PS3 Frankenstein PHAT PS3: CECHA with 40nm RSX

Indeed Heating the chips with Reflow/Reballing Degrades its eletrical physical health, so as I even heard Companys of telling Reflow or Reballing while building the mainboard can kill the Silicon then I should Say: WHEN YOU REBALLING THE CELL PROCESSOR ALWAYS FULLY COVER THE CELL DIE, CELL DIE NEEDS ZERO HEAT TO REMOVE THE CHIP CAUSE UNDER CELL THERE NO BGA!!! MAYBE USE SOME CARDBOARD OR SOME THICK WOOD TO PROTECT CELL DIE FROM HEAT.
 
when i send my board to @DeadEnd that mod was in its start. hell we didnt even know if such mod kill ps2 playback there was time we blame diferent syscon revisions for this. i never blame or attack him when the mobo failed 2 monts after it was a risk i took as @RIP-Felix said. and yes expose to heat a component multiple times can destroy it or reduce its lifespam. for cok-001 mobos with ps2 problems the issue propably found from victor, but it hasnt tryed to fixed from others. yet
 
Pacorretaco said:
If you really want to know my opinion...

Thats a fallacy. Boards dont normally fail "later"... "because of too many reballs".
But hey, maybe you were right. However, If anything, I'd say it failed for the opposite reason. Not enough reballs, not enough practice. You didnt reball a single COK before, but you tried to do a swap straight away to "do it better". Thats why it was so difficult and found so many problems...

But ok, maybe that wasnt good example because it was the first... It was a trial and whatnot...
Do you really want to talk about the second one? Oh, it failed too. So did the third one and forth one and who knows how many more... Even the one from your video...
Paranoia and hate dont help fixing, only destroying.

And hey I am not just being a hater like you. I dont hate the 40nm and I never said it could be a bad thing. Didnt I also help to make it possible in one way or another? Wasnt I here from the beginning too, even before you?

I was just pointing out facts, and trying to make peace...
If you arent good example but still want example... What about the original frankenstein from SONY from icferrum?
The first one we heard about. Surely they did it properly? But not only had problems, the problems were RSX related too, even with 40nm.
(The very first post, first few sentences from this 120 page thread... Not like I had to dig...)

Edit: Lastly, whats even your point, besides trying attack me for some reason? Why cant there just be peace?
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I never claimed my examples to be definitive or indicative of anything. You yourself are a hater and the fact that I honestly shared my results with you does not give you the right to use that against me. And no, they did not all fail. I had several boards that did work, including the very first board where I installed orbis mod. Later boards were more challenging. This operation is not easy to perform on a home equipment. You are clinging to my examples because you desperately want to reinforce your point, so any example goes. But of course, you care very little about the details and the backstory. I wanted to believe I could do it with what I had and the success rate was variable. But then I got to deal with japanese boards and the underrated moisture inside was a true killer . Again, that is not an example of anything as I never aimed to pump out frankies. I was doing it for my own interest and sure in case of success I was planning to sell the few that I had been trying to build. The price I was going to set was very affordable btw. Alas, the plan did not work out. The board in the video worked until I made some rushed decisions and ended up destroying it myself. But once again, that wasn't the point . The point was to show that when everything goes right, the board will work. And that will not change. The procedure itself is delicate and me being amateur adds the risk of failures.

Why don't you ask about Booter's and Victor's made frankies? Even Josh's They are professionals who did not struggle with issues I had. And since you are clinging to my failures so much, why don't you show your successes ? I'd like to see your flawless examples of 90nm reballs. You are using big words again to attempt to discredit me, but the fact is none of what I did or said actually changes anything. The 40nm swap is still a better alternative than keeping old GPU and everybody knows that. Original example, again , is not an excuse to discredit the idea of GPU replacement. There can be other failures on the board OVER TIME. And that is expected. That is my point, what is yours? Using any means necessary to try and sway or confuse everybody towards how you want people to think? I am not sure what you get out of that, but it seems you are hell bent on continuing the theme... Ah well. If that makes you feel any better, keep doing that.

