PS3 fat Yellow Light of Death

**labnjab** · 01-24-2011, 04:20 PM

Has anyone had this happen to their ps3 fat yet? We were watching a blu-ray Saturday night and it froze up. So I turned it off at the switch, waited a minute, turned it back on, pushed the power button, then the famous yellow light of death. After doing some research it looks like Sony puts low quality thermal paste on the processor, which eventually melts causing the solder joints on the processor to heat up and crack and loose connection. It was out of warranty by a year so we went out and bought a new 160 gig slim along with a 3 year extended warranty for only $20 extra. From what I read the slims don't have this problem so we should be good, but I bought the extended warranty to be safe.

There is a fix for this YLOD, and I was wondering if anyone here has run into this and made the repair themselves, and if so how long does the repair last. I've seen mixed responses on the web and would like to hear from someone with 1st hand experience before I attempt it. I'd really like to fix it and sell it and at least get some of my money back. A $300 piece of equipment should get way more then 2 years use

**MCools** · 01-24-2011, 05:16 PM

What do you mean by a ps3 fat? The old version? The new ones I saw were just as fat as the older ones, with the main difference being the venting and having real buttons on the top. The ps2's have a much bigger change to them.

I have a 3 year old ps3, i think it's a 80G ( back when they cost $600!!). I've never seen the yellow light of death- and that thing has been put through hell! We use it for games dvds and blu-ray, so with all that it must be on 6 hours+ a day. It gets hot, but we made sure the vents faced open space.

I don't know if I would mess around trying to fix it, but I'm not good with that kind of thing...I suppose if your just going to sell it on CL or something it might be worth it. I mean if it doesn't work when your done you won't be out too much more, right?

**Trillianne** · 01-24-2011, 06:19 PM

So sad when the game console has issues. We don't have a PS3, but our Wii stopped reading discs on Christmas.... well that's when we discovered it.

I bought a lens cleaner on suggestion of their troubleshoot help phone guy (who was pretty nice guy all around imo) When I priced it at Amazon... some company wanted FIVE TIMES what I could pay for it from Nintendo. Simply amazing. Sadly it arrived today and... didn't work

Looks like we have to take the Wii in for repair.

**MCools** · 01-24-2011, 06:40 PM

I don't like the Wii much- we've had plenty of problems with that ....thing!

Had it 2 months and had to send it in for repair because the laser or whatever stopped reading all disks.

**KatzeSlaugen** · 01-24-2011, 07:27 PM

the ps3 fat is the older version and the sp3 slim is the newer version. there is a noticeable difference in size.

in terms of fixing i fixed mine took maybe 20 min to get in take it apart and put it back together. it worked for maybe a month and i had to do it again. after three of 4 times i got a new one though.

wasnt too complicated to open it up, but is more of a patch than a fix

**Trillianne** · 01-24-2011, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by MCools

I don't like the Wii much- we've had plenty of problems with that ....thing!

Had it 2 months and had to send it in for repair because the laser or whatever stopped reading all disks.

Sounds like a lemon. This is the first issue we have had with ours and its one of their original ones so its a few years old now. I was just impressed with the CS guy. We shall see how things go when we have to take it in for repair. (We live close enough we should be able to take it in and have it fixed same day was the estimate)

**MCools** · 01-24-2011, 08:30 PM

I see what you mean about the size difference (I just looked them up). Its only really noticeable if you stand the console up, though, it's only about an inch shorter and 2 inches narrower. We had a problem with our ps2 when we stood it on end, so we just lay them flat now.

Do the newer ones throw off as much heat as the older ones? They look like they have less venting. I like the real buttons on top- the other ones are nice to look at but I get tired of it turning on whenever I dust it, lol.

Wii customer service was really nice when we sent ours in, and it took about half as long as they said it would for them to fix it. I just don't like the fact that I had to send it in in the first place.

**Scrup** · 01-24-2011, 08:53 PM

Each console has its own quirks. Xbox has the red ring of death (lost three to this), the WII has DVD playing disabled in the firmware (fixable if you know what you are doing, but still...bah) and the PS3 has a tendancy to corrupt save files for certain games, as well as being very pushy with the patches, and are slowly becoming as bad as apples products. By that I mean even though you paid for it, they want to mandate what you do with it and how you do it. They are even taking legal action against some people who published research showing how to enable a ps3 to run linux. an EFF rep's quote-
“Simply put, Sony claims that it’s illegal for users to access their own computers in a way that Sony doesn’t like. Moreover, because the CFAA has criminal as well as civil penalties, Sony is actually saying that it’s a crime for users to access their own computers in a way that Sony doesn’t like.”

Back to the oiriginal topic, sorry I got carried away-

The slim version has some major hardware reductions, but still runs just as good. Cuts down on the cost to manufacture, heat output (probably not enough to really notice), and size obviously.

**MCools** · 01-25-2011, 02:20 AM

"heat output (probably not enough to really notice)"

That line scares me. The ps3's kick off a LOT of heat and the newer ones that I saw had very few vents. We have a full foot of distance between the side of our ps3 and the nearest piece of furniture (just happens to be a tank stand now, LOL), and you can feel heat coming off that thing 4 inches above it when it's been for a while!

Totally off topic: how do you quote just a portion of a post with it in the cool box-thingy?

**KatzeSlaugen** · 01-25-2011, 02:23 AM

the new ps3 does kick off quite a lot of heat, and i agree the venting on it sucks. then again i have a long lived issue with sony and their "ps3 compatibility and issues" (long story short an annoying marketing ploy). for mine i got a nyko intercooler and it keeps its much much cooler