PS3 Yellow light at startup BUT works fine.....

sfbonner

Hello. I've looked for weeks on the internet for a reason or solution for this and cannot find one..

I have a FAT 40gb ps3

When I turn the ps3 on it will start up for a few seconds then get the yellow light then blink red continously, but if I keep pressing the on/off button at the front and the eject button, the ps3 will come on after some time... could be a minute or could be 5 minutes but it ALWAYS will come on and once it is on it will play for hours without fail..

Sometimes once the ps3 is eventually on, when I go to load the game it will just turn off. But when that happens the ps3 turns on straight away and the game loads perfectly afterwards.

I can eject the disc even when I get a yellow light.

I have a spare 60gb ps3 and tried swapping all the parts around to stop the yellow light but nothing has worked.

Does anybody know why I am getting this particular yellow light eventhough the ps3 works fine once on?

sfbonner

Nobody?

budman9

Looks like overheating problem. Do you hear fan when yellow light appears?

johndoe99

Yellow Light Of Death (YLOD) / Red Light Of Death (RLOD). Had it myself about 2 years ago on the Launch PS3.

http://theps3ylod.hubpages.com/hub/ps3-ylod-permanent-fix

Could not fix mine though, i bought a new slim.

sfbonner

Yes the fan comes on. The HDD light flashes too.

I've done what it says on that link but It isn't overheating, when the ps3 eventually doesn't turn on it would run perfectly without any fault which seems to me its some kind of bios issue. Nobody on the internet has had the same symptoms as my ps3 as far as I know of. It is frustrating because every part of it works fine, just takes a few minutes to get going

sfbonner

Yes the fan comes on. The HDD light flashes too.

I've done what it says on that link but It isn't overheating, when the ps3 eventually doesn't turn on it would run perfectly without any fault which seems to me its some kind of bios issue. Nobody on the internet has had the same symptoms as my ps3 as far as I know of. It is frustrating because every part of it works fine, just takes a few minutes to get going

johndoe99

how do you know its not overheating. You won't feel any heat coming from the console, it the thermal paste on the heatsink that fails and its the CPU that gets hot and causes a thermal shutdown.

sfbonner

johndoe99 wrote: »

how do you know its not overheating. You won't feel any heat coming from the console, it the thermal paste on the heatsink that fails and its the CPU that gets hot and causes a thermal shutdown.

But wouldn't the ps3 turn itself off once the maximum temperature has been reached?
Example.. after an hour of playing.

I never hear the fan spinning excessively either.

Do you think if I re applied thermal paste to the cpu and gpu this problem would go away?

johndoe99

sfbonner wrote: »

But wouldn't the ps3 turn itself off once the maximum temperature has been reached?
Example.. after an hour of playing.

I never hear the fan spinning excessively either.

Do you think if I re applied thermal paste to the cpu and gpu this problem would go away?

the maximum temp may not have been reached yet, but in time it will.

The fan won't spin excessively, it has a max RPM and thats all, the 2 fans has one functions, the PSU fan cools the PSU. The CPU fan just blows cool air across the heatsink, but the thermal paste has to be fresh and doing the job of bridging the heatsink to the CPU, if its not the heatsink wont draw the heat away.

When my PS3 did finally go, i dismantled it to see the CPU, it took me an hour just to get to the CPU, the PS3 opens from the top and the CPU is all the way at the bottom, i had to go through several layers of electronic parts to get to it. The thermal paste was all chalky, i applied new paste, but when putting it back together i got confused i had so many parts to put back, i just binned it.

sfbonner

johndoe99 wrote: »

the maximum temp may not have been reached yet, but in time it will.

The fan won't spin excessively, it has a max RPM and thats all, the 2 fans has one functions, the PSU fan cools the PSU. The CPU fan just blows cool air across the heatsink, but the thermal paste has to be fresh and doing the job of bridging the heatsink to the CPU, if its not the heatsink wont draw the heat away.

When my PS3 did finally go, i dismantled it to see the CPU, it took me an hour just to get to the CPU, the PS3 opens from the top and the CPU is all the way at the bottom, i had to go through several layers of electronic parts to get to it. The thermal paste was all chalky, i applied new paste, but when putting it back together i got confused i had so many parts to put back, i just binned it.

Don't mean to be ignorant but I always thought the cpu fan draws heat away from heatsink.....

Ive stipped a good few ps3s down and know most about them its an easy job to reapply thermal paste as ive done it to pcs ( I work in a pc/laptop/mobile repair shop ). But I just cannot get my head around why the ps3 still functions with this ylod. Ive been doing this routine for over 6 months and whenever I look online at this problem, people say they cannot get games out of the disk drive or their ps3 will never turn on again but mine is different to that. I might try slappin on some fresh paste and probably reseat the cmos battery and see what happens then.