Hello All,
Greetings from New Mexico, USA. First time poster, here... and for good reason. I'm a first time PS3 repairer who has walked too deep into the unknown lake of BRD replacement insanity. I'm hoping to avail myself of the collective wisdom of this forum regarding a Blu-Ray drive replacement that has gone awry on a thrift-find PS3 Slim, model CECH-2001A.
I purchased the unit at a local thrift store and it works fine, except that it will not read Blu-Ray discs or game discs. It reads and plays DVDs just fine. I do believe from evidence I found when disassembling the unit that someone attempted this repair once before dropping the unit off at the thrift store.
This PS3 came with a KEM-450AAA slide. The laser installed has no part # on it so I'm thinking it is not original. The logic board is a BMD-061. Here is what I've done so far:
1. Purchased a replacement KEM-450AAA slide with laser from a seemingly-reputable seller on eBay. The unit arrived with a damaged 4-conductor ribbon cable going to the logic board. I have good soldering skills, so with the permission (and encouragement) of the seller, I bypassed the ribbon cable with some 30AWG silicone-jacketed wire. This did not fix the issue - still reads only DVDs.
2. Moved the replacement laser assembly onto my "original" KEM-450AAA slide. This did not fix the issue.
3. Restored the system. This took about 10 hours overnight. This did not fix the issue.
4. Installed CFW (EvilNAT 4.90) and attempted the drive remarry process. I was able to export the EID Root Key and marry it to the logic board. This did not fix the issue.
Right now I'm trying to get the eBay seller to pay for return shipping since the drive shipped with a damaged ribbon cable, but I'm losing hope I'm going to win that one. In the meantime, here are the thoughts running through my confused mind:
1. Perhaps I received a defective replacement, defective in the exact same way as the unit installed in my PS3. Unlikely but possible. The eBay seller insists all units are tested before shipping, but we all know how that can go.
2. Maybe the logic board isn't original to my system. Maybe it came with a BMD-051 and the previous owner did a full drive swap unaware of the need to use an exact replacement part. Not sure this would allow DVDs to work, however. And why would I be able to install the normal CFW (non-NoBD) if the logic board was wrong?
3. Maybe the logic board is faulty. Seems like that would be an "all-or-nothing" scenario, though.
4. Maybe I've got more than one bad ribbon cable.
I've got quite a bit of experience repairing electronics like this, but I've never done this particular job before, and it's driving me a little crazy. If any of you out there could point me in the right direction, I'd be truly grateful. Thank you in advance!
Here is a video showing the behavior of the drive when inserting a game disc:
Greetings from New Mexico, USA. First time poster, here... and for good reason. I'm a first time PS3 repairer who has walked too deep into the unknown lake of BRD replacement insanity. I'm hoping to avail myself of the collective wisdom of this forum regarding a Blu-Ray drive replacement that has gone awry on a thrift-find PS3 Slim, model CECH-2001A.
I purchased the unit at a local thrift store and it works fine, except that it will not read Blu-Ray discs or game discs. It reads and plays DVDs just fine. I do believe from evidence I found when disassembling the unit that someone attempted this repair once before dropping the unit off at the thrift store.
This PS3 came with a KEM-450AAA slide. The laser installed has no part # on it so I'm thinking it is not original. The logic board is a BMD-061. Here is what I've done so far:
1. Purchased a replacement KEM-450AAA slide with laser from a seemingly-reputable seller on eBay. The unit arrived with a damaged 4-conductor ribbon cable going to the logic board. I have good soldering skills, so with the permission (and encouragement) of the seller, I bypassed the ribbon cable with some 30AWG silicone-jacketed wire. This did not fix the issue - still reads only DVDs.
2. Moved the replacement laser assembly onto my "original" KEM-450AAA slide. This did not fix the issue.
3. Restored the system. This took about 10 hours overnight. This did not fix the issue.
4. Installed CFW (EvilNAT 4.90) and attempted the drive remarry process. I was able to export the EID Root Key and marry it to the logic board. This did not fix the issue.
Right now I'm trying to get the eBay seller to pay for return shipping since the drive shipped with a damaged ribbon cable, but I'm losing hope I'm going to win that one. In the meantime, here are the thoughts running through my confused mind:
1. Perhaps I received a defective replacement, defective in the exact same way as the unit installed in my PS3. Unlikely but possible. The eBay seller insists all units are tested before shipping, but we all know how that can go.
2. Maybe the logic board isn't original to my system. Maybe it came with a BMD-051 and the previous owner did a full drive swap unaware of the need to use an exact replacement part. Not sure this would allow DVDs to work, however. And why would I be able to install the normal CFW (non-NoBD) if the logic board was wrong?
3. Maybe the logic board is faulty. Seems like that would be an "all-or-nothing" scenario, though.
4. Maybe I've got more than one bad ribbon cable.
I've got quite a bit of experience repairing electronics like this, but I've never done this particular job before, and it's driving me a little crazy. If any of you out there could point me in the right direction, I'd be truly grateful. Thank you in advance!
Here is a video showing the behavior of the drive when inserting a game disc:
