PS3 (Research/Experimental) - NEC/TOKIN Capacitors Replacement - YLOD
- Thread starter Naked_Snake1995
- Start date
bazzarre
Member
thanks for the info.
my friend has a reel of these: https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Panasonic/6TCF470MAH?qs=BRzo52CZsr5kCxRPRHPmSQ==
he says they're handy for replacing the original parts in old analogue synthesizers,so i don't have to buy any.
when i switched it on i got a non flashing yellow light followed by a continuous flashing red light which,as you say,could be cancelled by
holding down the power button.the fan started and promptly stopped when i powered up so i was pretty sure it wasn't a power supply issue,subsequently tested this with my multimeter.ive still got plenty of arctic mx4 from an exocad desktop i knocked up for work so i thought i'd carry on down to the motherboard.i'd already read some of this thread and i was aware that there were many reasons for
the console being inoperable,it seemed the most likely one out of the possibilities and the capacitors are just a short drive away.
ordering stuff from overseas is a nightmare at the moment.a USB-TTL converter is £10.99 plus postage here in the UK and ive got everything but the testing stuff to hand already.
i should also point out that i love soldering,it was quite common at one time to repair your own stuff this way until tiny surface mount
technology took the fun out of everything and i really miss it.replacing the capacitors is well within my capabailities,ive always worked
on small scale stuff,hence my profession.i do appreciate the warning but i'm really not the sort to come back on here and start complaining,so don't worry!
RIP-Felix
Senior Member
Make no mistake, I have a financial incentive to see you destroy your console. The fewer BC models out there the more mine are worth. So I'm actually trying to help by crushing your illusions of grandeur. But you may be surprised by "what" I'm trying to help, not "who." You have no reason to believe this mod is appropriate for your console and we have warned you now multiple times to that effect. All the information you need to make an informed decision has been at your reading disposal already. Choosing not to read and heed is on you. It always has been. No, we're warning you again for the console's sake, not yours.
Here are my specific concerns:
If you use those caps you'll have to solder them in at an angle like the OG post. Soldering them in, being sure you don't have a cold solder joint, will be difficult using that method. Hot air or a board preheater helps, but you take the risk of popping a BGA joint if the heating isn't uniform or done in quick strikes. The reason you have to do it that way is because the caps you linked are 3.8mm tall and will contact the RF shield on SIDE B of the motherboard. I measured the clearance at 3.3mm. So the RF shield will bow 0.5mm, putting pressure on the caps when you reassemble everything. That could flex the MB, potentially causing false positives or pop a BGA joint - You might get the console to work, call me a liar, give the console back to your friends kid. Then a couple of weeks later his progress in game is lost when the console YLOD's again. His game will be stuck in the BR drive too. Friends don't give friends kids false positive PS3's! - You can cut the RF shield in that area to provide clearance. That's not a problem on the RSX side, but the CPU side has the wifi card's mounting bracket in the way. So let's hope those tokins are fine. Side A has more clearance, so they should fit fine there.
I'm not trying to scare you away from the mod. Your YLOD is just not the use case for this mod. The OP had instability in TLOU, a notoriously difficult to render game. If the bulk filtering caps are not performing to their best a YLOD will first start manifesting in intense games and progress until the console will YLOD in menu. At that point people will give up and either sell it or store it. However, we're almost always talking about a delayed YLOD (10s-5mins) or a random (only in game) or intense (only in intense games) YLOD! An instant YLOD (<1s) and Non-instant YLOD (2-10s) are almost never due to the tokins (something like 2-3% by anecdotal reports). A reball is needed 90% of the time. And the other 7-8% of the time it's a blown fuse, shorting cap, dead chip, or failing PSU. A simple cheap adapter could help prove the point, but if you don't want to spend 12 euros to help yourself there's nothing we can do to stop you. It's your property to shoot at.
I'm just telling you that your probably wasting your time and buddies caps. I would rather see you not destroy perfectly working tokins and fix the console properly. Or sell it forward to someone who will. It's worth more unbotched and deserves to be restored properly.
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patricksouza472
Member
Hey @RIP-Felix I've seen a ceramic white PS3 for sale, which would YLOD after sitting in a black screen for 15-20 seconds. I'm not actually interested in buying it, but the owner took it to a repair shop that told him the console needed reballing. Is it possible that a console in need of a reballing would stay turned on for so long before YLOD?
