hardly worth the time. I have 2 FAT PS3's sat on my desk, one working and one not. Gives me a little hope I can do something about the none working one one day. Cheers
Honestly I didnt mind the previous iteration of the video, and I thoroughly enjoyed the breakdown on what caused the issue and the ways one could fix it. :)
Thank you for being someone with such an insatiable curiosity and wanting to solve this mystery. I have a box right now with several of these consoles in disassembled state, having invested in the interface to read the SYSCON data, but not the time and energy to hook it up. I had settled for the idea that my treasured bw compatible phat 60gb ps3 was dead for good when the yellow capacitors didn't resurrect it, and I mostly mourned all the saved data that I couldn't access anymore, but was reluctant to actually toss anything. I was holding hope too of fixing another that was sans Blu+ray via the remarry process, but I was too sad after the ylod to really try. I think one console does actually work, a slim, but it meant starting all my games over from go... I feel better after seeing this, though, it may be unlikely to get me back up and running it does provide some closure and welcome answers as to what happened. Now if there's a magical way to trick a console into accepting the data stored on the ps3 hdd that i still have, I would really be a happy camper!
Only if you have the eid root key? It can and should be dumped and kept safe with you flash backup when you jailbreak. Then if it ever does die, you can decrypt the HDD and retrieve your saves.
Thank you. My original PS3 is still running by the fan is going crazy. I'll just be cleaning it completely and replacing the thermal paste. I would have replaced the NEC chips and I'm glad you convinced me not to do that. Great video. Incredibly informative.
Hey I just discovered this channel yesterday and I found this documentary about the YLOD for the PS3 to be very interesting. I own a PS3 myself that I added CFW to and have used for retro gaming on Playstation ever since. Coming across this video I have become more self aware about the preservation of my unit and a pseudo knowledge of the more inner functions of the hardware. You're an absolutely wonderful content creator and I hope to see more videos from you. Definitely going into my most looked up to subscriptions.
Iv had my fat PS3 since launch and played to for hours and hours every day (back then) it still works fine. I think this is either counter marketing from Xbox’s rrod (take some of the attention away from it) or ppl who mistreat their console.
@@MrFrost-xh6rf well see that’s just the thing. Faulty hardware does not equal guaranteed to break. The 90nm RSX is faulty by design but that does not mean that it’s guaranteed to fail under the same conditions. You’ve simply been lucky and probably have good maintenance on your console.
Felix, I’m not sure why this video (the original) got recommended to me but I’m glad it did. I have an original fat 60gb PS3 that died in 2010. I tried fixing it then and had no idea what I was doing. I actually didn’t have the YLOD, but there is a burned section on the board towards the power/optical connectors. This video has inspired me to take another look at it to see if I can get it fixed with the help of this huge community that I didn’t know existed. I appreciate all the effort you put into this informative video🫡
Very interesting. So thats what went wrong with my old console. For awhile my console did actually work but had black artifacts all over the screen for about 6 months before its death. Would normally take 10+ tries to get it to power on. Being in 10th grade it was a console I had to save up lunch money plus my birthday and all holidays for a year just to buy. I still have the console in my closet cause I was too lazy to sell it for parts. I'll have to look into having it fixed.
Thought I'd seen this b4 ... I love your obsession I had a similar one with the 360 but I had kids and ran out of money and time/energy but hey.. Good info and interesting vid👍👍
I loved this, thanks for decringing it so i didnt have to leave a critical comment. I have no actual interest in ps3 repair, just a cursory appreciation of the flaws and solutions of hardware in general. I sat through the whole thing and was able to follow it. Well done. This is comprehensive and an excellent investigation.
The mem parts weren't that bad. It added a ton of personality! Regardless I think your investigative work here is absolutely incredible. Fantastic video and hope you put your talents to good use, maybe have a look at the rrod ? :)
@@shib5267 Please tell me this is sarcasm? "Boomers complaining" has become the new "Thanks, Obama", and frankly I don't care for it. The reason boomer dilligence is tiresome to you, is _your_ indifference, not _our_ mania. If that was precisely the point you were making, I withdraw this unreservedly. Awetism is ausome, but not always easy :)
I enjoyed the first video, so I don't know where those comments came from. I will still watch this one because the video not only was so damn good but because it helps support the second version.
This is such a good video. I don’t understand it all but I understood the process you went through to reach the conclusion. I have accumulated 3 phat ps3 that were backward compatible. I tempted to install the capacitors but I know I didn’t have the skill to do it. They are in a shelf and never got turned on. I like the advise you gave. But I am still afraid to turn them on. I’ll just use the ps3 slim for now.
Thanks for the video. I've been fighting against the reflow/reball craze for a while but it always looks like a lost battle against misinformation. I'm mostly fixing laptops/desktops and I'm baffled that in 2022 we still see "reflow gpu bro" all over the place, when Nvidia bumpgate has been analyzed more than a decade ago. I had the wrong idea too at the beginning because I just didn't know better, even though the information was out there it was pretty well hidden behind all the nonsense. While I'm not really interested in consoles, I always thought the GPU issues weren't that different from what we see on laptops, even though many people tried to convince me otherwise. When I realized that the PS3 used a GPU that's pretty much the same as what has shown a very high failure rate in PCs I was pretty sure people were just wrong all this time. I still had my doubts about the XBox 360 failure because it was pretty different and the failure rate of ATi chips wasn't as high. It climbed a few years later (worst being around the HD6000 probably) but no legal actions unlike what Nvidia had a few years prior. That said Microsoft pretty much confirmed the failure as well. To their defense (people claiming reflow/reball is a solution), this issue is pretty nasty, and heat will easily change the behaviour of the chip. Even mechanical pressure can affect it, comforting people in that it's a contact problem between the chip and the board. But well, Nvidia story should be pretty clear. I'm not saying that it's never a problem between the chip and the board, it happens, although in this case my experience tells me that it's mostly a result of mechanical stress (drop, bend) and pads get damaged too. I guess the misinformation has mostly been perpetrated by people offering reflow/reball as a paid service. They were making bank on it, and admitting that they weren't really fixing anything would drown their business. And of course, doing it the proper way is hard. You can't fix design defects of an IC. Even if a fixed revision exists, you can't even buy it, which is one of the main issue of the electronics repair industry as a whole. Third party sellers will often sell you junk. And even if you are able to buy a good IC, it's expensive, making it hard to offer good value to your customers.
Never owned a PS3, all I had was an Xbox 360 back in the day. But I had no idea the PS3 had the same equivalent as a red ring of death. Couldn't have asked for a better video to introduce me to it!
very nice video with a lot of great info, much respect from a guy who worked also for years on hundreds of PS3 and xbox360 GPU reballs, fixes, and...mods ;) Cheers... Rogero.
I got two CECH A01s sitting around. Fixing the BlueRay drives first. Tried reballing one but it still YLOD. Second one was G2G out off of eBay but I think I might have gotten a few infections from cleaning it out (literally the grossest console I've ever worked on). You're a legend for putting this together. Have a Great New Year!
My near at launch (December 06) PS3 lasted 4 years. The fixed PS3 Sony sent me last 2 years. I bought a new Super Slim model in 2012. It lasted 11 months (thought had been Yellow Light of Death). Sony "fixed" it instead of sending me out a refurbished unit. 10 years later, it is still working.
