PS3 Are the temperatures of my PS3 normal?

Alex Teles

Member
Hello, I have a PS3 Super Slim 4204-A with a 1TB HDD, the 28nm RSX and better CPU lid. I recently opened my PS3 with the objective of cleaning and replacing the thermal paste but after putting everything back on and doing some testing I fear that I didn't put enough paste on the CPU. For example on multiman I have around 59°C CPU and 51°C RSX but on games like GTA V, GOW III, Resistance 3 I have about 60s°C on CPU and high 50s°C to low 60s°C RSX, being the difference about 5 degrees in game and about 10 in the XMB. Is this normal or should I put more paste or even add thermal pads below the CPU?

Update: I played GTA V for 1h and CPU is 67/68°C and RSX 63/64°C. My city currently is at 32°C (somehow ultimately these days were very hot, even reaching 35°C one day). My fan is at 35% manual with webman.
 
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Hi, there are ^plenty of threads with good info and "good" temperatures, you should find it.
For me, your temp are really nice, the thermal paste replaecment has been well done ;-)
which one did you use?
and you can test by launching the last of us to push it and check ...
 
Hi, there are ^plenty of threads with good info and "good" temperatures, you should find it.
For me, your temp are really nice, the thermal paste replaecment has been well done ;-)
which one did you use?
and you can test by launching the last of us to push it and check ...
I used the Thermal Grizzly Aeronaut paste. It has 8.5 of thermal conductivity.
I tested TLoU for 1:30h and the peak was 69°C CPU and 64°C RSX. My fear is the CPU since I never pasted a CPU with a lid before. The image below is an example of how I did, the red is where I spread the paste (at least in theory). Don't worry with the white paste, it's an image from Google. Maybe my motherboard model has a hotter CELL. Do you know if this model has paste below the lid?
 

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Hello, I have a PS3 Super Slim 4204-A with a 1TB HDD, the 28nm RSX and better CPU lid. I recently opened my PS3 with the objective of cleaning and replacing the thermal paste but after putting everything back on and doing some testing I fear that I didn't put enough paste on the CPU. For example on multiman I have around 59°C CPU and 51°C RSX but on games like GTA V, GOW III, Resistance 3 I have about 60s°C on CPU and high 50s°C to low 60s°C RSX, being the difference about 5 degrees in game and about 10 in the XMB. Is this normal or should I put more paste or even add thermal pads below the CPU?

Update: I played GTA V for 1h and CPU is 67/68°C and RSX 63/64°C. My city currently is at 32°C (somehow ultimately these days were very hot, even reaching 35°C one day). My fan is at 35% manual with webman.

They are good but the temps between your CPU and RSX have 8°C of difference, i think something like ~3°C is normal not ~8°C. @sandungas is a especialist on it and can help you.
 
Yeah it's nice (and after 1h30 of TLOU, it works great), but I can't help you to know if there is paste below the lid, wait for a specialist as LuanTeles said. and I don't see 8°C difference in your temps, but more something between 4 and 5 ;-)
 
Yeah it's nice (and after 1h30 of TLOU, it works great), but I can't help you to know if there is paste below the lid, wait for a specialist as LuanTeles said. and I don't see 8°C difference in your temps, but more something between 4 and 5 ;-)

i commented before the update :P

Hello, I have a PS3 Super Slim 4204-A with a 1TB HDD, the 28nm RSX and better CPU lid. I recently opened my PS3 with the objective of cleaning and replacing the thermal paste but after putting everything back on and doing some testing I fear that I didn't put enough paste on the CPU. For example on multiman I have around 59°C CPU and 51°C RSX
 
They are good but the temps between your CPU and RSX have 8°C of difference, i think something like ~3°C is normal not ~8°C. @sandungas is a especialist on it and can help you.
There's no problem if I need to open it again, that's why I'm here, for my surprise I followed a tutorial and didn't miss any screw
 
Guys, an update, I opened again and confirmed my fears, some spots on the IHS didn't have thermal paste at all, even though I spread it looks like it wasn't enough so I repasted again, this time with more paste, I'm currently assembling now, I'll post you the results later
 
Status report: I stayed idle in the kid's bedroom in TLoU for 1h and these are the new results: CPU 66°C and RSX 62°C. At some point both went up 1 degree but stabilized back to these results. I'm guessing the RSX is supposed to be cooler in every case scenario since it's a 28nm model compared to the CELL, I think it's either 40nm or 45nm. Also while I was at it my motherboard model is PQX-001, hope this extra info helps.
 
Them temps are fine for a SuperSlim PS3, even in your OG post they are fine with that fan speed. I usually run a static fan speed of 38% which is a good trade of of cooling and fan noise.

