PS3 PS3 thermal pads

Nator

Nator

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Hi. I recently bought a used ps3 fat never opened. I took it apart to clean it and change the paste and I also have to change the thermal pads but I don't know which ones to choose. Inside the play there seem to be various types of pads of different colors, I don't know why. What kind of pads do you recommend?
I'm posting photos so you can see. There are various pads of various colors. Blacks, browns in the first photo, in the second photo a red one which if I'm not mistaken covers a bluray chip, in the third a black pad covers the southbrige, in the fourth the pink ones and underneath some strange pads with a different surface, harder they almost seem plasticized which covers the capacitors and also one which covers the syscon chip if I'm not mistaken. What is the difference between these pads? Thank you.
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Nearly all digital electrical components run better and last longer when they run colder. As a consequence it is wise to replace all the thermal pads with new and better ones that conduct heat more efficiently.

You want to get a nice 1.5mm thick thermal pad. You can buy silicon based thermal pads for cheap in large sheets and just cut them to size for the components you want to have pads on.

As far as the different colours go I would say that it is just because Sony wanted to save money and used lower quality thermal pads on components that did not need to be cooled as much, rather than just using the same type of pad on all the components
 
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Tomatarto said:
Nearly all digital electrical components run better and last longer when they run colder. As a consequence it is wise to replace all the thermal pads with new and better ones that conduct heat more efficiently.

You want to get a nice 1.5mm thick thermal pad. You can buy silicon based thermal pads for cheap in large sheets and just cut them to size for the components you want to have pads on.

As far as the different colours go I would say that it is just because Sony wanted to save money and used lower quality thermal pads on components that did not need to be cooled as much, rather than just using the same type of pad on all the components
Click to expand...
Ok regarding the silicone pads i chose arctic tp-3, i think they are good. But i still have a doubt about two types of pads present in the ps3, i'll post photos to understand. One was above the nec tokens on the bottom part, very thin to the point that i doubt it would touch the aluminum casing that covers and closes the motherboard. The other was on a chip near the HDMI output, is rigid, about 1mm thick and looks silvery. I don't know if these pads can be replaced with arctic silicone ones.







 
It is strange how the NEC/Tokin thermal pads do not touch the motherboard.
For the silvery thermal pad its probably just because they are a higher thermal conductivity than the other pads. You could keep it, or replace it if you see fit.
 
Tomatarto said:
It is strange how the NEC/Tokin thermal pads do not touch the motherboard.
For the silvery thermal pad its probably just because they are a higher thermal conductivity than the other pads. You could keep it, or replace it if you see fit.
Click to expand...
The problem is that i don't know what to replace the silver pad with, i don't know if the Arctic TP-3 pad is enough. I could put it back, but i don't know if after many years it has lost its dissipating power.
 
Tomatarto said:
You want to get a nice 1.5mm thick thermal pad. You can buy silicon based thermal pads for cheap in large sheets and just cut them to size for the components you want to have pads on.
Click to expand...
Are you sure that 1.5 mm thickness is sufficient for all applications?
 
Am going to post some conflicting information. The EEGS and VRM pads are 1mm thick. The SB and Bluray drive are 2mm. Using 1.5mm will change the pressure equation which isnt a good idea.

The pads sony used are better quality than the blue silicone pads you see online. They are fine, but not better. You can buy what sony used from mouser and digikey, but they arent cheap.

There are better quality ones available using pads made from that clay like putty you seen in PS5 an other modern consoles. Again, not cheap. And it doesnt spring back like the OG do.

My advice is to reuse the OG pads if they are still malleable. If they are dried and cracking, replace.
 
RIP-Felix said:
Am going to post some conflicting information. The EEGS and VRM pads are 1mm thick. The SB and Bluray drive are 2mm. Using 1.5mm will change the pressure equation which isnt a good idea.

The pads sony used are better quality than the blue silicone pads you see online. They are fine, but not better. You can buy what sony used from mouser and digikey, but they arent cheap.

