PS3's YLOD is fixed!

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slh28

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So about a week ago my 60GB PS3 died after 2 years of use and got the dreaded yellow light of death (YLOD), the equivalent of the 360's RROD, indicating component failure. So left with the options of either 1) Selling the faulty console on eBay, 2) Paying £130 to Sony to get a refurbished one 3) Paying £75 to an electronics store to fix it or 4) googling and fixing it myself, being a tech enthusiast of course I went for option 4! Also I had not backed up any of my saves (lesson learned) hence 1) and 2) weren't ideal options.

It turns out the fault was occuring because the PS3 was getting too hot and then suddenly cooling down again (it's been a cold winter) thus breaking some of the solderings or something... Anyway I followed the guide by gilksy on youtube, which meant using a heat gun/hairdryer to reflow some of the circuitry and then reapplying some thermal paste to the chips (which were pretty much gone on mine). After a couple of hours of dismantling the PS3, borrowing my girlfriend's (very powerful) hairdryer, and putting the system back together (the hardest part), to my huge surprise it worked again!

I've only tested it for a few hours, it runs quieter than before when starting up but the fan gets pretty loud again after a while. However my plan is to trade it into a CeX or GAME and get a new PS3 Slim which apparently doesn't suffer from heat issues being built on a 45nm process. Opening up the Phat PS3 and seeing the components really does show you how inadequate the cooling system is and just how small the vents are.

Anyway I've attached a couple of photos of my endeavours and good luck to anyone else who has this problem and is thinking of fixing it the DIY way!

PS3 dismantled
Back up and running
 
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