I remember watching the original, there was nothing wrong with it imo. Also as a brit myself, I appreciated the intro featuring the old bbc watchdogs episode covering the ylod (I remember watching it lol) Cringe or not, an excellent documentary of the whole issue. 🤘
I'm proud to have watched OG Rev 1 in its entirety at 3 am last night. I'll send this to the guys at work to see if there's a doable easy mod to replace this RSX chip.
Amazing video the amount of condensed indormation about yolod is astonishing, I'll have to read you're thread about it now as well! but what I got out of it now is It MIGHT be a faulty 90 nm graphics card but it does not have to be I need to install that diagnostic mod first to do anything useful.
Wow that was a really interesting video. A lot is way over my head, but I have always been interested in technology. I have a phat 80gb with the 2 usb ports. Manufactured in August 2008, so I guess I have the iffy 65nm chip. I can say that after buying it used in August 2009 it's been kicking since. I have never opened it up. Of that time it has always been in as open of a space as possible and laying flat also. I did run a vertical set up for about 1 year and about 1 day in a enclosed cabinet. I seem to vaugly remember a lock up, and noticed how hot the space was. Well about 30 seconds later my foot went through the back of the TV stand and glass door came off. The console had a solid 5 plus years of 40 hour gaming per week. With Netflix the system was on for a good 12 to 16 hours a day for a decade. I also ran an external fan array that had temp sensitive fan curves. Last year I picked up a $10 Ylod 40gb, now I have bought soldering tools, hot air stations etc. Parts boards etc to teach myself and practice chip removal, it's an fun ride and maybe one day I'll fix that ylod.
Very nice vid man, thank you for that. My cecha01 died after I replaced the NECs, yet again, so now I bought a USB TTL adapter and will investigate further. I guess I will sacrifice a cechl03 for the gpu and put the 65nm one on my cecha01. I hope that everything works out :)
this is the type of stuff that deserves to end up on the trending page. every detail gone deep, and i cant recommend this video enough. this is most definitely the most informative video ive seen in a while. i would say keep it up but id take a break considering i wouldnt even know were to go from here. thanks for giving me something to watch and keep up this amazing fucking work bro.
Ironically I ended up being correct in my original assessment back in 2009 or something when I was repairing these. (I did manual testing of RSX) It was just a nightmare fixing these older PS3's without the aids available today. I do believe the early XB360 models could take some of the newer chips, they were certainly MUCH easier to fix, but still overall major design flaws. If at the time however I avoided the PS3 consoles I might have been ok. (except for bluray/PSU fixes etc., I did those also)
Fixing PS3s is easier now than it was 12 years ago. I'm glad that we finally found a solution that actually works for fixing the PS3. I've been following this topic ever since the beginning. Every single method that people used, like putting their PS3 in an oven I knew was a bad idea. You do not put electronics in ovens, like that should be common sense.
Seen both videos. Did not noticed any changes between them, meaning that "cringing" stuff was not to cringing after all, or way and content that you were presenting in a subject was so good that rest was unnoticeable. either way - i have enjoyed this twice :D
Charlie Demerjian BumpGate stories take me back, I remember he used to post some new Nvidia screw up every week on Semi-Accurate 😂. I think he left at some point to start his own site where he’d post investor analyst stories but they were behind a paywall.
I own a ps3 fat backwards compatible since 2009, so 15 years, and only recently I opened it up to clean it and surprisingly it wasn't that dusty even though it was used heavily but my room/house has been always squeaky clean, and fortunately it still works perfectly, changed the paste, fully undusted it, the only thing that I didn't dare doing was delidding though, only because I didn't know how to BUT I learned how to do that the safe way so I will eventually do it, hopefully I'll never meet the YLOD or at least I hope I don't for many many more years to come.
Man! I have the biggest respect for U by making this in depth documentary! I respectect your knowledge and everything that you shared with us here is awesome as less people would do that. I would love to see more vids or mods in depth like that in the future. Only salutations to U champ! Thanx for making and sharing this video! Big shout out & respect to U 👊👊🙌🙌
I watched your first video, and it confirmed what I suspected for years regarding the early PS3s. That they were mostly dead due to inherent chip design issues, not capacitors or overheating. I came to that conclusion based on watching Louis Rossman's video years ago about Apple GPU problems and am honestly surprised it took so long for it to be known to the PS3 community. This is really the same fault that doomed early Xbox 360's and many laptop GPUs (as well as a smaller number of desktop GPUs). A sort of dark ages, in 20 years, retro collectors will have a hardware gap mad up of all these badly made chips that could never survive longterm. Like commodore 64 PLA chips made by MOS, or MT memory chips, these will just have to be concluded as chips that didn't survive the distance. Thankfully, there is now a fix for these old PS3 models (which are collectable due to their PS2 compatibility), although it is difficult and expensive.
I have "repaired" some videocards of that time with heatgun (the big kind) and using infrared temperature pointer to estimate the temps. Best results i've gotten by heating the chip until the package is hits 200c and trying to keep it there 30-60seconds. Less and nothing happens, more and magic smoke comes out. With the big heatgun (meant to melt paint or alike lol) the die itself will hit lot higher temperatures. Yeah it's like nuking a fly and propably will just cause more damage with temporary fix but i've gotten many videocards working for years, until they were way way obsolete. hd7870 i reflow worked for 2 days, gt6800 worked for 10 years, but all of the cards i've reflowed have died sooner than later, usually within year or two on avarage when dismissing all the ones that released the smoke or soon after
I don't understand the criticism you got causing you to have to revise this. Honestly the people that would be distracted by that are people who are easily annoyed or with ocd. Education was the aim of the video and it was phenomenal.
dont bunch people with ACTUAL ocd in the middle of it, ocd has nothing to do with getting annoyed at memes or skits lol its a trauma response like ptsd, so its completly unrelated, but just like the YLOD a bunch of people on the internet took the assumptions and ran with it. people who got annoyed with his skits are just a bunch of people without a sense of fun lmao but yeah, it was probably copyright that lead to its cuts
Nah those memes really where crap and added nothing to the video, specially the star war ones, I know you're braindead and need to relate real life mental illnesses to the video so you can hide the fact that you're the mentally challenged one, but I think you should reconsider that position since normal people won't fall for it.
The effort and information are amazing, pure gold. If you want some constructive criticism on the video: it is very difficult to follow though, not because techincal stuff, but because you are writing things on screen while talking. Then from time to time the voice changes and when you quote other videos, I can't tell which sound comes from which video, when it starts and when it stops.
i spent a long drive home from work this week intently listening to the original video and not once did i find anything in it to be unsavory. in fact, i rewatched bits and subscribed. either way, you put a lot of effort into this and i appreciate the compilation of theories and lessons arranged into an easily digestible video for the layman. happy holidays mate.
Great video (both editions, I've watched both once each today). I looked the link up on Reddit and was shocked to see it had only been shared twice, so I posted it to r/PS3 and r/PS3hacks. I need more people to know an essay this comprehensive exists about this topic! I admire your commitment and passion for console fixing/modding, and hope to see more stuff from you soon 🥰 (btw I watched the PS3 #1 video and I'm left wanting more)
I love stories like these. I never had a problem with my ps3 back in the day, but I was more into modding on the 360's. I did countless C4E flashes and later Jtag's, but I kept my ps3 stock for the free psn, haha. I tried most of the RRoD "fixes" when dead consoles started piling up from people sending me rrod'd systems to get jtagged, thinking it they could pin it on me. None of them were ever consistent in fixing anything imo.