There are better quality ones available using pads made from that clay like putty you seen in PS5 an other modern consoles. Again, not cheap. And it doesnt spring back like the OG do.

My advice is to reuse the OG pads if they are still malleable. If they are dried and cracking, replace.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately i no longer have the original pads apart from the silver one and one of the very thin ones that covered the tokins. On mouser and digikey i tried to look for generic thermal pads because i don't know the acronym of the ones used in the PS3 but they are sold in lots of 50 pieces. As for thermal putty, do you know a good one? K5 pro is recommended by advertising but many do not recommend this type of paste for thicknesses exceeding 1mm.
 
BTW 3M 5586 silicone thermal pad have been said to be identical to the OEM pads sony used, but they only have 1.6W/m-k. I did a little actual research and am going to have to redact what I said earlier a bit. There are blue ones commonly sold on Amazon and ebay that are 1.5W/m-k. Those are "slightly" worse than the OEM pad (assuming they are indeed 3M 5586). So that much is true.

However, you can get the lighter blue ones on amazon that are a bit softer and clay like. Those are 5 W/m-k. And the thermalright ones are 12 W/m-k. "Advertised." We'll just assume that's not total BS. So you can get better ones, but you should be weary that there are cheap ones that are "slightly" worse. I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker. But to return the console to OEM or better than OEM, opt for the slightly more expensive 5 W/m-k stuff. Or spare no expense and get the expensive stuff.
 
RIP-Felix said:
BTW 3M 5586 silicone thermal pad have been said to be identical to the OEM pads sony used, but they only have 1.6W/m-k. I did a little actual research and am going to have to redact what I said earlier a bit. There are blue ones commonly sold on Amazon and ebay that are 1.5W/m-k. Those are "slightly" worse than the OEM pad (assuming they are indeed 3M 5586). So that much is true.

However, you can get the lighter blue ones on amazon that are a bit softer and clay like. Those are 5 W/m-k. And the thermalright ones are 12 W/m-k. "Advertised." We'll just assume that's not total BS. So you can get better ones, but you should be weary that there are cheap ones that are "slightly" worse. I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker. But to return the console to OEM or better than OEM, opt for the slightly more expensive 5 W/m-k stuff. Or spare no expense and get the expensive stuff.
Click to expand...
oh thanks, without knowing the thermal conductivity of the originals from the previous message i expected it to be stratospheric and i was afraid that the components would overheat with the thermal pads that i wanted to use as replacements. Well then i think the thermalright or arctip tp3 (which has around 6W/mk) will be more than enough.
 
Tomatarto said:
My bad. I should have done more research on this before just jumping to conclusions.
It does make much more sense that different components would have different thicknesses as they need to all touch the chassis at different points and obviously some are taller and shorter than others
Click to expand...
I assembled it using iPad Arctic TP-3. For the sb and the gs I used two 1.5mm pads (because that's the maximum size they sell them in) so 3mm in total and i have to say that they are more than enough, maybe even too many but i wasn't sure that with 1, 5mm i would have been able to touch the casing of the mb. Same thing for BlueRay but i think 1.5 mm is enough here.
 
RIP-Felix said:
BTW 3M 5586 silicone thermal pad have been said to be identical to the OEM pads sony used, but they only have 1.6W/m-k. I did a little actual research and am going to have to redact what I said earlier a bit. There are blue ones commonly sold on Amazon and ebay that are 1.5W/m-k. Those are "slightly" worse than the OEM pad (assuming they are indeed 3M 5586). So that much is true.

However, you can get the lighter blue ones on amazon that are a bit softer and clay like. Those are 5 W/m-k. And the thermalright ones are 12 W/m-k. "Advertised." We'll just assume that's not total BS. So you can get better ones, but you should be weary that there are cheap ones that are "slightly" worse. I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker. But to return the console to OEM or better than OEM, opt for the slightly more expensive 5 W/m-k stuff. Or spare no expense and get the expensive stuff.
Click to expand...

What do you think about using K5 PRO?

 
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