I stayed idle in the kid's bedroom in TLoU for 1h and these are the new results: CPU 66°C and RSX 62°C

That's not a particularly graphically heavy scene to run, most of the game you will not see your temps go up much except for in a few places in the game which are places that have water, such as standing water, water you swim through and the few rain areas... this is just due the graphics and physics technique's used to make the water look really good.

If you want to really stress your PS3 for temps then run the Crysis games, like the OG Crysis.... its a notoriously heavy game to run.. even top of the line PC HW when it was OG released really struggled to run this game... that's where the Meme " Yea.. but can it run Crysis..? " came from...

The Uncharted Games, Gran Turismo and Tekken are also good to run for stress testing temps as they are graphically heavy games. Also the FarCry games as well as they also run on the Cry Engine from Crysis.
 
Them temps are fine for a SuperSlim PS3, even in your OG post they are fine with that fan speed. I usually run a static fan speed of 38% which is a good trade of of cooling and fan noise.

That's not a particularly graphically heavy scene to run, most of the game you will not see your temps go up much except for in a few places in the game which are places that have water, such as standing water, water you swim through and the few rain areas... this is just due the graphics and physics technique's used to make the water look really good.

If you want to really stress your PS3 for temps then run the Crysis games, like the OG Crysis.... its a notoriously heavy game to run.. even top of the line PC HW when it was OG released really struggled to run this game... that's where the Meme " Yea.. but can it run Crysis..? " came from...

The Uncharted Games, Gran Turismo and Tekken are also good to run for stress testing temps as they are graphically heavy games. Also the FarCry games as well as they also run on the Cry Engine from Crysis.
38%? Does it increase noise from 35%? Also I'm going to test all of those games and report results here.
 
38%? Does it increase noise from 35%?

There's a slight increase in fan noise, mainly a little higher in pitch but if you game with headphones or even just through your TV speakers or whatever you use for sound output you shouldn't be able to hear it over game sounds unless your sound is at a low volume.
 
There's a slight increase in fan noise, mainly a little higher in pitch but if you game with headphones or even just through your TV speakers or whatever you use for sound output you shouldn't be able to hear it over game sounds unless your sound is at a low volume.
I will try, after at least here we're having very hot days lately. I'm even thinking of using AUTO #2, looks better than SYSCON and DYNAMIC modes.
 
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yeah, great job and thanks for stressing games..I was talking about the last of us, for a quick stress with the beginning of the game. effectively, if you have time, much better to push it on a "long" time with crysis, crysis 2 or uncharted 3.
 
Hi guys, do you by chance know if adding a thermal pad on the capacitors below the CPU reduces the temperature? I'm not referring to the eraser mod where you add pressure to the CPU but instead just adding even without making pressure.

UPDATE: I've played GOW III for 1h so far with AUTO #2 and it works very well, fan is always at 37-39% while playing, translating to 63/64°C CPU and 60/61°C RSX. I think it's a very good result, what do you guys think?
 
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Hi guys, do you by chance know if adding a thermal pad on the capacitors below the CPU reduces the temperature?

Nope, that won't reduce CELL/BE temps. It will just help keep the Caps a bit cooler but they would need to be making contact with something, through the thermal pad, that will act like a heatsink.. eg. The EMI shielding for the MB ... using them on there own with no heatsink is point less.

So if adding 1 thermal pad it does not make contact with the EMI shield then there would be no point adding them, stacking thermal pads will just ruin the heat transfer of the pad.

UPDATE: I've played GOW III for 1h so far with AUTO #2 and it works very well, fan is always at 37-39% while playing, translating to 63/64°C CPU and 60/61°C RSX. I think it's a very good result, what do you guys think?

Them temps are perfectly fine. 5*C delta between temps if perfectly ok. If there was a bigger delta between them, say 10*c+, then that would indicate that the heatsink is not making good contact between the IHS of the CELL/BE or the DIE of the RSX as SuperSlims use direct DIE cooling on the RSX or not enough thermal paste used.

It is better to use a bit too much thermal paste compared to using too little.... if someone says using too much thermal paste will hurt thermals and cause them to be higher... it's FALSE and a myth and has been proven to be many, many times. It just makes a damn mess everywhere.
 
It is better to use a bit too much thermal paste compared to using too little.... if someone says using too much thermal paste will hurt thermals and cause them to be higher... it's FALSE and a myth and has been proven to be many, many times. It just makes a damn mess everywhere.
I agree 100% with you, it's not like it's going to short something like the liquid metal on the PS5. Even the original paste was a bit excessive, especially in the RSX thus proving your point.
 

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