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.
When I got home from work, I was surprised to see a couple of packages from Amazon. Part II began in as soon as I had a few minutes to read and prepare for the upcoming steps. Cleaning, followed by reflow via the new Wagner heat gun.
Cleaning was simple enough, and to be honest the reflowing was simple enough. Since this is all new to me, I have zero confidence, or confirmation, that I am reflowing correctly. Did I allow the heat gun to warm up enough? Am I heating all the areas correctly? Am I heating them long enough? I am letting the motherboard cool (Step 32); however I do not hear any sort of popping noises (Step 33).
So now the waiting begins. In a little while I will continue onward and eventually (hopefully) manage to put the PS3 back together again. It is a long haul just to see if this will work and be time well spent.
Now repeat for the other side of the motherboard (Steps 34-37). As I am waiting for the motherboard to cool, I have to mention that all those damn pieces, parts, screws, and other assortment of plates and whatnot are the obvious reason why the PS3 is so expensive. I have never seen such!
Step 43 is complete, so now I can begin the reverse order assemble project. Two minor points, which could turn into issues later. First, I did not have any replacement rubber pads for the two chips on the underside of the motherboard. Second, while I removed some thermal paste from the heat sinks on the fan, the instructions did not call for a new application.
Oops. Reverse Step 13. As I was getting ready to reattach the on/off eject panel back on, I noticed that the ribbon was under the plate. Not a huge setback. I just reversed steps again, corrected, and continued onwards.
Finished putting the PS3 back together, did a final cleaning, and off to the living room to see if this puppy works.
The suspense is killing you, no?