Didnt I also help to make it possible in one way or another? Wasnt I here from the beginning too, even before you?
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What does that have to do with anything? You want more recognition? I'm sure the people here know your contributions and respect that. I never said anything to downplay them either. But this is entirely beside the point .
 
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squeept said:
Every component has a MTBF directly affected by heat. Every reflow cycle has a small chance at popcorning/delaminating something no matter how careful you are, and you may not hear it even if you're listening for it. And we may not know when a GPU is on the way out and we killed it by swapping, so it could just need another new GPU.

I know a lot of things we talk about here are specifically about getting your own unit working no matter what so the waters are muddied by arguing from two different standpoints, but from the perspective of both turning a profit AND providing a warranty, you stop after a few cycles.

edit: and to @RIP-Felix's point, I still think the TOKIN crowd is a little nuts. But that all started like 2 years ago, and I give a 2 year warranty on Franks, so that's 4 extra years since I went apeshit on everyone while it does seem to be getting worse. Plus I am literally finding it easier to replace them than to answer a hundred questions about why I didn't replace them, so I just rip them off these days (the thing I was trying to avoid by trying to stamp out the misinformation early) on the more expensive configurations. Seems like it helps justify the cost to customers as well.

edit 2: Also, in my experience, heat KILLS the TOKIN caps, so if you've reworked a board like whoa, you really should rip them off at this point.
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I appreciate that you try yo keep peace with certain people. I'd like that too but I failed. I tried and failed.
Pacorretaco said:
Thats a fallacy. Boards dont normally fail "later"... "because of too many reballs".
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Now those two lines I said about the rework cycles are being picked but even in those lines, notice how I said "normally" and "later"...
Sure, nobody likes extra rework cycles. There is "some" risk and obviously I am not saying anything new to trusted experts such as you, but I stand by what I said.

First of all, most of the dangers come from the first cycle, where the board needs to reach the highest temperature to melt the original lead free balls.
This risk is the same regardless of reball vs swap, and is where 90% of the risk is.
Once this is done, the successive cycles will be a small fraction of the risk thanks to the different solder that doesnt require as much heat. AND, the dangerous moisture should already be gone by now if it hadnt been dried properly before.
Even If a successfully reballed machine failed "later", it shouldnt be unfixable "because of the extra cycle"... It would probably have a higher chance to be fixed than an untouched board.

And is not like a popcorning or delamination would make the thing fail "later"... If that happens, the rework unfortunately went wrong (not successful), and the story ends there.

In fact I'd say that when reworks go wrong... Is not because of "too many reballs". Normally is the opposite. Not enough reballs, not enough practice...
Thats how people that never reballed... Tried to swap straight away and messed up
 
Pacorretaco said:
I appreciate that you try yo keep peace with certain people. I'd like that too but I failed. I tried and failed.

Now those two lines I said about the rework cycles are being picked but even in those lines, notice how I said "normally" and "later"...
Sure, nobody likes extra rework cycles. There is "some" risk and obviously I am not saying anything new to trusted experts such as you, but I stand by what I said.

First of all, most of the dangers come from the first cycle, where the board needs to reach the highest temperature to melt the original lead free balls.
This risk is the same regardless of reball vs swap, and is where 90% of the risk is.
Once this is done, the successive cycles will be a small fraction of the risk thanks to the different solder that doesnt require as much heat. AND, the dangerous moisture should already be gone by now if it hadnt been dried properly before.
Even If a successfully reballed machine failed "later", it shouldnt be unfixable "because of the extra cycle"... It would probably have a higher chance to be fixed than an untouched board.

And is not like a popcorning or delamination would make the thing fail "later"... If that happens, the rework unfortunately went wrong (not successful), and the story ends there.

In fact I'd say that when reworks go wrong... Is not because of "too many reballs". Normally is the opposite. Not enough reballs, not enough practice...
Thats how people that never reballed... Tried to swap straight away and messed up
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Before criticizing other people's attempts, don't forget to mention you have never built a rework station equipment and your own reballing experience is nearly zero.
 
