Ps3 and lights activate normally, no picture, shuts down after 30 secs. -Not your typical fix... [DETAILS INSIDE]

[masterolive]

Ok guys I have a crazy story for you.
First off, I am faced with an issue in attempt to repair this ps3 system I have with the symptoms listed in the title.
Please read my post before suggesting anything, for I have attempted many common fixes that did not work.
The symptoms begin after the red text.
Please scroll to the bottom for a TL;DR if you do not want to read the story in detail. Thank you.

My current goal is to figure out what is wrong with it.
You might ask me, well... what happened? when did it start acting up?
And I wil answer with this: IDK, I just bought this off craigslist.
Yup, there it is, I said it. The classic story of getting shafted by dealing with craigslist lol. we all hear about it, but never hope it happens to us, and it finally happened to me, that one sour deal on craigslist.

However, I wasn't completely screwed over, I knew it was broken, because I haggled the fool down to 60$ for a ceha01 60gig PHAT!
I figured this dumbass got the ylod and tried to sell it to me, what an easy fix. I thought I would have the last laugh, but I was wrong.
I plugged the ps3 in, and was surprised to see no YLOD, but normal startup, and the fan was clanking loud as hell, then a quiet shut down 30secconds after.
No picture, no sound, nothing.

My first instinct was to fix the fan, I could tell the fools opened it before and tried to fix things, but I have no Idea why cause it wasn't YLOD. maybe a hardrive failure?? blueray disk drive is broken?? New power supply??
The ps3 heatsink was not fully pulled in onto the bother board, so I disassembled everything, cleaned it, re-applied some angle to the metal arms,
and put it all back together, sure enough, the ps3 purred like a kitty, fan was fixed.
Just to note that during all of this, one thing I noticed was that someone had scratched pencil all over the CPU... WTF!?!?!? why would someone do that?? I tried to clean it off. I also reflowed it just in case, and I applied some good ol arctic silver 5.

Turned the ps3 on, same issue, quietly shuts down after 30 secconds.
At this point, I searched the internet for 3 hours strait, just to find people with the exact model and symptoms of mine.
I discovered that people where having hard drive issues, and that reformatting them fixed it.
So I attempted to go in recovery mode, and here is the weird part;
The ps3 entered recovery mode, displayed a picture on the tv (with avi) and never shut down. It stayed on up to 30mins after I just shut it back off.

Alright then, thinking I solved the problem, I went ahead and inserted a 32extwhatever USB drive, with the proper folders in ROOT and the latest update, in hopes that updating the system would fix it.
WRONG.
Encountered the PS3 Serious Error 8002f281. well shit, gotta reformat the hard drive.
I took the hardrive out, put it in my good ps3, and reformatted the drive, but to save myself the trouble, I but my good hard drive into the broken ps3, and sure enough, It still did nothing.
I figured it couldn't be a hard drive issue since both of them work fine on my good ps3, but none of them work on the broken one.

My last instinct was to start switching parts around.
I put my Good disk drive, and my good power supply into the broken ps3, and still no fix.
I put the broken power supply and disk drive in my good ps3, and it starts up, only it wont take any disks.
(-But thats a whole other story I don't need to tell.)
The only odd thing left is the quiet electrical frequency noise it screeches from the power supply cord after it shuts itself down.
It will not make the noise if I shut it down manually, only by itself. (most people couldn't hear this, you need to put your ear up to it)

Is there something internally on the ps3 that gets fixed on a system restore? if so, maybe I should try again with the newly reformatted drive?
So now I am stumped, and I am looking to the internet for help.
Based off of the information I provided... do any of you guys have an idea of whats wrong with it??
I appreciate the help!

