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[pepito01226]

I have this happen to me before, bought a used ps3 off my friend for $100 with controllers

determining on how old your system is can be the thermal paste on the heatsink and on the PSU/GPU has dryied out and turned to slicon clay which is normally a cause if your system is over 3years old.

Brief explainition: on why and how this happens. Processor are the nervous system of the any PC and PC like hardware, they produce an amount of heat since they do alot of the transfering. Over time the paste that transfer heat from the processor to the heatsink gets used up or burned out. This is normal event in pc and happens.

Solution: Try to see if you still have warranty before you do anything.... If you dont then i suggest you take your PS3 apart, mark off the outscrew and place them in a bag, Mark the two different inner screw and where they go and place those in a different bag marked properly and carefully take the discdrive, powersupply and set aside then take off any accessory I.E. bluetooth attenna, card reader, etc and place those aside.
  Under the disc drive should be four wider and bigger screw, 2 to each pressure plate. take those and set aside not losing those four screws. Now take the ground sheld away and finally careful remove the mobo *motherboard* Underneath is the processor and right under it on the bottom shell is the heatsink.
     Take a Q-Tip and a small capful of rubbing alcohol or if you do have "goo be gone" It will work 100% better and carefully remove or break down any leftover residue of thermal silicon.**Should come off like years old ruber padding on a plate**   Now do the same to the heatsink.. Go to your closes computer store and buy a mini thermal paste syringe, cost no more then $5 unless you prefer the pro set which will cost you $10 and up for more thermal contact. Now then apply a small amount on the center of both the PSU and GPU then put back the mobo and all the accessory back the way you took it out in reverse starting with the mobo, ground shield, acesory, etc till you have the case back on and test it out.



Btw i sugest going with the Pro thermal grease with silver partical for two factor they 1. transfer heat better and 2. determining how long you leave your consule on the product wont silicon till for more then 4years with out touchups.

[simont26]

thank you very much for the reply pepito01226!

I forgot to say that i have already cleaned the heat shields and re pasted the chips twice.  I have fixed quite a few before using the same thermal paste so i know its not the problem.  What are the chances it might be the paste between the chip and the metal shield above?  I'm not really sure what else could be the cause.

[simont26]

ok so I have lifted the heatshield off the GPU chip and cleaned it up adding new thermal paste.  After building it up and pressing the power button it done the same as before, looked like it was working and after about 20 seconds the YLOD popped up.  

the only difference this time is when the YLOD appears the following standby light flashes this time.

[simont26]

This is how the GPU looks on board, take no notice of the smeared thermal paste, it was all cleaned off.




The underneath of the heat shield


I have now tried re flowing the GPU with a heat gun, i have done this many times before on other ps3's with success every time.  However . . after adding paste and building the system back up . . .

i have the same problem.  It turns on like it is going to work, YLOD's and goes back to a flashing standby light.

If i hold the power on for a display reset, after the first beep it actually turns the console off with a solid red standby light.

[pepito01226]

Could be the build up of the thermal paste. But that will not effect it. From what it sounds like, the heatsink is not doing a good contact onto the GPU. Try to layer a piece of foil paper between both contact plates and see if that helps any. Foil is thined alunium and alunium is a very good heat transfer.

Also see if the fan is working. Alot of issue happen when the fan no longer is PMW at from 5v to 12v