RIP-Felix
Senior Member
I'm not upset. Just telling it to you strait. If you decide to try the mod anyway, please update us on your progress and results. We'll help if we can.
Pacorretaco
Member
The problem is that this is just not true. Terribly untrue.
But no need to get repetitious.
Btw don't use hot air at all. It's not needed and it may cause way bigger headaches than what it solves. Especially if you are going in blindly.
There's nothing wrong with coming back and reporting what happened, be it success or disaster. In fact if everyone came back there wouldn't be so many misundestsndings and all would be great.
We are happy to help either way
Yeah, happy is happy. Don't worry. After all aren't we just a couple weird cats from far away?
As information, one of my CECHC04 with problems playing Gran Turismo 6 (shutdowns in any race) and 1 time in TLOU has 187 days of use (4500 hours) and now i found another CECHC04 that only has 20 days of use (480 hours) and Gran turismo 6 works perfectly. When i bought the 2 consoles they have good temps without change thermal paste (they were never disassembled before)... The FUNNY thing is that the 20 days used console have BD drive broken and the green led when is turned on, was blinking; the whole console looked bad
It will be for time and the degradation of the nec / tokin or something bad in the motherboard
It will be for time and the degradation of the nec / tokin or something bad in the motherboard
Today I was able to solder these 4 capacitors and 1 resistor which I broke off earlier. In addition, I soldered 16 new tantalum capacitors in place of four NEC TOKINs. I tried to solder them like damaged components with HOTAIR (thanks to which they would be soldered flat), but I gave up when at 380 degrees Celsius only a few soldered but I paid for it with flushing of the capacitor housing.
Of course, before I warmed up the plate (admittedly I used 200 degrees celcius but I was afraid to heat more)
- The console does not freeze on the PS Store
- It used to crash when loading Battlefield 1943, now it's okay
- The Last of Us: when I started the game just check if there are no glitchy as before, I left the game paused for 40 minutes -> the console turned off. Then I played over 2 hours non-stop -> everything OK.
Tomorrow fresh thermal paste, completely screwed housing and further tests. In general, thanks to this site, the console after 5 years in the closet will be useful for something
PS. The first picture is after soldering but before cleaning the motherboard from Flux. That is why there are such dark spots in 2 places.
One year after the repair (replacement of capacitors, new paste under IHS), my console died yesterday while watching Netflix.
I turn on the console -> I hear the fans -> green with yellow LED -> red flashing LED.
Only once since yesterday I managed to turn it on for 30 seconds but it fell completely.
Any ideas? maybe try to do a reflow?
SeanRanklin
Member
Are we now on the theory that the necs ARENT the problem? I just watched Mystics PS3 video recently released and he mentioned that the team on this forum are now leaning away from the necs??
marciolsf
Member
Pretty much! But the "new" main message is that before you go ahead and replace anything, you absolutely need to get the syscon error codes, and that will tell you what the true root causes are.
Ylod are caused by a number of different failures (even a fuse!), so getting the error code should always be the first step.
So:
- I opened the console
- I re-soldered the capacitors at CELL (they were a bit crooked, a year ago I was just learning how to solder)
- I did CELL and RSX reflow (hot air, IHS on chips, 230 degrees Celsius for about + - 3 minutes per chip)
The console is working again. If it dies again in the future, then I will add a Syscon cable
I ask in addition - has anyone tried to use liquid metal between the chips and the IHS? My model is CECHG04 and it gets quite hot despite delide (Netflix for 30 minutes - CPU 68 degrees and RSX 58 degrees)
I had a CECHG04 that I bought new in 2008 and it broke in 2012 playing GTA IV and sounding like a plane, the motherboard deforms and buckles in the heat and cold, it is the worst PS3 fat model.. so probably were the solder balls from cpu/gpu, did a reflow in 2012 but in the oven
RIP-Felix
Senior Member
Congrats on getting it working again!
Could you confirm a few thing for my spreadsheet? I performed an exhaustive review of this thread, page by page meticulously recording everyone's experience and results. If you could confirm a few details that would be great...
