tl;dr: tried reflowing a PHAT PS3 that had a Y/RLOD. Refow brought the console back to life, but the colors are weird when using HDMI, normal when using the cold yellow-red-white composite cables. Photos of the weird colors below.
Problem: after reflow on a PHAT PS3, the colors are now messed up and it looks like wherever there is supposed to be white on the screen is now replaced with red or magenta.
Question: wondering if anyone has seen or heard of this happening with the PS3 and if anyone has managed to fix it.
Lengthy Details: This PHAT PS3 eventually died mid-game and had some form of YLOD (on standby, the LED is red. When you try to turn it on, it starts up, then beeps 3 times, then shuts down). My thought was a a YLOD. I've done a couple successful reflows on a 4 different PHAT PS3s in the past so I thought I'd do it again.
* And before someone tells me, yes I know that reflows are not a good nor permanent fixes but I happen to have all the equipment and materials needed for a reflow lying around I figure I would just do the cheap heatgun+flux reflow. I know that there are reballing services and I've used them before successfully, but I don't think $70+shipping for fixing a console that is hardly used is worth it to me.*
So I went and did the standard at-home reflow: add flux below the CPU + RSX chips, heat up the CPU and RSX chips with a heatgun, replaced the thermal paste and pads and reassembled everything. Powered it on and plugged it into the TV and everything boots and I can see images on the TV! Fine, right? Except everything is not all right.
The colors are well...wrong. I can't tell for sure, but I'm pretty sure that wherever the colors are supposed to be white, they are now replaced with this red or magenta. It seems wherever the screen is supposed to show white or light-gray colors, it is replaced with this red-magenta color. I thought perhaps I overheated and ruined some component that manages the color-display system. But I had a spare PS2 composite video/audio cable around to double check if it was the HDMI connection. I plugged it in, switched the display from HDMI => composite, and the colors are normal.
So I thought the problem was the HDMI plug in the PS3 or some component sending the signal to the HDMI port. I tried jiggling the HDMI port and HDMI cable in the back of the PS3 to see if the colors would change, no change. I tried reheating and adding some flux to the HDMI port, thinking that maybe one of the connections on the HDMI port was loose from the last reflow. No good. So up to now I've taken apart/replaced thermal paste+pads/reassmbled the console twice, reflowed the CPU+RSX chip once, and reheated the HDMI connect with some flux once.
Really I'm just wondering if this has happened to anyone before or if anyone has any information about it. Not expecting a solution since this seems like a rare occurrence and the PS3 community has been inactive for a while.
First 2 photos of the messed up colors with the PS3 connected HDMI.
Last 2 photos of the PS3 connected via composite cable with normal colors (but at 480p resolution)
Problem: after reflow on a PHAT PS3, the colors are now messed up and it looks like wherever there is supposed to be white on the screen is now replaced with red or magenta.
Question: wondering if anyone has seen or heard of this happening with the PS3 and if anyone has managed to fix it.
Lengthy Details: This PHAT PS3 eventually died mid-game and had some form of YLOD (on standby, the LED is red. When you try to turn it on, it starts up, then beeps 3 times, then shuts down). My thought was a a YLOD. I've done a couple successful reflows on a 4 different PHAT PS3s in the past so I thought I'd do it again.
* And before someone tells me, yes I know that reflows are not a good nor permanent fixes but I happen to have all the equipment and materials needed for a reflow lying around I figure I would just do the cheap heatgun+flux reflow. I know that there are reballing services and I've used them before successfully, but I don't think $70+shipping for fixing a console that is hardly used is worth it to me.*
So I went and did the standard at-home reflow: add flux below the CPU + RSX chips, heat up the CPU and RSX chips with a heatgun, replaced the thermal paste and pads and reassembled everything. Powered it on and plugged it into the TV and everything boots and I can see images on the TV! Fine, right? Except everything is not all right.
The colors are well...wrong. I can't tell for sure, but I'm pretty sure that wherever the colors are supposed to be white, they are now replaced with this red or magenta. It seems wherever the screen is supposed to show white or light-gray colors, it is replaced with this red-magenta color. I thought perhaps I overheated and ruined some component that manages the color-display system. But I had a spare PS2 composite video/audio cable around to double check if it was the HDMI connection. I plugged it in, switched the display from HDMI => composite, and the colors are normal.
So I thought the problem was the HDMI plug in the PS3 or some component sending the signal to the HDMI port. I tried jiggling the HDMI port and HDMI cable in the back of the PS3 to see if the colors would change, no change. I tried reheating and adding some flux to the HDMI port, thinking that maybe one of the connections on the HDMI port was loose from the last reflow. No good. So up to now I've taken apart/replaced thermal paste+pads/reassmbled the console twice, reflowed the CPU+RSX chip once, and reheated the HDMI connect with some flux once.
Really I'm just wondering if this has happened to anyone before or if anyone has any information about it. Not expecting a solution since this seems like a rare occurrence and the PS3 community has been inactive for a while.
First 2 photos of the messed up colors with the PS3 connected HDMI.
Last 2 photos of the PS3 connected via composite cable with normal colors (but at 480p resolution)
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