All I have to say is OMG amazing video you cut 4 years of your life into the best 90 minutes of my life honestly Because I'm a ps3 fan, thank you, and I appreciate what you've done
Not sure this is necessary, I loved the first video it was very entertaining and informative! It inspired me to open and clean/repaste my fat ps3, and I've never taken anything apart before!
Here's an interesting thing I'm wondering, but regarding Nvidia desktop GPUs produced around the same timeframe. Back in 07, I bought myself a brand-spanking new 8800GTX. (If it's worth noting, I was living in Japan at the time and bought it there.) Best one I could find. The thing was colossal and also had some additional circuitry at the far end of the board that I hadn't seen on any of the other 8800s in the US. (Though the specifics about which type it was both on the box and included documentation weren't really helpful to me, as I can't read kanji.) About 4 years later, the thing suddenly died on me. No warning, no early signs of degradation or some other failure. It occurred much in the same way as was show in the video. Things were working fine, then suddenly, nothing. The post code didn't really reveal anything new, other than the obvious. The GPU shat the bed. In the back of my mind I had always chalked it up to some cap dying somewhere on the board, despite not seeing any blatantly obvious evidence of any of the electrolytic or SS caps having popped. I wonder if the issue discussed here affected other Nvidia products like their desktop GPU series from around the same time period. I still have the card in my possession in all its glory, so it'd be interesting to know (or somehow test or otherwise determine) if the problem was actually due to failure of the solder balls on the die and not something else.
I'm an extremely experienced IT engineer and can say that from experience with a lot of different hardware including maintaining fat and slim PS3s that the fats are more resilient than the slims but that comes with a footnote; thermal materials in early PS3s is extremely important, high grade thermal pads are a must and the only TIM I would trust in a PS3 of any iteration is Arctic Ceramique, it is designed for long term use in aircraft and the slight loss in cooling efficiency over other TIMs like MX4 is more than made up for with it's durability being capable of going at least 10 years without replacement and it'll perform just as well in that time as the very first day it was applied. As for fat models and PS2 support... well that's a moot point IMO if you have a 20xx\21xx\25xx slim thats been jailbroken, just insert a PS2 disc, rip with your software of choice (if you haven't already converted your PS2 games to ISOs on a PC) and off you go.
Compatibility hit. But yes, it's not like there aren't other options for PS2 games. I agree about ceramique. But I dont mind delidding and re-applying adhesives, which I do think is necessary, despite what people "want" to believe. So I'll use MX4 or 6 which has a 8 year life. Or try more exotic TIMs for personal use. The SYSCON fantable governing RSX temps needs to be adjusted for 90nm models to prevent them from achiving temps above 70C. That is something sony could have done in an update, but hasn't. We can adjust that ourselves now. So in addition to regular maintenece, I would adjust that, if I were keeping the defective 90nm RSX onboard.
@@ripfelix3020 The problem with MX4\6 is that the shelf life of it is 4-6 yrs which is a common misconception for in use lifespan. You'll likely find yourself applying it again every 2 or so years at most (I've actually measured significant thermal degradation over just 1 year) for optimal performance where the molecules break apart over a staggeringly short time and causes it to lose structure, likely but not verified, due to transient voltage spikes, something that isn't an issue for Ceramique partly down to it's structure and primarily it's viscosity which while making it hard to spread makes it unmatched in durability by any other thermal compound - including liquid metals - where it is literally designed to withstand the harshest of environments and will not move under any circumstance. The same goes for LAIRD thermal pads, NASA use those in spacecraft and even when they deteriorate they meld themselves around the component they are applied to making the bond even stronger, not ideal from a maintenance standpoint but it ensures that even without maintenance those components will basically never fail outside of reaching natural EOL lifecycle. I still wouldn't recommend using them though on something like a VRM just because with the onset of deterioration heatsink and component(s) will set like concrete with the deteriorated pad acting almost like a glue. Its also important to consider that regardless of the thermal efficiency of pad\paste that heat can only be drawn away from the component to the heatsink at a set rate, there comes a point where more efficient thermal materials do you no benefit what so ever, that point is usually around 6w/mk with anything beyond that having significant diminishing returns. As you might have guessed from that read, I'm also pretty knowledgeable in thermodynamics, in the past I've designed heatsink solutions for Asrock and Powercolor. Not that they have listened to all of my input because "gamer" and "aesthetics" SMH.
Dang, that video was a ride! Something I'm curious about now though is if an interposer board would work for the super slim model RSX. With the Original Xbox from 2001 people have built even more frankenstein-like upgrades like physically stacking memory chips on top of each other to get 128MB (or up to 512MB) memory, as well as completely replacing the Pentium 3 CPU with a 1.4 Ghz upgraded unit using a custom BGA to socket 370 interposer board
I know of one person looking into it. However It's going to take a lot more reverse enginerring than the frankie did, since we dont have a pinout for the 28nm. And even if it does work the interposer will be a new point of failure. IMO, it would lead to a less reliable console than the 40nm. But worth it for swag. It's an interesting challenge from a techical standpoint, even if it's not practical.
You did an amazing job my friend. Congratulations! Ironically, my PS3 G model died after I took it to a shop for maintenance 🤡 (it lasted around 12 years with 0 maintenance or special care). I just got a “new” E model that had just few hours on it. Question is: what’s the right way to blow out the dust without damaging the console and what parts are the ones that really need to be cleaned? Thanks again for all this information. Greetings from Mexico. PS: would it be better to leave it on the entire weekend since those are the only days I’d be playing? (Preventing more heat cycles).
I just use a compressed electronics duster, like for keboards. It works ok, but eventually it's a good idea to open it and blow it out. If you stay on top of it, don't keep it near the floor, and don't smoke, the dust bunnies shouldn't build up very quickly. IDK what the person you took it to did as "maintenence," but if that included delidding the RSX, the stress can break the BGA or cause trace damage to the FlexIO. Greatly depends on their skill and what they did. When breaking the seal between the HS and processors, there is force applied to the BGA and that can cause damage, especially if it was weakened to begin with. If you play the console for 30min before opening it, the residual heat will soften the paste and make breaking that seal easier. You can also use a hairdrier on the HS, just don't blast it with too much heat. Just enough to soften it and separate it. The paste used previously can also affect how hard it is to separate. MX5 (before it was discontinued) was like glue. That stuff was dangerously stiff! MX4 works great and isn't too bad to reopen. SONYs OEM stuff wasn't too bad with a bit of heat to get off, but I've seen a few consoles with aftermarket stuff that was on there like superglue.
I don't reccomend leaving it on all the time. I know some people say it reduces the temperature delta, but I don't buy it outweighs the accumulated electomigration damage idle hours add. Not an easy thing to answer for sure tho. I would just use and enjoy it as it was designed to be. Play when you want to and conserve the electricity when you're not.