TL;DR:
-ceha01 60gig PHAT!
-Bought broken ps3 from craigslist thinking it was just YLOD
-Ps3 has no YLOD, but quietly shuts down after 30 secconds.
-Ps3 shows no picture or sound, only beeps and lights.
-There is a small high frequency noise/screech coming from the power supply area ONLY after it shuts ITSELF down.
-Ps3 will enter recovery mode, and will remain in recovery mode normally, and has not shut down once.
-Checked and maintained all parts, re applied angle to the arms, and even re-flowed -no fix.
-cpu gpu seemes to be scrached with pen or pencil, cannot clean off.
-Attempted to update via USB -PS3 Error 8002f281 -no fix
-Attempted to reformat hard drive then decided to just use my good one- no fix
-Switched around good ps3 hard drive, did not work, even tried switching power supply and disk drive. -no progress.
-Good hard drive, disk drive, and powersupply do not work in broken ps3.
-The same components from the broken ps3 DO work in the good ps3.

Is there something internally on the ps3 that gets fixed on a system restore? if so, maybe I should try again with the newly reformatted drive?
seems to be something in the motherboard maybe?? what else is left?

[Griff]

The simplest thing it could be would be the fan connector is loose..that would explain why it turns on then shuts off. Unplug fan then re plug...make sure it's in right and good.

[masterolive]

The simplest thing it could be would be the fan connector is loose..that would explain why it turns on then shuts off. Unplug fan then re plug...make sure it's in right and good.

I appreciate the help.
The fan is plugged in, it also starts up when I turn the system on.
It sounds identical side by side with my working ps3, this broken one just shuts off -_-

[RUT Dark Ronin]

Mostly looks like southbridge fail. Reflow it, (better waste your bucks and reball them all - gpu, cpu, southbridge etc.) since you have soldering station with heatgun and capable of doing so).
This explains why sata init fail.
At the other hand, get yourself HWFlasher and check your NAND's for consistency and backup them just in case. And if I were you, the first thing I'd do is enter FSM (Hey, which firmware are you on BTW?) and use CrashSerious's RSOD Fix (lv2diag.self).

[masterolive]

...Test, cant post, says I cannot post link untill 30 replys, but there are not links in my post -____-

**edit:
half of that stuff i dont understand.
what and where is the south bridge, why would that fail?
I already reflowed it last night. Are you asking me to reflow again?
By reballing, do you mean using that $3 flux stuff ? -If so, I did that once and it killed the system. all my successful reflows have been via heat gun, not flux or ovens.
sata init fail - what does that mean?

That last sentence I dont even know how to answer, this is not a jailbroken ps3, and I dont know witch firmware it was on.
This is how it was when I bought it from the dude on CL.

[RUT Dark Ronin]

Ha) Check your Wi-Fi board connector. It could get reversed upside down, therefore no connection to logic board. I've seen such thing once inside CECHA model after it comes from bad hands. Good luck in any case. Even then, before figuring out that it was actually connection issue, I was able to install 3.41 from FSM (normal downgrade procedure), so if you're syscon not tied to higher versions, try to do so as well.
And yeah, feels really sad about CECHA models killed by idiots, cause there's a few of them survived so far.

[RUT Dark Ronin]

Well... If you didn't understood that... Too bad then...
Anyway, don't get gloomy.
First of all - enter recovery and hit 6 option. It will ask you to insert pendrive with firmware update. Type here the version requested by console.
Second one - PS3 Development Wiki - keep it close to yourself, this is a PS3 Fixer bible.

[RUT Dark Ronin]

And sorry for looking like a smartass 'round here, somehow I decided that you're familiar with repairs, firmwares, dongles and other stuff. Xcuse)
Also, don't mind my english please.

[masterolive]

I tried forcing an update in FSM mode using a usb drive. (or pen drive in your case)
The console is asking me for 4.00 or later.

The issue here is that I tried switching hard drives.
The ps3 still wont work even with my good ps3 hard drive, unless simply switching harddrives isn't a valid method.

[masterolive]

And sorry for looking like a smartass 'round here, somehow I decided that you're familiar with repairs, firmwares, dongles and other stuff. Xcuse)
Also, don't mind my english please.

dont worry, Im just familiar with reflowing the cpus, and understanding simple things like entering FSM mode.
Other than that, I mainly focus on NOT breaking things when I take them apart.