PS3 Newbie - PS3 Project

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calmitjanet

Member
Hi folks,

Long time lurker but decided to sign up and make an account.

I've decided after a long, long time away from the 'gaming' scene I wanted to play some games from my youth, namely PS1/PS2 games but with minimum fuss on a 'modern' TV and wireless controller. This basically brought me to trying to procure a backwards compatible PS3.

As if by pure magic, a friend of mine has an old CECHC04 console which has been in a box in storage for years. He thinks the Blu-Ray drive is dead but works otherwise, and this is why it was condemned. He's given me it for free, I do however need to procure a controller for it.

I've been doing research all over the forum and the wider interweb, and here's my plan - can anyone see any issues with this, or give me some suggestions or pointers?

  • Take the thing to bits. Strip it down and clean it out, and replace thermal paste and pads where required. I've been reading differing opinions on 'mods' and delidding etc, unsure if this is wise or not.
  • Replace the original 60GB? HDD with a 256GB SSD. I know that SSDs aren't really a perfect solution, but I've got an almost infinite supply of 256GB 2.5" SATA SSDs available so not really worried about lack of TRIM etc. If it dies, I'll just swap it.
  • Put the latest CFW on it. This seems like a no brainer option and I've no desire to ever play online/have the console internet connected.
  • Play PS1, PS2 and PS3 games both from 'backups' and disc... obviously I'll need to replace/fix the bluray drive first but I want to make sure it works with backups first.

Anyone suggest anything else I should do? I'm not going to be using it constantly and would prefer I spend as little money as possible.

Thanks!
 
IMO, the following should be done:

- Frankie mod with 40nm RSX - worth doing as its a BC unit, the 90nm chips are defective (same bumpgate issue that has plagued any Geforce chip from the 7000 and 8000 series.)
- CPU delid and repaste (either liquid metal or thermal paste)
- BD-410 deck remarry (CECHJ and CECHK decks up to BMD-011 PCBs, they work on older CECHA/B/C/E/G units as they use the same large ribbon cable - I have personally owned a CECHC03 that has had such a 410 deck remarried to it. The ones that do not work on these are anything starting from BMD-021, as it uses the smaller ribbon cable that is present on CECHL/M/P/Q units.)
- 1TB HDD (I wouldn't stick a SSD in there honestly, the PS3 doesn't know TRIM as far as I remember.)

Optional: black CECHB trim in place of chrome
 
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I'm not too interested in hardware mods in all honesty. I'm not fussed about it dying after a while - the console was free and it's really just for something to mess about with. Really I'm looking for, "What can I do to prolong it without spending money" :flustered:

Frankenstein mod - too much money/effort
CPU Delid - been looking into this and it seems to be 50/50 if its worth it
BD-410 deck - again, the more I think about it the more unsure I'm actually going to even use the BD Drive, so i might just leave it broken.
HDD - I've genuinely got an almost unlimited supply of SSDs, and no hard drives. I'm just going to put an SSD in it regardless.
 
Have decided to change tactics. Going to sell this CECHC and buy a later Slim that supports full CFW. I have absolutely no desire to play games from disc natively, and would rather a slightly more reliable console to do it!
 
Yeah I'm going to get a CECH-25xx I think. It'll hopefully be new enough that it wont have as MANY issues as the CECHC, but not too new that I can't run any CFW on it. Think the CECHC plan is a bit more work than I anticipated
 
Yeah, 3.50 or 3.56 are what you should be looking for. To be on the safe side, anything CECH-25xx that has a datecode lower than 1A or 1B should work. There are some 1A and 1B units that can run CFW (min. version is reported 3.50 or 3.56) but the best bet is anything before these, when picking 2500s.
 
In addition: do not mislead minimum factory fw version with already installed version. Minimum can be easily checked. It is important because those have old boot loader which is hacked while newer have newer which isn't and for them left only HEN (which BTW it is still sufficient for Your needs).
 
All good, had done my research beforehand but thanks anyway guys.

I got my hands on a CECH-2503A, date code 0C, so Summer 2010 manufacture date with a controller and two games for 46EUR/50USD.

Swapped in a 256GB SSD, took it apart, cleaned it out and applied new thermal paste & pads, reinstall 4.90 and then installed the latest evilnat OC. Was previously idling at around 60c, now a happy 35c. Currently installing GTA V (one of the games it came with) to see what load temps we get.... fingers crossed this will do what I need it to! Thanks for the advice and guidance
 
calmitjanet said:
Was up to 3am last night messing about and playing various games - this is exactly what I envisaged! It's perfect, huge props to the devs for this.
Click to expand...
That was me when I first installed CFW; semi-obsessively customising things, installing homebrew and customising settings there, ripping my game collection etc. It's like a honeymoon period lol, where you've unlocked so much more potential in your PS3 from what you were used to for so many years :)
 
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