I have personally reflowed several ps3's I bought second hand (for parts listings) with a heat gun and they all came back (videos on my channel). HOWEVER, like you said, they die quickly again within weeks, months but NEVER make it close to a year. These are fundamentally poorly designed consoles with bad thermals and they always run away and kill themselves. You cannot out fabricobble a solution that engineering did not account for in the first place. The one common indicator i've noticed pre-death is that they always run stupid hot and the fan is going full tilt trying to cool the console (no, your favorite thermal paste is not going to fix this). Usually on graphically demanding games like Gran Turismo 6 (night racing track killed 2 of them = high demand on RSX). If you hear your ps3 going at its highest fan setting (3 of 3 steps) just exit the game, let the console cool down in the menu screen to avoid it dying from thermal stress as stated in the video. One take away from this video coupled with my experience is that playing a graphically demanding game where the fan ramps to its highest setting for a long time, then shutting the console off quickly will surely limit the usable life of the console. It's not a matter of if it will fail, but when. So for that reason I recommend soft shut down which is exit the game, let the console idle in the menu for like 5 minutes, then shut it down completely. This gives the fan time to cool the chips gradually instead of going from its max temp to 0 in a short time = maximum thermal stress. I was considering getting into reballing hardware (400-900 dollar investment in equipment) but decided against it because you can just locate the ps1 and ps2 separately and use a slim ps3 which is not effected by these issues. Awesome video and great info!
My PS3 Slim does this. Although I would call it the Red light of death. Turn it on it immediately shuts down with a blinking red light. There is no dust build-up inside I have always kept the inside dust free.
I already watched the original version and I greatly appreciate the QOL changes of this video. Reading the description of this video, I see that you mentioned you wanted to condense the last 4 years of your life into 80 minutes. I guess I should ask can you make individual videos about the individual chapters on this video? E.g (Preventative maintenance talk about how this method became popularized, the history of the method, etc. I know this might be redundant, but I'm assuming there are a few details that you skipped for the sake of not spending 5 hours on a singular topic, etc. Would love a deep dive into one specific topic with no detail to spare. Thanks for the hard work!
Really feels like a movie documentary like those from national geographic! Thank you for spending 4 years of your life just to provide us some entertainment. I actually clapped to this since I was alone like the ending of a movie.
This video is great! (Also the old one was great) That research work and documentary is also great! Keep up that great work and thank you very much for this documentary!
I've been at the peak of Mount stupid twice. First a couple years back, attempting to install a switch modchip which I definitely hadn't the tools nor the experience to complete. After two years, I've installed it successfully, but simultaneously have spent about $400 attempting to fix a dead GPU to no avail. Currently sending into someone for repairs. I feel so stupid.
Around 10 years ago, my brothers ps3 got the YLOD. I did heat it up with a hairdryer. I also managed to get it up working. Though, he asked me to do see if i can do something only to make a copy of his savefiles. I have no idea how long that console would have run though.
I didn't watch the full first video, however, I don't get why you got all that criticism. Going and explaining a problem that no one has solved for nearly 20 years is a feat worthy of itself. I wish there was a slightly shorter capped version to help explain it. Sorry adhd person here and I have to watch in spurts.
I have only one argument to make, people don't play on them anymore like the day they are released. From the few hours of playing a day, probably now it's a few hours a month, the failure rate even with one still functional is low because it's not used that much anymore
This guys first vid was just like Half Life. HL1 was Valves first game and it was crazy good, and so was this video for RIP-felix, it was the firsy vid for him and I have rewatched it 2 times already
I got a Frankenstein 60gb and I’m so glad there’s now a permanent way to bring these systems back to life. They are the ultimate PlayStation
I want to get a DECHA00A 60GB dev kit, and I definitely will get that Frankied. That will be the ultimate PS3 lol.
The one thing I, too, found annoying about the original release were indeed the Star Wars memes and especially how drawn out they were, so while I wouldn't have complained about it, I do appreciate the change.
Agree
I watched the original version in full already, in one sitting no less
im rewatching the new upload to help with the algorhythm uwu
@@agata6337 well, im commenting for the algorithm
Same.. I was enthralled.
Me too just a few days ago.
@@kiraangle2823 im doing my part!
No more really long memes, thank you!
You may never see this, but I "repaired" my ps3 about 10 years ago by heating the board with a gun and using new thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. it lasted a few months, but it was exactly how you described the bump failure. I mean watching the video literally unlocked memories of me "repairing" my ps3 twice and what it went through. second time, only lasted a few days.
launch edition ps3 btw, so definitely the 90nm rsx.
While my ps3 is long dead, and it will never live again, I thank you very much for going through and making this video. To tell all of us users what ACTUALLY happened to our YLOD'd PS3's.
Make it live again. Bring the legend back to life.
I had a COK-001 (hehe cok) and it survived years of abuse, it only really died bc i wanted to repaste it but broke off the locking tab. I wanna buy another one and frankie it. But I don't have 40k to blow on a BGA unfuckeriser (rework station but my brain already half-unloaded english)
Truly an amazing video. The original was fine given how much good information was in the non meme parts.
I've been holding on to a buddies PS3 for the past 4 or 5 years waiting for a proper solution to come out. I do have a reballing kit with like 500 stencils, but I knew that it would not be a long term solution to reball the RSX so we shelved it. I never would have thought that the RSX would have had the same pinout through all those revisions.
I commend you for the great work you put in to this. Thank you.
i honestly really appreciate that you considered doing this, but honestly your initial video was so fucking good. you should be proud of it and not think any of it was cringe.
thanks for such an informative video/documentary/essay/etc
Just watched the full video yesterday. Star Wars bits gave me a little chuckle, but with how long they were I do think this is probably the optimal way to watch now.
Excellent work, excited to see what you do in the future.
My original PS3 was the 60gb version and it lasted 10 years before it hit YLOD. Turned out the Solder had cracked in some places and needed to be replaced.
God seeing that Yellow light brought tears to my eyes. I ended up sending it to someone on Ebay and they replaced the Solder. Fan was crazy loud for a bit after that, but it worked, and the fan calmed down shortly after.
Love the video!
This is without a doubt one of, if not the best console hardware based videos I’ve ever seen. I’ll be looking for even more content like this concerning hardware specifications. You’ve reeled me in to this side. Lol
Great video....I used the heat gun on the cpu & rxs on my own console & a friends...it fixed the problem for 1 week for my ps3 & 2 days for my freinds!..
Really good to see a video with this much depth..go raibh maith agat!
While the OG was fine to me, the fact you actually took constructive criticism to heart and decided to change your style rather than just whining about mean comments and getting demotivated is a sign that you're gonna go far if you keep at this whole YT thing.
Again, great video.
Oh wow, one of the best videos on youtube got an upgrade.
You didn’t need to do this, but it’s much appreciated regardless
This has been one of the best cases for "weaponized autism" I have seen in hobbyist circles. You may not have autism and whether you do or don't isn't important. However, what is important is that you have inspired me.
I'm so pro-meme that the original version talks to my heart the most. But thanks for this version (and for not taking down the original video).
Amazing video I don't own a fat but regardless the information presented is extremely engrossing
I stumbled upon the original when I was supposed to go to bed, I ended up staying up all night and watched the whole video like two times, truly incredible work!
