Long story short, my 60GB PlayStation 3 just got the yellow light of death. I talked to a tech in my city that I can take the machine to and he will reflow the solder on the mother board for $40 or do a reball, or re-solder for $90. What is the success rate for either? I know some people will say, buy a new PS3 Slim, but those are $249 and don’t have the PS2 backward compatibility. This 60 GB had six good years in it and I’m hoping to get some more use out of it. Is it worth the extra $50 for the reball vs. the cheaper reflow?
FYI: playstation.com has usually had a $99 trade-in plan for broken units. That’ll drop the price on a new one down to $150.
Also - how often do you play your PS2 games? If it’s a lot, I personally would just get a PS2 to play them on, assuming you have someplace to put it and inputs on your TV or receiver to spare. I wouldn’t want to put that much wear and tear on my PS3. But that’s just me - I can certainly understand the desire to consolidate (and use a wireless controller).
Clearly, you are lying, because PS3’s NEVER FAIL. That only happen to Xbox 360s! :rolleyes:
In terms of success rates though, why not ask the tech, since presumably he does this with some frequency?
My first gen PS3 keeps chugging along.
::Keeping fingers crossed::
Boy, you live ON THE EDGE!
IkeWittFlippingOffMurphy.gif
I guess PS2’s are cheap enough now, but still. I want to get the PS3 fixed because it’s the cheapest option. Money trees grow few and far between here. I’m a cheap bastard. Besides, I played my PS3 nearly every day. I don’t think it would matter if I were playing a PS2 game or PS3 game, I still would be using it all of the time. And it was nearly six years before it went bad.
Thanks, everybody. I decided to go with the reball and dropped my unit off with the tech this morning. Fingers crossed.
What does it mean to get a PS3 “reballed”? Inquiring mind wants to know. Thanks
A YLOD occurs when the solder joints holding the GPU to the motherboard crack and come loose. The cheap fix, or “reflow,” is to heat the solder so it melts and flows back in between the contact points. This is considered a “Band-Aid” since it can crack again. There are 1254 contact points and you’re just keeping the same flawed solder connecting it. In addition, this has the danger of warping the motherboard.
A reball consists of removing the GPU, cleaning all of the old solder off the chip and the mobo, and reapplying new solder. This is considered the stronger repair, but it is more intricate and time-consuming and requires specialized equipment. The advantage is that all 1254 contact points have a fresh connection with new balls of solder. Also, Sony uses lead-free solder to make its connections, while the reballer uses leaded solder, which is more resistant to heat.
Huh, I had never heard of that before. Where do you find someone who does that? Can you update us on here if it works (and if it fails somewhere further down the line)?
Yeah, I’ll try to remember to update it once I get it fixed. If you Google, “Yellow Light of Death,” there are companies that do professional reballs and you have to send your unit in, but they send your original machine with hard drive back to you instead of a refurbished one. Or if you want someone local to repair it, you can look on Craigslist. The guy I found says it’ll take a week and a half to repair it for me, which assures me he’ll be thorough with it and not rush through it. And he has the equipment to do it properly and heat it evenly so the motherboard doesnt warp, so hes not just half-assing it. He does this kind of work on the side, though. He has a regular job, working on consoles isn’t his main business. He says he hasn’t had a reball fail on any machine he’s fixed, though.
Bringing this back to the top with an update. The repair guy returned my PS3 to me. He said he ran it for a couple of days to make sure the repair stayed in place. Again he reassured me that none of his reball customers has called to say that theirs has failed.
I plugged it in and fired up MLB 12, a pretty graphically intense game. It started up and ran flawlessly. No problems so far. If I remember to, I’ll update again after 30 days, but it looks this repair was worth it and saved me the hassle of buying a new PS3, especially since all of my saves and everything stayed on the hard drive. It even automatically reconnected with my Wi-fi.
My cat has a question for you.
[cat]
I can haz reball job?
[/cat]
I thinking he’s starting to realize all the licking isn’t working, and he wants a permanent fix.
But seriously, can you gimme the contact info for the guy that did the job? I have a friend with a laptop GPU that has the same problem.
I could PM you a phone number for him, voltaire. But a couple of points. He’s a strictly local guy here in Tucson that I came across on Craigslist. He just does this as side work. He has a regular job and it’s not his bread-and-butter business. If you don’t live in the Tucson area, it probably wouldn’t do you any good to contact him. I don’t believe he’s interested in receiving or shipping equipment long-distance. I took my PS3 to him and picked it up myself, but that was pretty convenient for me.
Also, I think he just works on gaming systems like PS3, XBox 360, and Wii and just does a few specialized repairs on those. He doesn’t work on laptops. But if you’re still interested in contacting him, I’ll PM you his name and number.
Cool, thanks for the update.
So if I get the YLOD, how do I find a guy in my area? Searching “reballing” on CL doesn’t seem to come up with anything.
Good to hear the repair was successful, might be worth considering the next time something fails here. Too often things get junked for minor defects.
When I had a problem with my PS2, I asked at a local Gamestop and they were able to give me the number of a guy who repairs and rebuilds PS/PS2s. That was some years ago, and my PS2 hasn’t given me any problems since.
When I started reading this thread I thought it would be extremely presumptuous to think that the problem you were encountering was caused by cracked solder joints on the CPU. Why wouldn’t the root cause have been one of three dozen other potential causes?
If this works for you, then great. But it would be like changing your alternator belt because your four year old battery isn’t holding a charge, and expecting that to be the true fix. I’m thinking the yellow light will be back soon.
Not from that particular repair. It’s a consistent problem with a known cause and a repair with a high success rate. It’s not at all analogous to a car battery and alternator belt. That’s not to say something else won’t fail eventually, but you can be pessimistic all you want while I sit back and enjoy my rejuvenated PS3.
Try “Video Game Repair.” But don’t expect to come up with more than one or two. I live in Tucson, which, while it’s no New York or Chicago, is still a pretty populous city, and I still only found one. So I did get lucky.
Or if you can’t find anybody local, you can do a search on Google. There are repair companies that you can ship your unit to and they will fix it and return it to you. This may cost you an extra $20 for shipping.
According to their service department, Sony will attempt to fix it for $130 (includes shipping to and from their service location in Texas) if it’s not still under warranty, provided you haven’t modded it up. If they claim to not be able to fix it, they refund the $130 and send it back to you. I figured that since it has the PS2 chip in it, it’s worth the hassle to try and get it fixed, especially since they’ll refund your money if they can’t fix it or apply the trade-in value for a new slim.
My launch model 60GB went YLOD last Thursday and I sent it in to Sony on Monday. It’s 7-10 business days turn-around once they get it. I’ll let you know how it works out.