- I have you down originally reporting success performing a tantalum mod (3/10/2020). Your console had been "broken" for 5 year previously. Based on the context of your wording from your OG post on page 79, I inferred your YLOD would occur shortly after startup (either instant or 1-10s), not a random or intermittent YLOD that would only occur in menu doing normal stuff or playing games. If you remember could you please clarify that for me please? These are important details.
- Did you also reflow the RSX or CPU (originally)? It doesn't sound like you did, but about a year is how long most people say a reflow lasts, so I wanted to confirm that the only change you originally made was the tantalums. On the other hand the BGA in these PHAT models are quite susceptible to failure...so It could have just been crap luck.
- Lastly, if you can remember or find the purchase order, do you remember what caps you used? I can see they are the yellow/red AVX, but they vary in ESR, which we've since determined is an important factor in longevity (if they work at all). So if you could find the link or product ID that would bet great. Those caps can vary from 25mOhms to 200mOhms ESR. The lower the better, we've found.
Anyway, the CPU has nothing around the die to worry about like the RSX does, so LM is easy to use. Just glob on excess LM to replace what soaks and seal it in with silicone so it can't evaporate. The RSX is a different beast. I suppose you could cover the SMD components on it with fingernail polish first. That would prevent them from shorting if it runs. But you still need to find a way to seal it it to prevent evaporation. But with the RAM in the corners, that's pretty hard to accomplish...
The RSX might benefit more from a liquid metal pad instead of LM. Liquid MetalPad(TM) is made by Cool Laboratories. It's an indium foil. It doesn't contain any gallium, which is corrosive to aluminum! Indium is supposed to be non-corrosive. In other words, it's supposed to be safe for aluminum heatsinks. That means it can be used between the heatsink and the IHS, which gallium in LM can't. I haven't tried this and it makes me nervous because I've been trained never to use liquid metal on aluminum. It's different in that it melts at 57C and must go through a burn in cycle to melt, settle in the microscopic groves, and then solidify in place, basically soldering the IHS to the die and/or heatsink. So long as you adjust webMAN to 56C, which will make the fan run loud for sure, the MetalPad will never liquefy again. That makes it safer to use because there's no danger of it running off and shorting other components. I'm curious to try it.
Another possibility is a graphite pad. In reality, it performs within 2C of good thermal paste (usually not quite as good, but close), despite having vastly superior thermal conductivity. So why would you want to use it, if it's worse than good thermal paste like MX-4? Because it transfers heat laterally, to the edge of the pad, much faster. This means that it wicks the heat from the center of the die to the outer edge of the graphite pad SUPER FAST. So it prevents hot spots from forming. Also it never needs to be changed and is reusable. Thermal paste needs replaced every few years, MX-4 lasts 8 years. This can be sealed up and forgotten. webMAN might work the fan a little harder to keep the temps below 68C, but you'll never have to worry about thermal paste drying out again. It'll perform the same forever (so long as you keep the dust out of the console/heatsink).
Hi. Sure I will answer
The console died in 2015. The symptoms were strange
- console set horizontally = instant YLOD
- console set vertically = it entered the XMB, there was even a sound theme but it was hanging on "waves" + YLOD. There was nothing to be done.
- Recovery Menu worked but every attempt to enter XMB = YLOD
It was only a year ago that I decided to start it and follow the guide. A year ago, I removed the NEC TOKIN and installed a total of 16 capacitors. I did a full delide. I wasn't doing a reflow. I played a month (finished all of The Last of Us) and hid it.
As for the capacitors, they were probably AVX 470uF 45mOhm but I'm not sure
I asked about liquid metal because after delide CELL (before it I had OFW) hits almost 80 degrees in games. I am currently using the MX-4 but there is not much difference
marciolsf
Member
woah, that must have been a ton of work. Other than the documentation factor (which is great), did you glean any new insights/trends/things we missed? Anything you care to share?
RIP-Felix
Senior Member
I bought those caps myself when I fisrt heard of this thread. They didn't work for me. 45mOhms is what I got, so I bet that's right. It's still WAY too high an ESR. There is a possibility that the capacitors you are using are interfering with the power delivery enough to cause the chip to heat up. I did notice that the chips will run hot if they don't get the cleanest pwr. This is one reason that using high quality, low ESR caps is essential. However, I'm not sure that's what's causing your problem.