Your video helped me much better understand not just how the PS3 works in general but you've also finally provided a RELIABLE source for WHY these earlier models go wrong. This video alone will hopefully clear up a lot of misinformation there is when diagnosing a PS3 and what should be done to fix one. Cheers
I honestly enjoyed the first video. While I believe that constructive criticism is a good thing, your artistic language is your own. I'll still re-watch this one ;) It was so entertaining.
THIS. Suggestions are good, but I wouldn't mind if there was only one movie, with memes. That's your style. It's something that defines you and will define you.
My YT channel is like a really small video room, people talking about what I could change to reach more views. I don't want to. Either it clicks for someone or it doesn't. I want to make movies on my terms:)
Good work nonetheless!
Thanks again for this excellent work. I was thinking about some of the issues in your previous version, but I was so impressed with the work that I didn't want to nitpick. I feel that we never got the real story from the companies, because that would involve finger pointing, admitting to culpability and legal issues for all involved. I almost fell for the NEC TOKIN thing, and not going for it until I can get a proper fix with a 40 nm chip.
I watched the original full video, it was so amazing! I can't imagine how much time it took you to complete it. Because it was such a great video and you totally deserve it, I'll watch this one too! Merry Christmas!
Thank you so much for your contributions to the psx place community and this documentary. This is a truly amazing and educational piece.
Enjoyed every part of it. I am glad to see that somebody's obsession took him to another level, in a good way.
Thanks for making this and getting me up to date. Wading though forums just takes so long for possibly incorrect info is a nightmare and hardly worth the time. I have 2 FAT PS3's sat on my desk, one working and one not. Gives me a little hope I can do something about the none working one one day. Cheers
Appreciate your work. This deserves an award
THIS. SO much this. /signed
Honestly I didnt mind the previous iteration of the video, and I thoroughly enjoyed the breakdown on what caused the issue and the ways one could fix it. :)
Thank you for being someone with such an insatiable curiosity and wanting to solve this mystery. I have a box right now with several of these consoles in disassembled state, having invested in the interface to read the SYSCON data, but not the time and energy to hook it up. I had settled for the idea that my treasured bw compatible phat 60gb ps3 was dead for good when the yellow capacitors didn't resurrect it, and I mostly mourned all the saved data that I couldn't access anymore, but was reluctant to actually toss anything. I was holding hope too of fixing another that was sans Blu+ray via the remarry process, but I was too sad after the ylod to really try. I think one console does actually work, a slim, but it meant starting all my games over from go...
I feel better after seeing this, though, it may be unlikely to get me back up and running it does provide some closure and welcome answers as to what happened. Now if there's a magical way to trick a console into accepting the data stored on the ps3 hdd that i still have, I would really be a happy camper!
Only if you have the eid root key? It can and should be dumped and kept safe with you flash backup when you jailbreak. Then if it ever does die, you can decrypt the HDD and retrieve your saves.
Thank you. My original PS3 is still running by the fan is going crazy. I'll just be cleaning it completely and replacing the thermal paste. I would have replaced the NEC chips and I'm glad you convinced me not to do that. Great video. Incredibly informative.
Hey I just discovered this channel yesterday and I found this documentary about the YLOD for the PS3 to be very interesting. I own a PS3 myself that I added CFW to and have used for retro gaming on Playstation ever since. Coming across this video I have become more self aware about the preservation of my unit and a pseudo knowledge of the more inner functions of the hardware. You're an absolutely wonderful content creator and I hope to see more videos from you. Definitely going into my most looked up to subscriptions.
Iv had my fat PS3 since launch and played to for hours and hours every day (back then) it still works fine. I think this is either counter marketing from Xbox’s rrod (take some of the attention away from it) or ppl who mistreat their console.
@@MrFrost-xh6rf well see that’s just the thing. Faulty hardware does not equal guaranteed to break. The 90nm RSX is faulty by design but that does not mean that it’s guaranteed to fail under the same conditions. You’ve simply been lucky and probably have good maintenance on your console.
Felix, I’m not sure why this video (the original) got recommended to me but I’m glad it did. I have an original fat 60gb PS3 that died in 2010. I tried fixing it then and had no idea what I was doing. I actually didn’t have the YLOD, but there is a burned section on the board towards the power/optical connectors. This video has inspired me to take another look at it to see if I can get it fixed with the help of this huge community that I didn’t know existed. I appreciate all the effort you put into this informative video🫡
Very interesting. So thats what went wrong with my old console. For awhile my console did actually work but had black artifacts all over the screen for about 6 months before its death. Would normally take 10+ tries to get it to power on. Being in 10th grade it was a console I had to save up lunch money plus my birthday and all holidays for a year just to buy. I still have the console in my closet cause I was too lazy to sell it for parts. I'll have to look into having it fixed.
Thought I'd seen this b4 ... I love your obsession I had a similar one with the 360 but I had kids and ran out of money and time/energy but hey.. Good info and interesting vid👍👍
I loved this, thanks for decringing it so i didnt have to leave a critical comment. I have no actual interest in ps3 repair, just a cursory appreciation of the flaws and solutions of hardware in general. I sat through the whole thing and was able to follow it. Well done. This is comprehensive and an excellent investigation.
The mem parts weren't that bad. It added a ton of personality! Regardless I think your investigative work here is absolutely incredible. Fantastic video and hope you put your talents to good use, maybe have a look at the rrod ? :)
It's probably boomers complaining tbh
Nah they were pointless
Microsoft already made the video of it .
@@shib5267 Please tell me this is sarcasm? "Boomers complaining" has become the new "Thanks, Obama", and frankly I don't care for it. The reason boomer dilligence is tiresome to you, is _your_ indifference, not _our_ mania. If that was precisely the point you were making, I withdraw this unreservedly. Awetism is ausome, but not always easy :)
I enjoyed the first video, so I don't know where those comments came from. I will still watch this one because the video not only was so damn good but because it helps support the second version.
This is such a good video. I don’t understand it all but I understood the process you went through to reach the conclusion. I have accumulated 3 phat ps3 that were backward compatible. I tempted to install the capacitors but I know I didn’t have the skill to do it. They are in a shelf and never got turned on. I like the advise you gave. But I am still afraid to turn them on. I’ll just use the ps3 slim for now.
Thanks for the video. I've been fighting against the reflow/reball craze for a while but it always looks like a lost battle against misinformation.
I'm mostly fixing laptops/desktops and I'm baffled that in 2022 we still see "reflow gpu bro" all over the place, when Nvidia bumpgate has been analyzed more than a decade ago.
I had the wrong idea too at the beginning because I just didn't know better, even though the information was out there it was pretty well hidden behind all the nonsense.
While I'm not really interested in consoles, I always thought the GPU issues weren't that different from what we see on laptops, even though many people tried to convince me otherwise.
When I realized that the PS3 used a GPU that's pretty much the same as what has shown a very high failure rate in PCs I was pretty sure people were just wrong all this time.
I still had my doubts about the XBox 360 failure because it was pretty different and the failure rate of ATi chips wasn't as high. It climbed a few years later (worst being around the HD6000 probably) but no legal actions unlike what Nvidia had a few years prior. That said Microsoft pretty much confirmed the failure as well.
