PS3 Frequent crashing Slim CECH 2500

L

LooseCannon

Forum Noob
I recently installed Rebug 4.86 NoBT as the wifi and bluetooth module don't work. As far as I can tell, this is working fine.

The problem is that whenever I load a game from ISO regardless of whether it's a PS2 or PS3 ISO, the game will randomly crash at different points an with differing levels of severity. All of them require the power button to be held down to power off and the some of the worst ones I have to pull the power cable to turn it off.
It's not limited to loading ISOs either, when I load up multiman and transfer files over FTP it will crash as well, the most recent one happened earlier and it powered itself off past the red standby light into nothing. I pressed the button and it came back on again but I'm pretty sure this can't be good.

Loading a game the old fashioned way lol on a disc works but only to a point, it will still randomly crash, just not as quickly and not as often.

I thought the problem may have been the hard drive so I swapped it and the problem still persists.
Are there any logs of crashes stored in the filesystem I can look at? Are there any solutions to the problem?
Or is it on it's way out for good?
 
Since the problem happens for all game formats (real disc, or ISO backup) i guess is not related with custom code, i would try reinstalling firmware and replacing hdd and all that just to be sure the software is fine

Otherway... the next suspect from hardware side i would check is the PSU, the problem could be caused because the PSU is very old and is very sensitive to heat (specially the capacitors inside it), and when it cummulates a bit of heat it fails



Edit:
I imagined a test that maybe could help you to see if the problem is caused by an overheat inside PSU
1) Remove the top PS3 plastic shell
2) Remove the top PSU plastic shell
3) Reconnect PSU in his position
4) Play normally

This way the hot air from the fan is not pushed "inside" the PSU (like in the factory design) so the PSU should be a lot more fresh
And count the time until the PS3 crashes, if the time is longer (or if the PS3 doesnt crashes) then most probably the culprit is the PSU ;)
 
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That is an interesting test, I will try that out. I suspect it's not the firmware as when I swapped the HDD I had to reinstall Rebug NoBt in order to boot.
This puzzles me as when installing a new HDD I thought it would just format it so that it could be used; I was under the impression the firmware gets installed to flash and so wouldn't need to reinstall every time I change a hard drive.

I can say that it has crashed a lot less since I swapped the HDD but does still happen.

I will report back soon after the new test.
Cheers
 
Sulfvr said:
CFW on flash is only supported on NAND consoles. The one you have is NOR which installs on HDD.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks for clearing that up.

I gave the test a go today. Fired up HAWX 2 from an ISO backup and played it for a couple of hours... No crash.
Turned it off for a while and then fired up Uncharted 1 from the disc... 5 mins in and it crashed, turning itself off. I restarted and then played it for the next few hours without incident.

In taking the PS3 apart I gave it a good clean as it was filthy inside, god knows what the previous owner had been doing!
I fired up my ISO backup of HAWX 2 and played that for a couple of hours... no crash. I turned it off for a while and then played Uncharted 1 on disc and 5 minutes in it crashed, turning itself off. I restarted and loaded the game up again and played for 3 to 4 hours with no crashing.

Could it be that it's just a random crash that I will have to live with?
 
LooseCannon said:
Could it be that it's just a random crash that I will have to live with?
Click to expand...
Nah, by now the crashes looks random, but for sure are caused by something that is "wrong"... we just need to figure what is wrong :)

Btw, the PS3 firmwares are max 256mb when installed, but only the first PS3 models allows to install the whole firmware inside the flash (because they have 2 NAND flash chips ot total capacity 256mb)
At some point sony started using a single NOR flash chip (of total capacity 16mb)... so inside flash you only have the critical files (enought to perform the first steps of the bootchain, display the recovery menu, and not much more)... and the rest of the firmware files are inside a "virtual flash" partition located inside hdd (named literally VFLASH)

When you replace or format the hdd you are killing the VFLASH :D so at the next boot the PS3 displays a warning (related with the recovery menu) that allows to install a firmware (to update the NOR flash chip contents, and to regenerate the VFLASH partition inside hdd)

The better way to format a PS3 hdd is by doing it in a PC, because this way you are deleting all the data created by the PS3, and when you connect it back to the PS3 is going to be treated exactly like a new hdd recently bought in a shop (completly empty, no sony data at all)
Otherway, if you dont do it this way it looks like the PS3 tryes to preserve some hdd data and this could cause problems (but are very unfrequent, i dont think this is your case)
Anyway... more test using different hdd's could clarify definitivelly if the problem is related with hdd

But returning to the things we are sure.... you mentioned you had the BT module dead, right ?
Maybe the problem comes from it... i mean... maybe is not completly dead (but just partially dead) and it generates some kind of interference/error from time to time (maybe related with heat)
 
sandungas said:
But returning to the things we are sure.... you mentioned you had the BT module dead, right ?
Maybe the problem comes from it... i mean... maybe is not completly dead (but just partially dead) and it generates some kind of interference/error from time to time (maybe related with heat)
Click to expand...

Possibly, I had the thought that at some points during gameplay, the game might try and look for an internet connection and try and access drivers that aren't there; causing it to crash. I wonder if I should plug the ethernet cable in while playing and see if there is any change to the frequency of crashing. I'll try it out today anyway...

Got to love the excuse for playing all day lol... Troubleshooting and testing!
 
A little update...

I played HAWX 2 yesterday, in the first 5 minutes it crashed so I restarted and played for a few hours.