DeadEnd said:
You are using big words again to attempt to discredit me, but the fact is none of what I did or said actually changes anything. The 40nm swap is still a better alternative than keeping old GPU and everybody knows that. Original example, again , is not an excuse to discredit the idea of GPU replacement. There can be other failures on the board OVER TIME. And that is expected. That is my point, what is yours? Using any means necessary to try and sway or confuse everybody towards how you want people to think? I am not sure what you get out of that, but it seems you are hell bent on continuing the theme... Ah well. If that makes you feel any better, keep doing that.

What does that have to do with anything? You want more recognition? I'm sure the people here know your contributions and respect that. I never said anything to downplay them either. But this is entirely beside the point .
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I was not discrediting you. You are the one discrediting yourself with your obsession of becoming my enemy for some reason.
You also picked that last part of my comment which triggered you even if that was not the meaning of it. Sure, maybe I could have typed that more carefully without even mentioning your name, knowing you would inevitably misinterpret and get angry because that's all you see with your hate goggles.
truemaster said:
ok guys looks like we have 2 different opinions about the 90nm gpu my self felix and dead end strongly believes that the bga is for replace. but the otherside of people that believe the reball is a permant fix they have the right to believe so its not a crime. but heres a neutral and logical answer if yours ps3 has a 3034 (gpu error) what would you do? reball the chip? or change it with a working one? and since there is a way to solder back a newer made gpu that produce less heat, cosumes less power and the phat heatsing can keep it twice as cooler compared to slim why not change it with 40 nm? for a peace of mind? reball the same gpu can be a two side blade, and replacement with a known working one or newer one would be my choice and that not only for ps3 but on anything with bga issues as long the said bga is not married to motherboard as the cpu of ps3-xbox 360. reaaly now continue to argue is pointless lets accept that we have different opinions and be done with it
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Pacorretaco said:
I appreciate that you try to make peace (theres already peace by the way), but I need to reply fast because I dont want people to get confused like last time.

That may or may not be "neutral" or "logical" but is certainly not an "answer".
Because it has nothing to do with the discussion. Never had... People were always free to do what they want or what they think is "best" or "more practical" for them.

But that "peace of mind" may be due to fear of something that is not that well understood...
Peace of mind didnt which work so well for you in particular, when your board failed shortly after anyway... After the the 40nm RSX replacement from Deadend.
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That was the full message of which the last part triggered you. Maybe not my most carefully typed message but at no point was I suggesting that the board failed "because it came from Deadend". No, the board you delivered was one of the first SUCCESSFUL! 40nm swap which is no easy feat. If it failed later was just some unpredictable bad luck...

But now notice the first part of the message which you skipped. I was foreseeing something that like this would happen and tried to prevent it early... Obviously I failed but you can see...

I was not "discrediting the frankenstein" either... Why would I? As I said everyone is free to do what they consider "best" or "more practical" as always. I was not discussing the possible "benefits" or "practicality" of the swap.

I was just here to try to understand better why these machines fail and how.
See if the paranoias and "peace of mind" about certain things are always justified and why... In this case it wasnt. That was the point.

What does that have to do with anything? You want more recognition? I'm sure the people here know your contributions and respect that. I never said anything to downplay them either. But this is entirely beside the point .
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It matters because you are trying to put a a target on top of my head as if I were some kind of "public enemy", "the enemy of the frankenstein" and all that... When is not true or fair. Why would that be the case?
 
Pacorretaco said:
I was not discrediting you. You are the one discrediting yourself with your obsession of becoming my enemy for some reason.
You also picked that last part of my comment which triggered you even if that was not the meaning of it. Sure, maybe I could have typed that more carefully without even mentioning your name, knowing you would inevitably misinterpret and get angry because that's all you see with your hate goggles.