To their defense (people claiming reflow/reball is a solution), this issue is pretty nasty, and heat will easily change the behaviour of the chip. Even mechanical pressure can affect it, comforting people in that it's a contact problem between the chip and the board. But well, Nvidia story should be pretty clear.
I'm not saying that it's never a problem between the chip and the board, it happens, although in this case my experience tells me that it's mostly a result of mechanical stress (drop, bend) and pads get damaged too.
I guess the misinformation has mostly been perpetrated by people offering reflow/reball as a paid service. They were making bank on it, and admitting that they weren't really fixing anything would drown their business. And of course, doing it the proper way is hard. You can't fix design defects of an IC. Even if a fixed revision exists, you can't even buy it, which is one of the main issue of the electronics repair industry as a whole. Third party sellers will often sell you junk. And even if you are able to buy a good IC, it's expensive, making it hard to offer good value to your customers.
Never owned a PS3, all I had was an Xbox 360 back in the day. But I had no idea the PS3 had the same equivalent as a red ring of death. Couldn't have asked for a better video to introduce me to it!
This was so well done , impressive work ❤
very nice video with a lot of great info, much respect from a guy who worked also for years on hundreds of PS3 and xbox360 GPU reballs, fixes, and...mods ;) Cheers... Rogero.
I got two CECH A01s sitting around. Fixing the BlueRay drives first. Tried reballing one but it still YLOD. Second one was G2G out off of eBay but I think I might have gotten a few infections from cleaning it out (literally the grossest console I've ever worked on).
You're a legend for putting this together. Have a Great New Year!
I thought the memish bits broke the video up nicely, kept the content fresh and didn't tire you out on pure technical knowledge.
My near at launch (December 06) PS3 lasted 4 years.
The fixed PS3 Sony sent me last 2 years.
I bought a new Super Slim model in 2012.
It lasted 11 months (thought had been Yellow Light of Death).
Sony "fixed" it instead of sending me out a refurbished unit.
10 years later, it is still working.
I like this versiona bit more, even though I liked the previous video. I appreciate the efforts taken!
I remember watching the original, there was nothing wrong with it imo.
Also as a brit myself, I appreciated the intro featuring the old bbc watchdogs episode covering the ylod (I remember watching it lol)
Cringe or not, an excellent documentary of the whole issue. 🤘
I'm proud to have watched OG Rev 1 in its entirety at 3 am last night. I'll send this to the guys at work to see if there's a doable easy mod to replace this RSX chip.
Amazing video the amount of condensed indormation about yolod is astonishing, I'll have to read you're thread about it now as well!
but what I got out of it now is
It MIGHT be a faulty 90 nm graphics card but it does not have to be I need to install that diagnostic mod first to do anything useful.
I enjoyed both videos. I really would like to see you treat another subject like this one 👍
Thanks for this reflexion, i am from Spain and i wacht all your videos subs, BIG MAN!!
Wow that was a really interesting video. A lot is way over my head, but I have always been interested in technology. I have a phat 80gb with the 2 usb ports. Manufactured in August 2008, so I guess I have the iffy 65nm chip. I can say that after buying it used in August 2009 it's been kicking since. I have never opened it up. Of that time it has always been in as open of a space as possible and laying flat also. I did run a vertical set up for about 1 year and about 1 day in a enclosed cabinet. I seem to vaugly remember a lock up, and noticed how hot the space was. Well about 30 seconds later my foot went through the back of the TV stand and glass door came off. The console had a solid 5 plus years of 40 hour gaming per week. With Netflix the system was on for a good 12 to 16 hours a day for a decade. I also ran an external fan array that had temp sensitive fan curves. Last year I picked up a $10 Ylod 40gb, now I have bought soldering tools, hot air stations etc. Parts boards etc to teach myself and practice chip removal, it's an fun ride and maybe one day I'll fix that ylod.
now i finnaly know why my ps3 didn't start after recap. Whole life was a lie. I don't give up i will fix it some day
Very nice vid man, thank you for that. My cecha01 died after I replaced the NECs, yet again, so now I bought a USB TTL adapter and will investigate further. I guess I will sacrifice a cechl03 for the gpu and put the 65nm one on my cecha01. I hope that everything works out :)
The next step after quantum computing is finally unlocking the full potential of PS3's processor
this is the type of stuff that deserves to end up on the trending page. every detail gone deep, and i cant recommend this video enough. this is most definitely the most informative video ive seen in a while. i would say keep it up but id take a break considering i wouldnt even know were to go from here. thanks for giving me something to watch and keep up this amazing fucking work bro.
Ironically I ended up being correct in my original assessment back in 2009 or something when I was repairing these. (I did manual testing of RSX)
It was just a nightmare fixing these older PS3's without the aids available today.
I do believe the early XB360 models could take some of the newer chips, they were certainly MUCH easier to fix, but still overall major design flaws. If at the time however I avoided the PS3 consoles I might have been ok. (except for bluray/PSU fixes etc., I did those also)
Fixing PS3s is easier now than it was 12 years ago. I'm glad that we finally found a solution that actually works for fixing the PS3. I've been following this topic ever since the beginning. Every single method that people used, like putting their PS3 in an oven I knew was a bad idea. You do not put electronics in ovens, like that should be common sense.
Insane video, want to watch it again.
Seen both videos. Did not noticed any changes between them, meaning that "cringing" stuff was not to cringing after all, or way and content that you were presenting in a subject was so good that rest was unnoticeable.
either way - i have enjoyed this twice :D
I liked the first video I thought it was great. I see why some people had criticisms of it though. Keep it up bro. You make a great documentary!
Charlie Demerjian BumpGate stories take me back, I remember he used to post some new Nvidia screw up every week on Semi-Accurate 😂. I think he left at some point to start his own site where he’d post investor analyst stories but they were behind a paywall.
I own a ps3 fat backwards compatible since 2009, so 15 years, and only recently I opened it up to clean it and surprisingly it wasn't that dusty even though it was used heavily but my room/house has been always squeaky clean, and fortunately it still works perfectly, changed the paste, fully undusted it, the only thing that I didn't dare doing was delidding though, only because I didn't know how to BUT I learned how to do that the safe way so I will eventually do it, hopefully I'll never meet the YLOD or at least I hope I don't for many many more years to come.
the star wars parts were a little heavy but i enjoyed.cant believe its your first video. proud launch day 60gb still alive in 2022. Low play hours lol
Man! I have the biggest respect for U by making this in depth documentary! I respectect your knowledge and everything that you shared with us here is awesome as less people would do that. I would love to see more vids or mods in depth like that in the future. Only salutations to U champ! Thanx for making and sharing this video! Big shout out & respect to U 👊👊🙌🙌
I watched your first video, and it confirmed what I suspected for years regarding the early PS3s. That they were mostly dead due to inherent chip design issues, not capacitors or overheating. I came to that conclusion based on watching Louis Rossman's video years ago about Apple GPU problems and am honestly surprised it took so long for it to be known to the PS3 community.
This is really the same fault that doomed early Xbox 360's and many laptop GPUs (as well as a smaller number of desktop GPUs). A sort of dark ages, in 20 years, retro collectors will have a hardware gap mad up of all these badly made chips that could never survive longterm. Like commodore 64 PLA chips made by MOS, or MT memory chips, these will just have to be concluded as chips that didn't survive the distance.
