NewRetroRepair
Forum Noob
Backstory
A few months ago I was gifted a bunch of PlayStation 3's by a really pleasant local chap who wanted rid of them. They're all faulty CECHC03 models so I want to get as many of them up and running as I can. This has taken me down the rabbit hole of PSX-Place and tons of wonderful posts by people here with details on how they work and diagnostic techniques and so on that I've found invaluable.
Extra special shoutout to Vic, RIP Felix, Deadend and other dedicated regulars for putting so much effort and time into documenting faults, reverse engineering and producing amazing content.
The Problem
The particular PlayStation 3 I'm working on at the minute appears to have a fault somewhere in one of the power subsystems that may be preventing the system from setting ACDC_STANDBY to +3.3V to turn on the +12V_MAIN power rail.
When power is connected and the power switch on the AC port is flipped to on the PlayStation 3 will immediately beep 3 times and display a flashing red LED on the front power switch panel.
The first thing I did was to connect a UART reader and check the error logs. The error logs were populated entirely by error code 3001. I first tried a known good PSU to rule that out and it was the same result sadly.
This particular console did have some screw damage on the main board after closer inspection. I took the time to repair this and verified the repair by using a multimeter to confirm continuity on the appropriate jumper wires. I also checked that there are no shorts between traces to ensure the repair is good.
The damage shown above was in the area close to the +12V connector prongs, very close to the +5V connector on the PS3 motherboard. You can see that in the below image circled in red.
I went ahead and repaired the damage and cleared out the hole to ensure that none of the layers are shorted to each other. The damage only went as deep as the second layer ground plane. I verified this with a multimeter. A picture of the cleared hole can be viewed below. Note that I created a sort of V shape in the hole to prevent layers from shorting out on each other.
I then went ahead and filled the hole with fresh UV conformal coating and cured it once I was satisfied with the result and bridged the broken traces. I left the top middle trace as it's just a ground plane and has continuity.
Testing Results
After speaking with RIP Felix he suggested that I focus on the 5V power subsystems to make sure that the correct voltages are being generated as these are critical to the formation of ACDC_STANDBY. I did this and the results were inconclusive. Each subsystem that is derived from +5V_EVER is within spec with the exception of +1.8V_VDD_MEM which has 0V output. I used the helpful voltage tree provided by RIP Felix
IC6020 +3.3V_MK_VDD: 0v Input, 0v Output - Actual (5V Input is actually +5V_MISC and not +5V_EVER) so the diagram above needs an update!
IC6009 +3.3V_THERMAL: 5V Input, 3.3V Output - Actual
IC6006 +1.8V_EVER: 5V Input, 1.8V Output - Actual
IC6005 +3.3V_EVER: 5V Input, 3.3V Output - Actual
IC6302 +1.8V_VDD_MEM: 0v Output - Actual.
At this point I'm a little lost. I tried injecting 3.3V using an external power supply at ACDC_STANDBY and this brought the 12V rail live however the PlayStation 3 still refused to respond to syscon command `bringup`
Does anyone have any suggestions on where else I should be looking on the board?
A few months ago I was gifted a bunch of PlayStation 3's by a really pleasant local chap who wanted rid of them. They're all faulty CECHC03 models so I want to get as many of them up and running as I can. This has taken me down the rabbit hole of PSX-Place and tons of wonderful posts by people here with details on how they work and diagnostic techniques and so on that I've found invaluable.
Extra special shoutout to Vic, RIP Felix, Deadend and other dedicated regulars for putting so much effort and time into documenting faults, reverse engineering and producing amazing content.
The Problem
The particular PlayStation 3 I'm working on at the minute appears to have a fault somewhere in one of the power subsystems that may be preventing the system from setting ACDC_STANDBY to +3.3V to turn on the +12V_MAIN power rail.
When power is connected and the power switch on the AC port is flipped to on the PlayStation 3 will immediately beep 3 times and display a flashing red LED on the front power switch panel.
The first thing I did was to connect a UART reader and check the error logs. The error logs were populated entirely by error code 3001. I first tried a known good PSU to rule that out and it was the same result sadly.
This particular console did have some screw damage on the main board after closer inspection. I took the time to repair this and verified the repair by using a multimeter to confirm continuity on the appropriate jumper wires. I also checked that there are no shorts between traces to ensure the repair is good.
The damage shown above was in the area close to the +12V connector prongs, very close to the +5V connector on the PS3 motherboard. You can see that in the below image circled in red.
I went ahead and repaired the damage and cleared out the hole to ensure that none of the layers are shorted to each other. The damage only went as deep as the second layer ground plane. I verified this with a multimeter. A picture of the cleared hole can be viewed below. Note that I created a sort of V shape in the hole to prevent layers from shorting out on each other.
I then went ahead and filled the hole with fresh UV conformal coating and cured it once I was satisfied with the result and bridged the broken traces. I left the top middle trace as it's just a ground plane and has continuity.
Testing Results
After speaking with RIP Felix he suggested that I focus on the 5V power subsystems to make sure that the correct voltages are being generated as these are critical to the formation of ACDC_STANDBY. I did this and the results were inconclusive. Each subsystem that is derived from +5V_EVER is within spec with the exception of +1.8V_VDD_MEM which has 0V output. I used the helpful voltage tree provided by RIP Felix
IC6020 +3.3V_MK_VDD: 0v Input, 0v Output - Actual (5V Input is actually +5V_MISC and not +5V_EVER) so the diagram above needs an update!
IC6009 +3.3V_THERMAL: 5V Input, 3.3V Output - Actual
IC6006 +1.8V_EVER: 5V Input, 1.8V Output - Actual
IC6005 +3.3V_EVER: 5V Input, 3.3V Output - Actual
IC6302 +1.8V_VDD_MEM: 0v Output - Actual.
At this point I'm a little lost. I tried injecting 3.3V using an external power supply at ACDC_STANDBY and this brought the 12V rail live however the PlayStation 3 still refused to respond to syscon command `bringup`
Does anyone have any suggestions on where else I should be looking on the board?
