rifath33
Member
Hello everyone. I have this COK-001 motherboard that was having the GLOD (it booted up just fine but didn't send any output through HDMI).
I used the penny trick (I put 4 pennies on top of the IHS of both the CELL and RSX) and screwed the heatsink back in in order to see whether or not the lack of output was because of a BGA defect.
Upon testing, the motherboard did indeed send a video signal! I did not have a hard drive plugged in, however.
The signal was a black screen and immediately the fans ramped up and the PS3 shut down after 4 seconds due to overheating (the penny trick eliminates contact between the IHS's and the heatsink). I never got to see any text or anything other than a black, blank screen. Keep in mind the PS3 did indeed output a signal. I think that without the hard drive installed the system should send a screen that says: "Cannot start. The correct hard disk was not found."
Does the signal being a totally blank black screen before shutting down after 4 seconds due to overheating mean that the RSX is dead or something?
I have proper copper shims on the way and I think these will stop the rapid overheating while maintaining the extra pressure on the chips. I'll do further testing then.
I did not use a heat gun at all on this system because I did not want to risk bridging any solder connections for both the RSX and CELL (I really do NOT want to get a reball done on this)
More info about the BGA defect: This motherboard came from a system that was already opened. I don't think any type of overheating caused this because the PS3 temps are way too low to melt the solder! I think the reason for it is that the original owner perhaps wanted to replace the thermal paste in the system but by then Sony's stock thermal paste must have cured for a long time and so they may have had to use significant force to remove the heatsink, which may have pulled on the chips a bit and caused the BGA defect.
I'm thinking that the RSX has a chance! Because looking at this video, it definitely takes more than 4 seconds for the "Cannot start. The correct hard disk was not found." error's text to actually show up.
In this video, it took ~20 seconds for the actual text to pop up!
I used the penny trick (I put 4 pennies on top of the IHS of both the CELL and RSX) and screwed the heatsink back in in order to see whether or not the lack of output was because of a BGA defect.
Upon testing, the motherboard did indeed send a video signal! I did not have a hard drive plugged in, however.
The signal was a black screen and immediately the fans ramped up and the PS3 shut down after 4 seconds due to overheating (the penny trick eliminates contact between the IHS's and the heatsink). I never got to see any text or anything other than a black, blank screen. Keep in mind the PS3 did indeed output a signal. I think that without the hard drive installed the system should send a screen that says: "Cannot start. The correct hard disk was not found."
Does the signal being a totally blank black screen before shutting down after 4 seconds due to overheating mean that the RSX is dead or something?
I have proper copper shims on the way and I think these will stop the rapid overheating while maintaining the extra pressure on the chips. I'll do further testing then.
I did not use a heat gun at all on this system because I did not want to risk bridging any solder connections for both the RSX and CELL (I really do NOT want to get a reball done on this)
More info about the BGA defect: This motherboard came from a system that was already opened. I don't think any type of overheating caused this because the PS3 temps are way too low to melt the solder! I think the reason for it is that the original owner perhaps wanted to replace the thermal paste in the system but by then Sony's stock thermal paste must have cured for a long time and so they may have had to use significant force to remove the heatsink, which may have pulled on the chips a bit and caused the BGA defect.
I'm thinking that the RSX has a chance! Because looking at this video, it definitely takes more than 4 seconds for the "Cannot start. The correct hard disk was not found." error's text to actually show up.
In this video, it took ~20 seconds for the actual text to pop up!
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