Thankfully, there is now a fix for these old PS3 models (which are collectable due to their PS2 compatibility), although it is difficult and expensive.
I have "repaired" some videocards of that time with heatgun (the big kind) and using infrared temperature pointer to estimate the temps.
Best results i've gotten by heating the chip until the package is hits 200c and trying to keep it there 30-60seconds.
Less and nothing happens, more and magic smoke comes out.
With the big heatgun (meant to melt paint or alike lol) the die itself will hit lot higher temperatures.
Yeah it's like nuking a fly and propably will just cause more damage with temporary fix but i've gotten many videocards working for years, until they were way way obsolete.
hd7870 i reflow worked for 2 days, gt6800 worked for 10 years, but all of the cards i've reflowed have died sooner than later, usually within year or two on avarage when dismissing all the ones that released the smoke or soon after
I don't understand the criticism you got causing you to have to revise this. Honestly the people that would be distracted by that are people who are easily annoyed or with ocd. Education was the aim of the video and it was phenomenal.
The Star wars memes were a bit too much at times and I bet it was a copyright nightmare
@@henrik1743 now thinking about it, it was totally for copyright.
@@0852657luis yes when I watched the video there was one star wars clip at the end which had no audio anymore, 100% copyright issues
dont bunch people with ACTUAL ocd in the middle of it, ocd has nothing to do with getting annoyed at memes or skits lol
its a trauma response like ptsd, so its completly unrelated, but just like the YLOD a bunch of people on the internet took the assumptions and ran with it.
people who got annoyed with his skits are just a bunch of people without a sense of fun lmao
but yeah, it was probably copyright that lead to its cuts
Nah those memes really where crap and added nothing to the video, specially the star war ones, I know you're braindead and need to relate real life mental illnesses to the video so you can hide the fact that you're the mentally challenged one, but I think you should reconsider that position since normal people won't fall for it.
IDK why but I've re-watched this 8400 times. (probably 12)
The effort and information are amazing, pure gold. If you want some constructive criticism on the video: it is very difficult to follow though, not because techincal stuff, but because you are writing things on screen while talking. Then from time to time the voice changes and when you quote other videos, I can't tell which sound comes from which video, when it starts and when it stops.
I still have my launch model. man the launch ps3 was the Rolls-Royce of consoles back then
thanks mate, much better for a rewatch 🙏
i spent a long drive home from work this week intently listening to the original video and not once did i find anything in it to be unsavory. in fact, i rewatched bits and subscribed.
either way, you put a lot of effort into this and i appreciate the compilation of theories and lessons arranged into an easily digestible video for the layman.
happy holidays mate.
Great video (both editions, I've watched both once each today). I looked the link up on Reddit and was shocked to see it had only been shared twice, so I posted it to r/PS3 and r/PS3hacks. I need more people to know an essay this comprehensive exists about this topic!
I admire your commitment and passion for console fixing/modding, and hope to see more stuff from you soon 🥰
(btw I watched the PS3 #1 video and I'm left wanting more)
I love stories like these. I never had a problem with my ps3 back in the day, but I was more into modding on the 360's. I did countless C4E flashes and later Jtag's, but I kept my ps3 stock for the free psn, haha. I tried most of the RRoD "fixes" when dead consoles started piling up from people sending me rrod'd systems to get jtagged, thinking it they could pin it on me.
None of them were ever consistent in fixing anything imo.
I got the yellow light in I think 2015, took a blow dryer to it a cloud of dust came out and it's been good ever since.
commenting for the algorithm!! thank you, RIP Felix!
All I have to say is OMG amazing video you cut 4 years of your life into the best 90 minutes of my life honestly
Because I'm a ps3 fan, thank you, and I appreciate what you've done
Not sure this is necessary, I loved the first video it was very entertaining and informative! It inspired me to open and clean/repaste my fat ps3, and I've never taken anything apart before!
This is an amazing video! 👍
Here's an interesting thing I'm wondering, but regarding Nvidia desktop GPUs produced around the same timeframe.
Back in 07, I bought myself a brand-spanking new 8800GTX. (If it's worth noting, I was living in Japan at the time and bought it there.) Best one I could find. The thing was colossal and also had some additional circuitry at the far end of the board that I hadn't seen on any of the other 8800s in the US. (Though the specifics about which type it was both on the box and included documentation weren't really helpful to me, as I can't read kanji.) About 4 years later, the thing suddenly died on me. No warning, no early signs of degradation or some other failure. It occurred much in the same way as was show in the video. Things were working fine, then suddenly, nothing. The post code didn't really reveal anything new, other than the obvious. The GPU shat the bed.
In the back of my mind I had always chalked it up to some cap dying somewhere on the board, despite not seeing any blatantly obvious evidence of any of the electrolytic or SS caps having popped. I wonder if the issue discussed here affected other Nvidia products like their desktop GPU series from around the same time period. I still have the card in my possession in all its glory, so it'd be interesting to know (or somehow test or otherwise determine) if the problem was actually due to failure of the solder balls on the die and not something else.
98% likelihood that it affected a lot of crap made back then.
thats some amazing content... hat off to you
As someone who first bought a PS3 Slim in 2012, it's crazy to see this
I'm an extremely experienced IT engineer and can say that from experience with a lot of different hardware including maintaining fat and slim PS3s that the fats are more resilient than the slims but that comes with a footnote; thermal materials in early PS3s is extremely important, high grade thermal pads are a must and the only TIM I would trust in a PS3 of any iteration is Arctic Ceramique, it is designed for long term use in aircraft and the slight loss in cooling efficiency over other TIMs like MX4 is more than made up for with it's durability being capable of going at least 10 years without replacement and it'll perform just as well in that time as the very first day it was applied. As for fat models and PS2 support... well that's a moot point IMO if you have a 20xx\21xx\25xx slim thats been jailbroken, just insert a PS2 disc, rip with your software of choice (if you haven't already converted your PS2 games to ISOs on a PC) and off you go.
Compatibility hit. But yes, it's not like there aren't other options for PS2 games.
I agree about ceramique. But I dont mind delidding and re-applying adhesives, which I do think is necessary, despite what people "want" to believe. So I'll use MX4 or 6 which has a 8 year life. Or try more exotic TIMs for personal use.
The SYSCON fantable governing RSX temps needs to be adjusted for 90nm models to prevent them from achiving temps above 70C. That is something sony could have done in an update, but hasn't. We can adjust that ourselves now. So in addition to regular maintenece, I would adjust that, if I were keeping the defective 90nm RSX onboard.
