Screwed up my PS3's insides (fan related)... need help

[synce]

My PS3 got another YLOD and as I was opening it up I thought I'd undo the fan mod since it obviously didn't do squat except make the fan louder. Well long story short, here's what happened



The metal part that connected to the wire is stuck inside the white plastic part. Is this fixable? What can I do?

[No0bZiLLa]

you can solder them back on.... or you could get a dead ps3, and splice a new wire on the end of that one, but if your ps3 is ylod, i would just buy to replace the whole system

[synce]

I'd buy a new one but I barely use it, most of my gaming is on 360 and ps3 is for cfw... So you're saying I should remove the connector and solder the wires directly to the pins?

[blazie151]

I would say, find a repair shop and have them fix both problems for you at the same time. The yellow light is due to cracked solder joints underneath the RSX (the GPU). A lot of people tell you to reflow it, but I find that can cause more problems down the road. The problem is that the uneven and extreme heat from an improper reflow station (such as a heatgun method) can cause long term board damage (primarily the beginning stages of de-lamination, or some initial popcorning). I've also found that with reflows, the problem often comes back every couple months. You don't want your PS3 to remind you of Aunt Flow, lmao.

Any shop that can repair your YLOD the proper way, with a RSX reball, should also be able to repair your damaged connector. With the connector, the metal part (the pin) can be removed from the white connector using a pin extractor tool (basically a pair of super fine tweezers that can hold down the 2 small bent pieces of metal that hold that pin in, I've used 2 fine point needles in a pinch). After that, it's just a matter of soldering the wire back together and reinserting the pin back into the connector.

As for the reball, that involves removing the RSX chip and replacing the terrible lead-free solder underneath the chip with a 63sn/37pb solder that has the elasticity to expand when hot and contract when cool without cracking like the stock solder does. Anyone that offers a reball service should be including a warranty, and normally will include proof of a reball (a photo showing your board and serial number without the RSX on the board). This process requires a specialized hot air and/or IR rework station with a preheater large enough to hold the entire PS3 board to prevent popcorning and/or board warping, as well as nozzles large enough to handle the RSX, one of the largest GPUs ever made.

With all that being said, you should be able to contact a console repair shop that can give you details about their process and equipment used. If a shop won't tell you, they have something to hide (either they're using inferior or improper equipment, they have a low success rate because of a problem with their equipment or technique, or they reflow using a hot air gun). They should also have a warranty, usually at least 90 days. Though after a reball it should last pretty close to forever. If the shop is really on the cutting edge of this problem, they will also offer to remove the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader, the metal cover protecting the die) off of the GPU and CPU, and replace the TIM (Thermal Interface Material, usually thermal paste) underneath them with a higher quality TIM.

If all of this was done to your console (reball and total TIM replacement), the fan would probably never kick on past level 2 (extremely quiet), and would run so cool it wouldn't have any fear of having another heat related problem.

With all this being said, if your in the states, I own a professional repair shop that can handle this for you. PM me for details if your interested.

[synce]

That was pretty educational thanks! I think this PS3 is on its last legs however. Over the years I've reflowed it (in an oven) about 5 times, scratched up the heatspreaders, broke several connectors, lost many screws... Let me give you an idea of how ghetto I am



Once I finish up my current game I'm selling this thing for parts lol