Help with rsx/CPU temp

R

Realrj

Member
Hey guys my phat PS3 is really old but I decided to give it a go recently. I noticed that it was overheating and turning off with three beeps and the red led keeps blinking even after that so i decided to replace the thermal paste.

Today, even before doing that, I noticed that webman detects my my rsx temperature as being only 2°C , and that is clearly wrong. The CPU is always around 65 when on xmb or 80 when playing.

I disassembled it and cleaned and reapplied the thermal paste, but the problem persists.

I don't really think the CPU at 80°c should be enough for it to turn off straight away. And the red keeps showing 2°C

Not really sure what can be happening or how to resolve it :(

Please help
 
Here you have the temperature screen.
20181104_145544.jpg
 
The 2ºC looks very weird (because is imposible, is not real, even with fan at 95% speed), i think first thing you should try to identify is if the problem is caused by software or hardware
So... have you tryed to reinstall firmware, and webman, etc ?
If is still displaying 2ºC after a fresh software reinstallation i have an idea related with hardware, but i dont like it much to be honest, at this point my bet is that is caused by software
 
sandungas said:
The 2ºC looks very weird (because is imposible, is not real, even with fan at 95% speed), i think first thing you should try to identify is if the problem is caused by software or hardware
So... have you tryed to reinstall firmware, and webman, etc ?
If is still displaying 2ºC after a fresh software reinstallation i have an idea related with hardware, but i dont like it much to be honest, at this point my bet is that is caused by software
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your input.

I tried reinstalling webman but the issue persisted. Is there a way for me to completely reinstall rebug over another installation of rebug?

I'm sorry if those are silly questions but I've been away from the PS3 scene for a looong time.
 
So I just need to run the installed for the same version I have? It won't tell me that that version is already installed? :)
 
Wooow now I feel dumb :lemo: thank you very much, I'll try it when I get back from work and will post what happened here. It may help someone else, or not

Thanks buddy
 
And have you tryed other homebrew apps that shows temperature to see if all them are displaying the RSX at 2ºC ?
Irisman, multiman, rebug toolbox, etc... dunno
 
Yes. I checked rebug toolbox as well. But I guess the toolbox is picking up that information from the same place webman does, so if it's not hardware, it can be the rebug cfw.

If it is indeed a hardware fault, I don't know what to do, cause the system works, games work fine, PS3 titles run smoothly (except PS2 ones due to overheating, but that's another thing I'm trying to sort).
 
Which PS3 model is it, CECH-???? (fill the question marks with the PS3 model)

The way how it works is long to explain, im going to try to resume it in few words
The main thermal sensors are inside CELL and RSX (so we can say are made by IBM and NVIDIA)

Next to the CELL and RSX (located the most closer posible) there are 2 chips named "thermal monitors" that are working as a "translator" of the thermal signals
This thermal monitors are easy to identify because you are going to see 2 lines that goes under CELL/RSX. That lines connects the internal CELL/RSX "thermal sensors" with the external "thermal monitors" chips

And the thermal monitors are connected in "cascade" to a 2-wires data line that works a bit like USB... you know in a 2-wires USB cable you can connect multiple USB devices (by using USB hubs), and all the USB devices are going to use the same 2 data lines
The concept is the same with the PS3 thermal monitors, every thermal monitor is given an unique ID and the data sent by it is paired with his ID... so the component at the other side that receives the data knows which thermal sensor sent it

Then, the component that receives the info at the other side is the syscon chip, so basically we have:
Thermal sensor (inside RSX) ---> thermal monitor ---> syscon
Syscon monitors the sensors in real time with a precission of miliseconds, and based on the values applyes some kind of algorithm to calculate the fan speeds

What webman and other homebrew apps does is to use a couple of syscall to communicate with syscon
With one of them you can make a "query" to syscon and returns the temperature of CELL/RSX
And with the other you can "set" a fan speed (bypassing the fan speed syscon decided to use)

-------------------------------
So...
This is really weird, your PS3 is a very rare case
I guessed syscon had some mechanism to identify if the thermal monitors was faulty and in that case it should not allow to turn on the PS3

In your case it seems the shared "data lines" in between syscon and the "thermal monitors" is working fine (otherway the CELL temperature should not display either)
So the problem could be either... the "thermal monitor" chip located externally next to RSX... or the sensors inside RSX
Or maybe the motherboard was hitted/scratched and a data line was cutted
Or maybe you have that thermal monitor with some pins in shorcut, because either:
-dust with metal particles
-covered with conductive thermal paste
-tiny solder balls moving around inside your PS3 and decided to lay over the pins
-an "orpahn" small wire from previous solder jobs

So well... my suggestion is the next time you open the PS3 take a magnifyer glass/loupe and take a good look at the thermal monitors
Also, just incase, you can use alcohol and a toothbrush... to clean the thermal monitor pins by brushing them