Today I powered on and hadn't even loaded a game yet and it crashed. I restarted, only this time I get no display and it turns itself off. I tried a couple of times and it's the same. Sounds like it wants to work and then off. There are no yellow lights or anything, just green all the way to off...

I think it has finally borked...

It's a bit of shame as I've only had it a couple of weeks, I got a partial refund off the seller as the wifi didn't work as well. No chance of a full refund now lol.

I would be grateful if anybody has any suggestions which could be fixes.
 
LooseCannon said:
A little update...

I played HAWX 2 yesterday, in the first 5 minutes it crashed so I restarted and played for a few hours.

Today I powered on and hadn't even loaded a game yet and it crashed. I restarted, only this time I get no display and it turns itself off. I tried a couple of times and it's the same. Sounds like it wants to work and then off. There are no yellow lights or anything, just green all the way to off...

I think it has finally borked...

It's a bit of shame as I've only had it a couple of weeks, I got a partial refund off the seller as the wifi didn't work as well. No chance of a full refund now lol.

I would be grateful if anybody has any suggestions which could be fixes.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is viable for you, but you might lodge a complaint with your bank. the problem is that you might be without a debit card for like a week. I wouldn't settle for that bullshit.
 
pinky said:
I don't know if this is viable for you, but you might lodge a complaint with your bank. the problem is that you might be without a debit card for like a week. I wouldn't settle for that bullshit.
Click to expand...

I bought it through ebay, and it was going to be a massive pulava trying to get a full refund so I settled for the partial, I can't open another dispute now as I accepted the previous terms. I don't think lodging a complaint with my bank would get me anywhere in this situation.

As soon as I got it I noticed the wifi and bt weren't working but flashed it anyway not realising that I would get stuck in an update loop because that module wasn't working. It was on OFW 4.86 when I first started it up and so for me to send it back I would have to put the OFW back on and there is no way I can install it while the wifi module is knackered.

I thought the crashing might have been a software problem or at the very least an easy to fix hardware problem, if it's the power supply I can try and get a working one of them and put it in.

Might just have to chalk this one up to experience and a loss...
 
lodging a complaint with my bank is actually what paypal suggested when I found something grossly wrong with something I had bought and the time to file a complaint with paypal had passed. I bet that seller knew something was wrong with the system. in my experience, things don't just suddenly happening with a game system. it's a slow progression, though not saying that's the only way it could happen. it sounds like it's in a reasonable time frame to call in the bank. let paypal suffer the loss and try to claim it from the seller.
 
when I bought my new ps3, I lodged a complaint because games weren't working correctly. the hardware was good, but games were err'ing. it was on dex, and I couldn't figure out the reason. I finally solved all issues, then withdrew my complaint. that's how careful I am with stuff I buy on ebay.
 
pinky said:
lodging a complaint with my bank is actually what paypal suggested when I found something grossly wrong with something I had bought and the time to file a complaint with paypal had passed. I bet that seller knew something was wrong with the system. in my experience, things don't just suddenly happening with a game system. it's a slow progression, though not saying that's the only way it could happen. it sounds like it's in a reasonable time frame to call in the bank. let paypal suffer the loss and try to claim it from the seller.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, not something I thought paypal would suggest. In this case I think the seller had no idea about the problem as they told me they were going to get in touch with the person it was bought off and find out what was happening.

I wouldn't want the person I bought it off to lose out so how does the process work with the bank?
I complain to the bank who then claim the money from paypal who then tries to claim the money from the seller?

It's a new process for me as I've never had a problem on ebay before.
 
LooseCannon said:
A little update...

I played HAWX 2 yesterday, in the first 5 minutes it crashed so I restarted and played for a few hours.

Today I powered on and hadn't even loaded a game yet and it crashed. I restarted, only this time I get no display and it turns itself off. I tried a couple of times and it's the same. Sounds like it wants to work and then off. There are no yellow lights or anything, just green all the way to off...

I think it has finally borked...

It's a bit of shame as I've only had it a couple of weeks, I got a partial refund off the seller as the wifi didn't work as well. No chance of a full refund now lol.

I would be grateful if anybody has any suggestions which could be fixes.
Click to expand...
Have you tryed to turn it on now without the hdd ?, if it displays a warning text in screen it means is still alive (the powerup sequence was completed and the firmware is partially loaded)
Incase doesnt displays anything... well thats a very bad synthom... it looks you had some component about to fail and the usage of the last days killed it definitivelly

You could do a test replacing the PSU by a standard PC ATX PSU (just temporally to see if the PS3 boots with it), there are a couple of tutorials in this subforum https://www.psx-place.com/forums/hardware-mods.88/

Something a bit more radical... is to increase the bending of the metal clamp at the back of the heatsink (either for RSX, or for CELL, but better not both at the same time to be able to identify which one resurrected it)
The point is... incase you have a broken BGA solder... that additional pressure is going to allow to restore (temporally) the circuit and the PS3 could boot
This is not a solution, is mostly to have a confirmation if you really have a problem in the BGA solders of CELL and RSX

But thinking a bit in it (and returning to the BT module)... i would do that pressure test first wih the BT module, we was discussing if it could be generating some kind of interference or weird behaviour, and maybe now is the same, but whatever is doing it went worst, maybe is in internal shortcircuit

So... incase of doing some serious hardware repair (reflows, reballings, or replacing components) i would start messing around with the BT module just because we are sure it had a problem
Im not sure if the motherboard of a CECH-25xx can boot without the BT module, but incase is damaged and a reflow is not going to fix it i would start considering removing it and see if the PS3 boots without it (but i would try to ask in the forum before to be sure a PS3 can boot without it)
 
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