So you have the YLOD and you go to the almighty Google for its redemption. You hope and pray for an easy and cheap solution. You will quickly find what we call “quick fix repair guides”. If you have search “PS3 Repair” you will know exactly what guides I am talking about.
All of the guides promise to show you how to “permanently fix your PS3 in less than one hour with completely unique methods”. They have “testimonials” and PS3 “Repair Men” (Notice how they don’t call them electronics engineers or even technicians; cheap and sleazy salesmanship at its finest.) Some of their claims and pages would make the sham wow guy blush. Unfortunately many of their “permanent repairs” lead to permanent failures.
Let me break the illusion, they are all essentially the same thing: the heat gun repair trick. Don’t pay $30 to $60 for a guide that is essentially free on youtube.
I think it is hard for me to express how bad of an idea taking a heat gun to your PS3 in order to “repair it”. It is important that you read and understand this. You don’t have to send it to us for repair but we see way too many people damage their PS3 beyond any repair. We hear this every day. Seek a professional and reliable PS3 repair before it is too late, keep reading for further explanation.
Let me back up for those of you who don’t know about the heat gun trick. See our other posts for more information.
Long story short, most cases of the Yellow Light of Death (YLOD) is caused by the solder connection under you graphics chip (GPU) fracturing. This causes the board to be unable to see the GPU during start up, so the PS3 will turn itself off. Leaving you without your save games and many times with a game stuck in your drive. So to fix it the quick fix guides recommend you take apart your Playstation 3 and expose the main board. Then you are supposed to take a heat gun to it.
There is major problems with the heat gun trick. (It is called a trick for a reason) We can sum it up in one sentence, A heat gun is designed to dry paint.
No really think about it. So in order to fix your PS3 you need to get the solder under you graphics chip to 230 C to be fully repaired. If you heat your printed circuit board beyond 235 C you start to risk damage to the board. If you don’t hit 230 C it won’t be fixed properly. So you have a +/- 5 degree range that you need to hit for an ideal home reflow. Go to hot and you will burn up your GPU. Now how accurate do you think a heat gun is?Not at all accurate. It is meant to dry paint, not repair electronics.
Your GPU and board is a mixture of glass, plastics and metals. When you overheat it and kill your chip. Your PS3 is dead and beyond repair.
On the other hand, if you don’t heat your PS3 enough, it will fail within a couple of days to a few weeks if you are lucky.
I could go on but you are getting the idea. Although the playstation 3 “repair guides” promise a permanent repair most of the time in the long run they will lead to a permanent failure. On top of this most of the time they don’t have a reassembly video, Good Luck!
It is one thing to replace broken parts but fixing a Yellow Light of Death is a difficult task. Don’t waste your time and money; get a professional and reliable repair from a company specializing in PS3 repair. We can fix your YLOD in no time.
We have fixed thousands of PS3s and we can get yours fixed right. We have thousands of dollars of professional equipment to give you a reliable repair. If you decide to attempt a repair you drastically reduce the chance of success.
Thinking about buying a guide, want to talk to a PS3 technician about it? or [email protected]
Thanks,
∞Endless Electronics