I’m not out to slander anyone’s name, that’s just what I read in the brief time I Googled it.
This threadat playstation.com is a little old, but it’s one of the sources I was referring to. It does mention gophermods as being reputable.
Google Gilsky’s guides.
- if you don’t have or want to buy a heat gun, an embossing tool from a hobby shop serves much the same purpose. The most important thing if you’re going to do a reflow is evenly heating and evenly cooling to avoid thermal warping. To that end, I actually think using an oven might be better.
Personally, I’ve reflowed 4 PS3s in my oven (craigslisted YLOD ps3s, not my own, lol). Make sure to preheat the oven, make sure the motherboard is properly supported, and cover plastic parts with foil so they don’t melt.
450deg for 15 minutes, turn the oven off, open the door a few inches, and let it cool in the oven until you can touch it.
Afterwards, do a good job of reapplying thermal paste and seating the fans, and you should be good to go - the repaired PS3 that I kept has been going strong for a year now with moderate use. If nothing else, you’ll be able to get the disc out, lol.
There was one person there who said no reputable company would reball. If a repair place has the machinery they can do it, for whatever price they want.
I think it’s dumb when idiots are posting about how they reflowed it themselves and it’s just fine and that people are only repeating what they read on forums. The truth is, heat gun reflowing simply doesn’t work. Oh, maybe the first time you can use your PS3 for a month or two, but then it will YLOD again. And then you do it again, and it does it in a month, and then after the third time it happens in a week. After that, your PS3 is so fucked up you can’t send it any place to have it properly fixed because you’ve warped and bridged and pretty much destroyed it.
You can either A: get a reflow from someone with a legitimate infrared reflowing machine, or B: get your BGA’s reballed. BGA reballing should cost around $100 to $150 and a reflow is probably about $50. There aren’t a lot of people who do these services legitimately so when you see a bunch of dumb asses on craigslist claiming they fix your shit, pretty much guarantee they won’t and you’ll end up worse than before, and poorer too.
Look, I fucked up a PS3 myself thinking I could fix it with what some idiots on the net said. Yeah, my fault for believing it. So I ended up having to get a 2nd hand PS3 that was luckily not used since 2006, and only required a BD-drive swap. Which was great, because my BD-drive was in perfect working order, and I went ahead and bought a superior power supply, thermal grease, and higher quality fan than what I had.
For fucks sakes…
Should I preface my post with “results not typical”? I will say that doing console repairs is extremely finnicky (especially mcguyver repairs), and if you don’t have experience with that sort of thing, you’re better off having someone do it for you.
But it’s insulting for you to claim I’m just repeating what I’ve read on forums. My PS3 was a YLOD 2nd gen I bought on craigslist, repaired, and have logged hundreds of hours on since, with no additional repairs needed. My friend’s was a launch model I did the same with. I’ll be honest and say I have no idea what’s become of the other two, though. (RESULTS NOT TYPICAL).
New games that destroy your PS3:
- Skyrim
- Battlefield 3
I didn’t actually write the repeating thing in reply to your post. That was to the post above yours, which happened that my post coincided with yours.
BUT, you pretty much are claiming it’s ok to make repairs to a PS3 this way. You’re chiming in with your experience being good, that you fixed 4 consoles and blah blah blah… but the fact is he should really just get a professional to do it. Most consoles fixed with a heatgun or cooked in the oven repeatedly YLOD and people repeatedly reflow them improperly because, hey it worked once right? So, maybe you had some good luck, but even professional reflow stations are reported to only temporarily fix the problem, and these guys have equipment that costs thousands of dollars and you cooked yours in an oven.
My point is, spreading poor information is bad, especially when someone wants to get something fixed and they’re already tempted to do things the shitty way because it’s cheap and easy. Even with a preface that results aren’t typical does not help the situation, because you’ve noted how good your experience is. It only adds to the mindset that he could possibly get this done and get lucky, though the reality is far from it.
I’ll agree that if you don’t really know what you’re doing, you should have the repair done professionally.
However, luck has little to do with successful home repairs. It’s true that there’s a much narrower margin of error (not supporting the mobo, not isolating the GPU, letting it cool too quickly, not heating evenly, etc.), but done properly and carefully, an oven or a heatgun literally does the same thing as a reflow station (with considerably less convenience).
It’s not fast, it’s not easy, and it takes attention to detail and patience to do properly (just like and DIY project, really). If you don’t have the experience, confidence, or bravado, have a professional do it. But saying it’s not even a real option is wrong.
This is true. That’s why if a graphics card dies and it’s out of warranty, you may as well try and bake it to fix it. You can have a professional reflow or reball it, but that will be pricy and still may or may not work, you try it yourself, and all you have nothing to lose. With consoles you may as well do the same if the warranty is voided for any reason.
Just make sure you follow the instructions exactly and you will be fine. I used to know a guy that reflowed Xboxes with a Heat gun and a $20 electric griddle.
Just because it’s out of warranty doesn’t mean you have nothing to lose. You absolutely do, you have the product you paid for. That’s what you have to lose. Baking it will just fuck it up even more in the long run, and that’s what’s important. Most professional houses offer at least a 6 month warranty on their work.
You know what, fuck it. If you guys are really dumb enough to bake your electronics to save a couple of bucks then by all means, go for it.
lolololo I paid $600 at launch for a 60GB. they told me I had to choose between linux and call of duty 4 so I sold it. they lied to me at launch and killed features I paid for over the internet holding my favorite game as ransom. then after they lost the lawsuit for STEALING the emotion engine that is at the core of PS2 backwards compatibility they were forced by court order to turn off the emotion engine in 20GB and 60GB PS3’s and use the same software emulation for PS2 games on ALL PS3 models. this resulted in shit graphics, less than perfect emulation and straight up busted games. tourist trophy looked amazing at 1080i over HDMI but sony never owned it in the first place. they were selling stolen goods and got caught. add to that having your credit card information compromised by PSN and I’m all done with them.
sorry for the rant. sony is a pack of liers and I got burned for the full $600.