I made a couple of photos of the thermal monitors of a CECH25-xx, are the squared chips with 8 pins veeeeery close to CELL/RSX
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Thermal
 
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Awesome tutorial :) great help

Thank you very much buddy. As soon as I get home I'll start taking it apart and will investigate further

I'll let you know ;)
 
Btw, after thinking in it... the 2ºC should not cause a "panic mode" at syscon... because it can happen in real world
The PS3 manual have a warning about using the PS3 in enviroments in between 5ºC and 35ºC (ambient temperature)
But lets say... if you are in siberia, iceland, etc... it can happen to have an ambient temperature of 2ºC and i guess the PS3 should boot
Is too close to the limit though, because if the PS3 is at 0ºC it means is frozen, literally, lol

Anyway... i guess what i mentioned in the previous post about syscon having some mechanism to avoid the PS3 to turn on if one of the temepratures is so low is not true
I wonder what could happen if the temperature is 0ºC though :eek:

And btw.... you always see the 2ºC exactly ?
If you always see 2ºC.... maybe is because the thermal monitor is sending this vaue as a "fallback" (in other words... is the minimal value posible is going to send at any time)
If this is true it means the "thermal monitor" is working fine, and the problem is either the sensor inside RSX (that went fryed), or the 2 lines that goes out of RSX to the "thermal monitor" that are cutted or in shorcut
 
Yeap, mate. It says 2° c constantly, doesn't even flicker to 3° at a give point. Completely frozen on that value.

Yeah, I guess it may be right.
I did try and play a PS2 game a few days ago and the PS3 completely shut down out of nowhere and then kept red loght blinking, but after a hard boot it came back up, maybe it got like this after that :/
 
Another btw (for the record), i made a mistake when i said there are 2 lines that goes out of CELL/RSX to the thermal monitor
Is only 1 line, because the other line is ground (so the ground of the sensor is connected together with a lot other ground lines)
it can be seen in this photos:
This one for CELL
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/File:Texas_Instrument_Remote_Junction_Temperature_Sensor_TMP411A.jpg
And this one for RSX
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/File:Texas_Instrument_Remote_Junction_Temperature_Sensor_TMP411B.jpg
 
Realrj said:
Yeap, mate. It says 2° c constantly, doesn't even flicker to 3° at a give point. Completely frozen on that value.

Yeah, I guess it may be right.
I did try and play a PS2 game a few days ago and the PS3 completely shut down out of nowhere and then kept red loght blinking, but after a hard boot it came back up, maybe it got like this after that :/
Click to expand...
Well, open the PS3 and check what i said about "garbage" around the thermal monitor pins doing a shorcut... or some scratch near it

If you dont find anything then close the PS3 and "make a good plan"
If the culprit of the problem is the sensor inside RSX (so is imposible to repair unless you replace RSX) i think there is a way to fix it... by adding a sensor externally

Im thinking in this kind of sensors used in PC that are like a "probe" you need to locate under the metal heatsink
xspc-10k-ohm-flat-thermal-sensor-2.png

Note there are only 2 wires (and one of them is ground)
So you can solder the ground wire to some shared ground area (easy solder because you can choose the easyest place to solder)
And the other needs to be connected to a pin of the "thermal monitor"

Is a guetto fix, but i think it could work :)
 
Well buddy . After turning it on yesterday before doing all that, she just went ylod after a few minutes :( I opened her up and checked everything, apparently it was the overheating on the RSX :(

Now I need to find a replacement unit.

In your experience (which is a lot) whats the best model to get nowadays and that's capable os running rebug with cobra and PS2 emulation compatibility.

Thank you so much for your help earlier
 
Auch, so i guess the RSX had the solder ball for that line of the main thermal sensor broken, and the thermal monitor chip next to RSX was sending the 2ºC because is the minimal it sends

Well, the good thing about that PS3 is now you are confident the problem is in RSX... so you can send it to a reballing service if you consider is worthy

If you decide to buy another PS3 try to find a slim, CECH-20xx CECH-21xx or CECH-25xx
The CECH-20xx is the less efficient of this group (a bit hotter than the other slims)

The CECH-21xx and CECH-25xx are on pair in efficiency/heat/noise
The difference is CECH-25xx doesnt have the bluray drive "paired" with the motherboard... so if at some point you have some problem with the bluray drive you can buy a new one and simply replace it, or you can remove it (if at some point the laser pickup gets fryed because the excesive use but you dont want to buy a new one then is pointless to have the bluray drive inside the PS3 shell, is better to take it out to improve the airflow... in cfw you dont need the bluray drive anyway)

The problem with CECH-25xx is before buying it you need to check at the datecode that is printed in a sticker in the plastic shell
The datecode gives you an insight of which "minimal firmware version" is supported by that PS3
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Datecode

And look at this table to compare the parts and components in the motherboard (especially the nm size of CELL and RSX and the number of RAM chips because this is what generates most of the heat... the less/smaller = the better)
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/Talk:SKU_Models#PS3_Slim
 
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