That was the full message of which the last part triggered you. Maybe not my most carefully typed message but at no point was I suggesting that the board failed "because it came from Deadend". No, the board you delivered was one of the first SUCCESSFUL! 40nm swap which is no easy feat. If it failed later was just some unpredictable bad luck...

But now notice the first part of the message which you skipped. I was foreseeing something that like this would happen and tried to prevent it early... Obviously I failed but you can see...

I was not "discrediting the frankenstein" either... Why would I? As I said everyone is free to do what they consider "best" or "more practical" as always. I was not discussing the possible "benefits" or "practicality" of the swap.

I was just here to try to understand better why these machines fail and how.
See if the paranoias and "peace of mind" about certain things are always justified and why... In this case it wasnt. That was the point.


It matters because you are trying to put a a target on top of my head as if I were some kind of "public enemy", "the enemy of the frankenstein" and all that... When is not true or fair. Why would that be the case?
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Yea yea. Here's the thing though, you seem to be deliberately collecting and highlighting examples of unsuccessful swaps while omitting the full disclosure of what actually went on. In my case, you know as much as I told you. And I am afraid you have misunderstood (or pretend to misunderstand) a lot of it. Now , I shouldn't have to explain myself to you, but since you are getting it all wrong. I will try once again.

Using stories of my failed boards as some sort of proof of unreliability of the frankies is simply misleading . The boards I killed due to moisture never stood high chance because they popcorned during the 90nm lift. I attempted to install 40nm on them anyways, wishfully thinking there was no significant damage . But sadly there already was. The resulting errors on them had nothing to do with RSX. If it had worked, it would already have been another compromised board that could fail later on due to damage in the first cycle. And that is purely because I never perfected the procedure. I never claimed that I did. I kept trying but there are myriad of things that can cause it to popcorn on the amateur equipment. Moisture is one of them, but perhaps the new jig was another cause. Too many tight clamps keeping it in place could have been the issue. Perhaps , thermocouples aren't precise enough either. These boards are highly fragile and tuning the machine to perfection for them is not that simple. Baking is a must for japanese boards (I took it seriously after the fact, but didn't have the energy to deal with it anymore). So the japanese boards I worked on (apart from the truemaster's one ) were not successful to begin with. And no, you can't use these examples to say - "well, see, that's what happens when people go around swapping components". You are pulling that example to fit your narrative. What I told you in discord should not be used for statistics, even because I don't have enough successful experience for these type of things.

Now while truemaster's board could be called a success, there was always a risk of it not lasting because of the amount of reballs it had. The board also became deformed due to the bad jig. And of course, you are trying to downplay the fact that "the amount of reballs should not affect it", "it's either a success or not, it shouldn't fail later. It's just random bad luck if it gives out later", which is not how it works. It's simple common sense that heat cycles can degrade components. You can't just flat out claim that it doesn't affect anything. Clearly, the amount of reflows affected the sensor and most likely the chip itself. The board being deformed could've played a part as well. I myself didn't quite realize at the time . However, all these flops can happen because I'm a hobbyist, I don't have expensive machines to always get it right the first time. I have learned the steps and showed that the results will be good once it's done right. But I can never claim my swaps in particular will be 100% reliable. At least not yet. Not because it's a bad idea replace the darn thing, but because I myself have not perfected the procedure. The people who have should be used as examples. Not me.

So your devious attempts to use my and Felix's experience to reinforce your ideas are entirely misleading and stand no ground. You just want to create more confusion and cause people to question common sense. And I'm not putting a target on your head in any way, that's your own fantasy. But I don't approve when you display me in bad light to prop up your points. Make your own reballs /swaps and then come back to talk about the risks and reliability.
 
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DeadEnd said:
Using stories of my failed boards as some sort of proof of unreliability of the frankies is simply misleading
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I agree.
However that's not what I was doing. I am not trying to say they have to be unreliable. I am not discrediting them and I am not the enemy of the frankenstein.

