YLoD Repair – Part I

This is my attempt to document my “do it yourself” attempt to repair my PS3, which is suffering from the dreaded Yellow Light of Death (YLoD). See this YLoD repair guide for reference.

Keeping my fingers crossed, I setup a card table and started the project.

Step 4 – I noticed that a screw is missing; front screw (front left, second row for lack of a better description). To me this is a sign that Sony is sloppy at best; original out of warranty repair was a bunch of bunk!

Step 6 – I ran into issues removing the ribbon cable, which connects to the front port for memory media. I was not sure how to remove the “black” locking tab on the ribbon without breaking the ribbon, so I just disengaged the memory port from the case. Hopefully I can continue on with the project and work around this early issue.

Step 7 – Sh*t! More f’ing ribbon cables. At first I attempted to pry the connector out, which would have been a disaster. A very small piece (1 mm at the most on the right edge) of plastic breaking was a dead giveaway that this was not the right way. My only thought was that I must be in over my head. Screw it – I am all in now, so I pulled on the ribbon and it gave way. Son of a bit&^. End game at Step 7? Nope, the ribbon cable was not broken (thank goodness) and I now understand how the ribbon connectors work. This is probably obvious to the author of the PDF, but for those of us that do not play around with the electronic internals of various consumer devices, this is almost rocket science.

I decided to go back and correct Step 6. I am such an expert with ribbon cables. It will be a miracle if this PS3 ever powers on again!

About 60 minutes later, I made it clear through Step 20 without (hopefully) further complications. Reading ahead, I noticed that the PS3 in the guide is extremely dirty (Step 24); mine is nowhere near as bad. I would almost say it is almost immaculate. I also do not notice any burn marks (Step 26). Maybe that was because I ended up with a refurbished unit less than a year ago when I sent in my PS3 to Sony for repairs. Or maybe it is because my YLoD is really due to some other issue. Hopefully I did not misdiagnose my PS3. Either way, the SOB no longer works.

Continuing to play this project forward, I am not sure what to do with the processor rubber pads (image after Step 37). They do not look like they can easily be removed and salvaged. Not sure where to buy replacements locally.

This is a good stopping point for tonight. I may look at the rubber pads tomorrow (maybe stop by the local Radio Shack) and see what I can clean, but the real fun begins Saturday when the heat gun and thermal compound arrives from Amazon.

I may cry if I spend all this time and effort trying to fix my PS3 without success. If nothing else, I guess I will have a few spare parts like a perfectly good PS3 Blu-ray player. Wonder how much spare parts go for on eBay?

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