This may have been discussed here before but I'm retired now and don't drop in here often. My son's 4 year old Playstation 3 has suddenly died. Powerup shows the green LED, then yellow followed quickly by 3 beeps and the red LED flashing. The PS checks good (caps ESR OK and O'scope clean). Searching the net, I found a few people heating up the main processor and another big IC near it with a heat gun, supposedly to reflow solder connections under those chips. I tried that, no go. Does anyone here know the strait dope on those game units... why all of them eventually puke that way and perhaps a more reliable fix? Supposedly Sony will repair one for $150 out of warranty but is as likely to swap it out. They obviously know what's happening to their units but want to sell new rather than repair old. Are the new ones any better?
Ray Carlsen Carlsen Electronics... a leader in trailing-edge technology
Thanks, Adrian. The first thought that came to mind when I saw the reball video is that I've lived too long. ;-) I might try the "flux and reheat" process. My eyes are just not up to any more than that.
I tried these kitchen table 'reflow' processes for a while (although actually on my professional workbench and using sophisticated hot air rework equipment !) and I can pretty much say that I had total success with every one - for about a week ...
Then they come bouncing back. It's known as "YLOD" or yellow light of death. It is caused by the solder balls under the two BGA ICs giving way due to thermal cycling, and in no small part I feel, as a result of the fact that lead free solder is used, which lacks the ductility of the old leaded solder.
Out of all the ones I did, I think I only had one that survived, and that was my son's one too. I tried just about every temperature and duration combination, as well as various different techniques for applying the heat, including pre-heating the board, and using liquid flux. I tried all sorts of thermal paste when re-attaching the heatsinks, including large thick dollops of standard white paste, as Sony themselves seem to favour in the original construction, thin scrapings of the same stuff, and thin scrapings of artic silver, as most people on here will swear is the right way to go. In every case, when reassembled, the unit would come straight back on, and work a treat. You could play DVDs in it, or use it as a permanently powered media server for weeks on end, and it would keep going. But send it back to a serious gamer to actually play games on, and it would be back inside a few days.
I think that these games are so processor and graphics-engine intensive, that the amount of heat generated is just too much for any tenuous 'fix' obtained by the kitchen table methods which are, make no mistake, definitely
*not* actually re-melting solder balls under those ICs.
Just as a matter of interest, the game "Call of Duty" seems to be the big one for re-killing them.
By all means give it a go, and if you follow the instructions of any of the people on the net who are publishing these fixes, you probably will get at result, initially. But don't get too excited, as there will be a good chance that you will see it come back to haunt you ...
Tried all this myself as well, best success I've had was a white X-Box
360 that lasted about 3 months before failing again. It doesn't work. I suspect you are more likely to warp and damage the PCB before you melt the solder. Very common failure I suspect as mentioned due to the lead free solder and BGA package design. Same problems afflict some GPU's on laptop motherboards.
My suggestion is to try and get it going temporarily for long enough to get any data off the hard drive, then bin it and get a new one which hopefully will be of improved design.
The problem may be caused by the solder balls being lead-free. All currently designed and manufactured BGA chips have led-free solder balls. They are no longer made with lead solder balls.
We recently finished a small production build that had a BGA and it was placed on the board by it's self and run through the convection oven. Then all the other components were placed and the boards put back through the oven using a profile for lead based solder paste.
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