I have a PS3 with a CPU that runs hotter than all my other PHATs. They get hotter as they age. Probably as a result of electromigration, which will eventually kill it. Electromigration causes more heat, more heat causes more electromigration, and it cascades until the BGA fails, you might revive with a reflow/reball, but eventually the bumps on the die fail and chip is gone.
Check the resistance on the +/GND rails for the caps (where the tokins used to be). If the resistance is less than 1 it's near death. 1-2 is wounded. 2-3 is normal. 3-4 is super healthy, like new. This resistance is dependent upon the health of your caps and requires a good connection. So if they aren't soldered on perfectly they will affect the resistance and you won't be able to use the resistance you read as reliable indicator of the heath of the chips. The best way is to ohm test them directly, but you have to remove them first.
Thanks for the details. I have you marked down with "possable BGA defet" and "inconclusive" long term result. If it was freaking out just because of positioning then it must have been a precarious BGA connection. The heat from the hot air used to install the caps is probably what allowed the console to work, and perhaps mounting pressure and luck allowed it to continue working as long as it did. Definitely sounds like the BGA was at fault if the reflow was successful (at least for the recent YLOD).
When I first time install new caps i dont use hot air and console start working. So i dont have any idea
RIP-Felix
Senior Member
Well yeah, but it's not easy to explain the results in a way that would be uncontroversial. I was planning to make this a 200th page review post, but what the hell...
118 Users have attempted to fix 199 consoles on this thread (so far). The actual number is probably higher, but they have only provided details on, claimed success on, or specifically mentioned 199.
- 26% (52/199) didn't say what model they had. One user said multiple of his consoles were backwards compatible but didn't specify the model. I had to put those in the "didn't say" category.
- 27% (54/199) were COK-001 (A/B models).
- 21% (41/199) were COK-002 or COK-002W (C/E Models).
- 7% (14/199) were SEM-001 (G models).
- 5% (10/199) were VER-001 (L, M, P, & Q Models).
- 4.5% (9/199) were DIA-001 (H Models).
- 4.5% (9/199) were DIA-002 (J & K Models).
- 2.5% (5/199) were SUR-001 (21xx Models).
- 2% (4/199) were DYN-001 (20xx Models).
- 0.5% (1/199) was KTE-001 (30xx Model).
- 19% (31/166) were confirmed to work at least 2 weeks later.
- 55% (92/166) were last confirmed a YLOD.
- 25% (42/166) I marked down "inconclusive.
Before you argue marking consoles inconclusive is unfair, let me respond. Perhaps I should take everyone at their word when they say, "I did the tantalum thing and it worked!!!" Even if I did the inconclusive results + confirmed Positive results = 44% of the consoles tested. That represents all the consoles that claimed positive results, regardless of other factors. It assumes none of them will fail in the next few days when the board relaxes from the hot air they used to install the tantalums (false positives). It assumes that every positive case lasted, was thoroughly tested, and never got sold on ebay to someone who doesn't know about this thread. It assumes we got an update up on the progress of every console. Even if you accept all that absurdity…45% success rate still means the tantalum mod DOES NOT FIX the majority of consoles.
Now let's get real! Many of the inconclusive consoles probably did eventually fail, but we never got an update. Maybe it was sold. Maybe it got stored after "fixing." Another thing to note is the effect of "adulation." Users will comment on this thread simply to post positive results and thank the OP (hero worship). It's a type of response bias and will have a large influence on the statistics above, driving the percentage of success up.
On the other hand, many of the people attempting this mod are doing so with inadequate skills and equipment. Many use low quality capacitors, have cold solder joints, use too thin a gauge of bridging wires, don't troubleshoot the board before starting, and so on. These factors reduce the likelihood of a successful outcome. However, since anecdotal evidence from technitions like @squeept, @botakompong, @vyktormvmpay25 suggest that reballing is necessary in 90% of cases and that the tokins are very rare. These people have the equipment and skill to properly troubleshoot the console before attempting a fix. So if 90% are BGA defects or RSX issues, then any unskilled work in the area near the processors has a high chance of causing a BGA false positive. This means if you take any YLOD console and try the tantalum fix, it probably will work temporarily. But you won't know if it's a false positive or true fix until the console YLOD again. That could be in a few minutes, days, weeks. Generally if it lasts longer than a month with frequent use, it may have worked. But a false positive could revert in mont to a year too. It just depend on a lot of factors. This is why I always recommend you start with the SYSCON error codes first then proceed to troubleshooting. Then you know what was wrong to begin with and you're not chasing gremlins for months to come.