My point was... That the 40nm chip is not the determining factor for the reliablility of these machines. Is just not that simple... Many more things are at play, and not all of them are predictable.
Is not as simple as... put 40nm instead of 90nm and it will last longer. Yeah maybe... Probably... But maybe not

(Just an example)
If @truemaster or somebody wanted "peace of mind"... Instead of being paranoid about the 90nm... Better idea at least is grab the eid_root_key and keep the data secure.
That way when his 40nm board failed anyway, Victor wouldnt have had to transplant all the chips from the motherboard to recover the data.
 
Pacorretaco said:
I agree.
However that's not what I was doing. I am not trying to say they have to be unreliable. I am not discrediting them and I am not the enemy of the frankenstein.

My point was... That the 40nm chip is not the determining factor for the reliablility of these machines. Is just not that simple... Many more things are at play, and not all of them are predictable.
Is not as simple as... put 40nm instead of 90nm and it will last longer. Yeah maybe... Probably... But maybe not

(Just an example)
If @truemaster or somebody wanted "peace of mind"... Instead of being paranoid about the 90nm... Better idea at least is grab the eid_root_key and keep the data secure.
That way when his 40nm board failed anyway, Victor wouldnt have had to transplant all the chips from the motherboard to recover the data.
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My god, you are a relentless troll and engaging with you is a waste of time. Once again back to the same old story. "It's not that simple" "It's too impredictable" . Whoever said the new chip s be-all end-all solution? That was never the argument. That's something only YOU keep talking about and continue to dig at every example to push your agenda.

The mods should clean up this thread indeed.
 
Octal450 said:
Gentlemen... I fail to see what sense this argument has.

I suggest to return to the topic at hand!

Kind Regards,
Josh
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Hey Josh I have an Xbox 360 Jasper motherboard with Short that dont start up Nothing, dont has any Light, I know Nothing about Eletrical Measurements SO i cant fix short But Do has You Interest in that Board??? Can you give me an working ps3 board in exchange to my xbox Jasper board????

Edit: i'm from brazil.
 
Octal450 said:
Gentlemen... I fail to see what sense this argument has.
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It doesn't make much sense, but I find it highly entertaining.

tenor.gif


OTOH, I value both of your opinions and get along with you both separately. Paco gets on my nerves with his sarcastic remarks sometimes, but he's not always being a troll. You 2 do seem to push eachothers buttons and I would like the community to retain both of your voices. And if this continues, the toxicity will lead one or both of you to leave. Or worse make onlookers afraid to engauge.

So it's time to shake digital handz and make up.
 
RIP-Felix said:
It doesn't make much sense, but I find it highly entertaining.

tenor.gif


OTOH, I value both of your opinions and get along with you both separately. Paco gets on my nerves with his sarcastic remarks sometimes, but he's not always being a troll. You 2 do seem to push eachothers buttons and I would like the community to retain both of your voices. And if this continues, the toxicity will lead one or both of you to leave. Or worse make onlookers afraid to engauge.

So it's time to shake digital handz and make up.
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Yes dad! Lmao
 
Nope. There is one ebay seller that had 40nm NOS (acutally NOS). He was able to restock it several times, but he said that they were very hard to find and that he didn't think there would be another restock...then he found some and restocked! Lol.

Those restockes were about a month or 2 apart. And it's been about that long now. So I doubt there will be many more if there is another. And if there is, there are a number of people watching it waiting to buy up the whole lot. So it will likely sellout immediately.

Point is, going forward it will require sacrificing or salvaging them from slims.
 
I just had another 40nm swap where I think the syscon changes were wrong (EB versus EC). I'm starting to put exact model numbers of RSX swaps on my sheets, so I can rule out dyslexia and clear it up eventually.

In the meantime, just be aware that if your swap doesn't work at first, you should try doing the syscon changes for the other models and see if any of them work.
 
Would love to do this, but I have no experience with reballing or whatever its called, and extremely little soldering experience.

Is there someone I could pay to do this online? How much would it even cost?

EDIT: Looks like Computer Booter can do it. Guess I'll go to him when my CECHA breaks.
 
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