@@ripfelix3020 The problem with MX4\6 is that the shelf life of it is 4-6 yrs which is a common misconception for in use lifespan. You'll likely find yourself applying it again every 2 or so years at most (I've actually measured significant thermal degradation over just 1 year) for optimal performance where the molecules break apart over a staggeringly short time and causes it to lose structure, likely but not verified, due to transient voltage spikes, something that isn't an issue for Ceramique partly down to it's structure and primarily it's viscosity which while making it hard to spread makes it unmatched in durability by any other thermal compound - including liquid metals - where it is literally designed to withstand the harshest of environments and will not move under any circumstance. The same goes for LAIRD thermal pads, NASA use those in spacecraft and even when they deteriorate they meld themselves around the component they are applied to making the bond even stronger, not ideal from a maintenance standpoint but it ensures that even without maintenance those components will basically never fail outside of reaching natural EOL lifecycle. I still wouldn't recommend using them though on something like a VRM just because with the onset of deterioration heatsink and component(s) will set like concrete with the deteriorated pad acting almost like a glue. Its also important to consider that regardless of the thermal efficiency of pad\paste that heat can only be drawn away from the component to the heatsink at a set rate, there comes a point where more efficient thermal materials do you no benefit what so ever, that point is usually around 6w/mk with anything beyond that having significant diminishing returns. As you might have guessed from that read, I'm also pretty knowledgeable in thermodynamics, in the past I've designed heatsink solutions for Asrock and Powercolor. Not that they have listened to all of my input because "gamer" and "aesthetics" SMH.
Come on man, it's your videos, it's your time. Screw these critics
Dang, that video was a ride!
Something I'm curious about now though is if an interposer board would work for the super slim model RSX.
With the Original Xbox from 2001 people have built even more frankenstein-like upgrades like physically stacking memory chips on top of each other to get 128MB (or up to 512MB) memory, as well as completely replacing the Pentium 3 CPU with a 1.4 Ghz upgraded unit using a custom BGA to socket 370 interposer board
I know of one person looking into it. However It's going to take a lot more reverse enginerring than the frankie did, since we dont have a pinout for the 28nm. And even if it does work the interposer will be a new point of failure. IMO, it would lead to a less reliable console than the 40nm. But worth it for swag. It's an interesting challenge from a techical standpoint, even if it's not practical.
Nice work, rendered, reasoned, and phrased in such a way that you intend to move on... you are moving on, right... 😇
You did an amazing job my friend. Congratulations! Ironically, my PS3 G model died after I took it to a shop for maintenance 🤡 (it lasted around 12 years with 0 maintenance or special care). I just got a “new” E model that had just few hours on it. Question is: what’s the right way to blow out the dust without damaging the console and what parts are the ones that really need to be cleaned? Thanks again for all this information. Greetings from Mexico.
PS: would it be better to leave it on the entire weekend since those are the only days I’d be playing? (Preventing more heat cycles).
I just use a compressed electronics duster, like for keboards. It works ok, but eventually it's a good idea to open it and blow it out. If you stay on top of it, don't keep it near the floor, and don't smoke, the dust bunnies shouldn't build up very quickly.
IDK what the person you took it to did as "maintenence," but if that included delidding the RSX, the stress can break the BGA or cause trace damage to the FlexIO. Greatly depends on their skill and what they did.
When breaking the seal between the HS and processors, there is force applied to the BGA and that can cause damage, especially if it was weakened to begin with. If you play the console for 30min before opening it, the residual heat will soften the paste and make breaking that seal easier. You can also use a hairdrier on the HS, just don't blast it with too much heat. Just enough to soften it and separate it. The paste used previously can also affect how hard it is to separate. MX5 (before it was discontinued) was like glue. That stuff was dangerously stiff! MX4 works great and isn't too bad to reopen. SONYs OEM stuff wasn't too bad with a bit of heat to get off, but I've seen a few consoles with aftermarket stuff that was on there like superglue.
I don't reccomend leaving it on all the time. I know some people say it reduces the temperature delta, but I don't buy it outweighs the accumulated electomigration damage idle hours add. Not an easy thing to answer for sure tho. I would just use and enjoy it as it was designed to be. Play when you want to and conserve the electricity when you're not.
I have personally reflowed several ps3's I bought second hand (for parts listings) with a heat gun and they all came back (videos on my channel). HOWEVER, like you said, they die quickly again within weeks, months but NEVER make it close to a year. These are fundamentally poorly designed consoles with bad thermals and they always run away and kill themselves. You cannot out fabricobble a solution that engineering did not account for in the first place. The one common indicator i've noticed pre-death is that they always run stupid hot and the fan is going full tilt trying to cool the console (no, your favorite thermal paste is not going to fix this). Usually on graphically demanding games like Gran Turismo 6 (night racing track killed 2 of them = high demand on RSX). If you hear your ps3 going at its highest fan setting (3 of 3 steps) just exit the game, let the console cool down in the menu screen to avoid it dying from thermal stress as stated in the video.
One take away from this video coupled with my experience is that playing a graphically demanding game where the fan ramps to its highest setting for a long time, then shutting the console off quickly will surely limit the usable life of the console. It's not a matter of if it will fail, but when. So for that reason I recommend soft shut down which is exit the game, let the console idle in the menu for like 5 minutes, then shut it down completely. This gives the fan time to cool the chips gradually instead of going from its max temp to 0 in a short time = maximum thermal stress.
I was considering getting into reballing hardware (400-900 dollar investment in equipment) but decided against it because you can just locate the ps1 and ps2 separately and use a slim ps3 which is not effected by these issues.
Awesome video and great info!
My PS3 Slim does this. Although I would call it the Red light of death. Turn it on it immediately shuts down with a blinking red light. There is no dust build-up inside I have always kept the inside dust free.
I already watched the original version and I greatly appreciate the QOL changes of this video. Reading the description of this video, I see that you mentioned you wanted to condense the last 4 years of your life into 80 minutes. I guess I should ask can you make individual videos about the individual chapters on this video? E.g (Preventative maintenance talk about how this method became popularized, the history of the method, etc. I know this might be redundant, but I'm assuming there are a few details that you skipped for the sake of not spending 5 hours on a singular topic, etc. Would love a deep dive into one specific topic with no detail to spare.
Thanks for the hard work!
Really feels like a movie documentary like those from national geographic! Thank you for spending 4 years of your life just to provide us some entertainment. I actually clapped to this since I was alone like the ending of a movie.
Oh wow is this the video without 20 minute long Star Wars clips? Might actually watch it now
Very cool idea! Now, time to add some servos.
This video is great! (Also the old one was great)
That research work and documentary is also great!
Keep up that great work and thank you very much for this documentary!
good to have more versions,, i get to watch it again :>
My PS3 Slim (2009) does this. Although I would call it the Red light of death. Turn it on it immediately shuts down with a blinking red light.
We want the theatrical cut! 🔥🔥🔥
I've been at the peak of Mount stupid twice. First a couple years back, attempting to install a switch modchip which I definitely hadn't the tools nor the experience to complete. After two years, I've installed it successfully, but simultaneously have spent about $400 attempting to fix a dead GPU to no avail. Currently sending into someone for repairs. I feel so stupid.
impresionante, ya vi todos tus videos y los aportes a la comunidad son enormes gracias por todo
Around 10 years ago, my brothers ps3 got the YLOD. I did heat it up with a hairdryer. I also managed to get it up working. Though, he asked me to do see if i can do something only to make a copy of his savefiles. I have no idea how long that console would have run though.
I didn't watch the full first video, however, I don't get why you got all that criticism. Going and explaining a problem that no one has solved for nearly 20 years is a feat worthy of itself. I wish there was a slightly shorter capped version to help explain it. Sorry adhd person here and I have to watch in spurts.
I have only one argument to make, people don't play on them anymore like the day they are released. From the few hours of playing a day, probably now it's a few hours a month, the failure rate even with one still functional is low because it's not used that much anymore