It's impossible to quantify the variables. However, ask yourself this, if 90% of YLOD consoles could be fixed with tantalum capacitors, is a 45% reported success rate reasonable? I think you could argue this either way. And that's why these results aren't very useful. I have been able to identify a number of myths...
Myths:
- Tokins are prone to fail.
- On Page 168 I wrote "A Retrospective Analysis of the NEC/TOKIN Proadlizer" in which I explored this topic in depth. I couldn't find any support for the idea that the NEC/TOKIN proadlizers are a defective technology. One would think that there would be ample information online about them, yet there is very little. No recalls, no technical analyses showing them to fail prematurely, nothing but the product information and the rumor. Either the internet was cleansed of the negative information, or it's a baseless claim.
- SONY Replaced the NEC/TOKINs with Tantalum capacitors, so they must have been defective. That could be true. Or, they weren't needed. The slim models began moving to tantalum starting with the CELL side on the DYN-001 in 25xx models. It's important to note that model has HF bypass caps populated on the motherboard and 7x470uF TaPol caps. The HF MLCC are 30-40x 0.1uF on data lines connecting the RSX and IO, and 24x 10uF near the TaPol and on the CPU substrate itself (which previous models lack).That coincided with the move to a smaller processor manufacturing process. The Cell_BE CPU was reduced to 65nm starting with the SEM-001 (G models). G models still had the 90nm RSX GPU and both have NEC/TOKINs, but the CPU's MLCC bypass capacitors are unpopulated. This may mean that the lower power draw or smaller mnf. Process reduced the need for them. Or they were deemed unnecessary and removed as a cost saving measure. Also, the number of switching DC/DC VRM was reduced from 3 to 2 on the RSX. That changes it's RLC characteristics and suggests that the only reason for the extra one was for PS2 HWBC. Also the APS231 power supply was more efficient since it didn't need to operate as close to its maximum output power (285W). Therefore, G models should be more reliable. If they are not, then maybe the tokins are failing.
- Heat Gun Trick (this does not tell you anything. If it does work, it more likely means you have a BGA defect requiring a reball/reflow to fix)
- Tantalum capacitors are the "real" Fix for the YLOD. Reballing isn't necessary in the majority of cases. Total myth.
- Electrolytic capacitors work (they don't. If they allow the console to boot, their high esr will burn them out soon afterwards. It's not a long term solution.)
- Instant YLOD always = Short (a shor can cause an instant YLOD, but not all instant YLOD's are due to shorts)
- A Random/Intermittent YLOD that occurs in games at certain points MUST be Bad NEC/TOKINs.
- This one "seems" particularly plausible, but again all or nothing statments like this are never true. While this is the use case for the tantalum mod and it increase the likely hood that the tantalum mod would fix your YLOD, you should still get the SYSCON error codes to rule out a 3034 that would indicate a BGA defect. And if there are 1002 errors to indicate the tokins, then you can try this mod with fair certainty it is appropriate.
The result of confidence and confirmation biases on this thread have artificially inflated the number of successful posts. People don't always respond unbiased. And I have to sift through the thread and infer the truith from what little details I'm given. The problem is that any work being done next to the RSX or CPU is likely to cause a false positive simply due to proximity. That and mounting pressures are different when you put the thermal paste and springs back on. There are too many variables to make it possible to decide. So I had to take them at their word most of the time. And because I can't separate the BGA false positives from actual success, the numbers aren't very useful.
...But yes. Technically speaking, 45% of the people who replaced their NEC/TOKINs with Tantalum caps "reported immediate sucess." That number doesn't include false positives that later failed. So at best, this mod is unlikely to fix you YLOD. More likely, it's very unlikely to fix your YLOD. The only way to know for sure is to get the SYSCON error codes.
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