Overheating PS3

Yo. I've got a PS3 that runs hot to the touch, has a loud-ass fan, and now-the coup d' gracie...I'm getting overheating messages on my TV, half way thru most movies.

What are my options?

Would a reflow do the trick?

Who here wants to reflow my PS3, lol.

Look into replacing the thermal paste asap, no doubt it's brittle by now. From there check to see if you have a 19 blade fan, and if not get one (about 20 bucks on ebay)

ballzdeepx said:

Look into replacing the thermal paste asap, no doubt it's brittle by now. From there check to see if you have a 19 blade fan, and if not get one (about 20 bucks on ebay)

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that plus a cleaning helped me out in the short term at one point- the amount of dust and shit that can build up in pretty incredible.

I had the same problem with my fatty PS3.

1) buy this: http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Thermal-Pad-Playstation-3/dp/B005J730WO

2) Buy this: http://www.amazon.com/Coollaboratory-Liquid-MetalPad-3xCPU-Cleaning/dp/B001CXNSU8

3) open your PS3 and clean the shit out of it. Take note of where the old dried up heat pads are and replace them with cut up bits of the blue pad in 1)

4) Remove the heat sink and fan, and use some cotton pads and alcohol to clean off the old thermal paste, which is likely rock hard after all these years.

5) apply the liquid metal pads to the RSX and Cell, re-assemble, and run your PS3 on the most demanding thing you can for about an hour until the metal pads melt and bond.
follow this guide: http://www.coollaboratory.com/pdf/manual_liquid_metalpad_ps3_englisch.pdf

This may not solve the problem 100%, however, as the damage may already be done to your PS3's motherboard. It will likely help though.

Also, if you can (and don't mind losing online for the most part), get CFW on your PS3 and use a plugin that automatically sets your fan to maintain a lower temp.

Oh, and another thing, don't use the PS2 mode on the PS3 unless you have a CFW PS3 and can manually set the fan to 50%.
PS3 defaults to 25% fan speed in PS2 mode, but will generate far too much heat for such a slow fan speed to help, and it cannot adjust the fan speed once you're playing in PS2 mode.

definitely replace the Thermal Paste as mentioned with a high grade one , ive read PS3 Thermal Paste isn't of good quality


also if you are running CFW you can set the Fan Speed to what ever you like , the default is really slow


ive done the below mods for myself and i run CFW with a internal Fan Speed of 70% constant , i get around 42 degrees Celsius and its just lukewarm after playing games

LOL, now that is awesome. ^^^

This advice is all awesome. I don't have the time, skills, or inclination to do it myself.

Who's got me?

wataru330 said:

This advice is all awesome. I don't have the time, skills, or inclination to do it myself.

Who's got me?

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Take the advice of Eazy E and "throw it in the gutter and go buy another."

s8n187 said:

definitely replace the Thermal Paste as mentioned with a high grade one , ive read PS3 Thermal Paste isn't of good quality


also if you are running CFW you can set the Fan Speed to what ever you like , the default is really slow


ive done the below mods for myself and i run CFW with a internal Fan Speed of 70% constant , i get around 42 degrees Celsius and its just lukewarm after playing games

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That's fucking sweet.

300wins said:

Take the advice of Eazy E and "throw it in the gutter and go buy another."

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But it's a 60gb Phat. It's the only way we can watch *and* play Bob the Builder in the living room on the same machine

wataru330 said:

This advice is all awesome. I don't have the time, skills, or inclination to do it myself.

Who's got me?

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Saiiiiiiiiii daiiiiiiiiiii ouuuuuuuuu jouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

TonK said:

Saiiiiiiiiii daiiiiiiiiiii ouuuuuuuuu jouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

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Departs from Philly to parts unknown, MAÑANA! (The omake is worth the wait, trust me).

wataru330 said:

But it's a 60gb Phat. It's the only way we can watch *and* play Bob the Builder in the living room on the same machine��

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I used to own 2 original PS3 PHAT. Then my daughter decided to start jamming shit into the slots. Now it no longer works.

Hell, I had to buy a PS3 slim just to watch all the children shit on Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu.

And I still suggest you take Eazy's advice, because Eazy duz it.

wataru330 said:

But it's a 60gb Phat. It's the only way we can watch *and* play Bob the Builder in the living room on the same machine��

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Yeah...if it's a 60 GB Phat you'll want to stop using that thing ASAP! I had 2 fix mine twice. Reflowed the first time, reballed the next, and it still shit the bed even though it was clean and had good thermal paste. You can't rely on them without heavy modification.

I'd follow what DNSDies linked for the steps, also you'll want a different case fan. Some people say the 19 blade replacements worked good for them. If you can't get a CFW on it, you may have better luck with a case fan that allows manual adjustment.

The sad thing is you'll do all this and it might work for another 8 years or so...It's like using a high end sports car to get around town. You can do it, but it's always going to have more of a maintenance schedule as a result.

the problem with 60GB fats is twofold:

1) They default fan profile lets it get to like 82C before it really ramps up the fan, then drops it to low again once it hits 78c.
This means the PCB is basically being slow cooked, and it's under some strain from how the heat sink is mounted on it, so it just kind of warps.

2) Sony were retards and just used basic white lithium paste on everything. This isn't as big a problem for the most part, as you can replace it yourself.
The big problem is that they also used this shit-tier paste on the die surface of the RSX and Cell under the heat spreader.
To fix this, you need to remove the heat spreader from the RSX and Cell. The RSX is fairly easy, and pops off with little effort in "most" cases.

Removing the heat spreader from the cell requires one to cut into a 0.5mm gap filled with a very hard epoxy, and can easily damage the Cell. You just have to pray they applied a sufficient amount of paste, or risk de-lidding it yourself.