My 60gb PS3 Fat Preservation Project.

[dashv]

I just recently picked up a 60gb PS3 fat with hardware PS2 backward compatibility.

It runs perfectly except the fan runs loud as hell on the XBM. It's way louder than my PS3 fat without BC.

I almost returned it. But it does play fine. Even when the fan is going crazy the entire console is only barely warm near the cpu. No YLOD or anything. So I've decided to try to fix the noise.

I'm following guides provided here:

http://www.squidoo.com/3-tips-for-a-cooler-running-and-greener-ps3-system-models-cecha01-cechg01-

Specifically I:

• Replaced the Stock 60gb drive with a 500gb 7200rpm drive. (Spoiler - made no difference)
• Replaced the Stock Power Supply with the APS-226 model. (Spoiler - supposedly cooler and more efficient. Made no difference for me.)
• Replaced the OEM 15 blade fan with an OEM 19 blade fan from a 40gb (Spoiler - supposedly quieter and moves more air. Made no difference for me.)
• Replaced the OEM thermal paste with ARCTIC MX-4 Carbon-Based Thermal Compound (Spoiler - supposedly pulls heat off the CPU more effectively thereby preventing the lead free solder from getting too hot, melting, and shorting (YLOD). This actually seemed to help but is tricky to get exactly right.)

My hope is all this effort will bring the fan noise to within tolerable levels and preserved my investment so I can retire my non-BC ps3 phat. I also hope to avoid the YLOD.

I see a lot of mixed experiences with this. So I decided to document my own.

Update: 8/6/2014

Thermal paste and 19 blade fan arrived today so I installed them both. For the thermal paste I used the pea method. Put a glob of thermal paste about the size of a pea (I did 2x the size of a pea) on the die then let the pressure of the heat sinks spread it out as I screwed them back down.

I then booted the PS3 to the XMB and just sat there going left and right on the controller to whip the menu back and forth.

End result. The fan went to level 3 within 5 minutes and was just as loud as the 15 blade fan. As far as airflow I can't really tell if it's actually any better.

Here is a picture of the 15 and 19 blade OEM fans side by side:



I hope when the power supply arrives it's significantly cooler. Because the stock psu runs hotter than a Vegas hooker and could very well be the reason the fan runs so much.

As the fan is flying like a bat out of hell the actual board and heatsink assembly are perfectly cool to the touch leading me to believe the cpu and gpu are cooling just fine.

Update: 8/9/2014

APS-226 power supply arrived today. Installed it and the fan went to level 3 within 5 minutes.

While it takes a bit longer for this PSU to heat up, my experience is it can get just as hot as the original one after less than 15 minutes of gaming. I beat the first mission in infamous. Before it became hot enough to feel like it might burn me.

Saddened that NONE of these "upgrades" change the noisy fan situation I read some more and learned that many believe that the thermal paste on the RSX and Cell processors is crappy and needs replacing.

This is different than the thermal paste on the heat spreaders.

It's hard to explain so I'll provide pictures.

This is what the CPUs look like when you first pull off the fan & heatsink assembly:



The silver metal slabs are actually heat spreaders that can be removed if you are careful.

This is what the RSX looks like with the heat spreader removed:



In my case the heat paste underneath was baked on. Solid as a rock and even burnt in some places. It took me an hour to scrape it all off with an old garbage plastic credit card. Do NOT use anything metal because if you actually scratch or gouge the chips your PS3 becomes an paperweight. You want something more dense than the paste but less dense than the chips.

After cleaning it up it looked like this:



Before reapplying the ihs I applied Arctic MX 4. (Didn't get a picture of this.)

Lastly I put the spreader back on and covered it using the high-5 method:



End result is: fan level 2 in 5 minutes in the XMB. Level 3 in game. Doesn't step down from level 3 after quitting game.

Needless to say I am rather disappointed. Everything on the net regarding "upgrading" the PS3 fat to be cooler and quieter appears to be at best "your mileage may vary" or at worse complete bullshit to move overpriced used parts salvaged from otherwise worthless broken consoles.

In fact, the more I read the more it looks like changing power supplies and fans only decreases the long term stability of the system because the power supply ends up giving out due to not being powerful enough or the replacement fan draws too much.

My non bc PS3 fat runs at fan level 1 on the XMB. It will kick into level 2 in games, but drops back to 1 after quitting. It's very quiet. It seems I will not be able to enjoy the same with a launch model bc PS3 fat.

Update: 8/09/2014

Decided to remove the IHS from the cell cpu. Got everything apart tried a few methods then got worried I might damage the cpu.

Before putting things back together noticed the RSX heat spreader shifted a bit last time I reassembled it by about 2cm. I cleaned all the thermal paste off the RSX but left the paste on the heat spreader (the spreader was fused pretty good to the heatsink/fan assembly so I just nudged it 2cm back to where it should have been.

Then I did something I heard about in another forum. I covered the paste in plastic wrap and used my finger to smooth it out. After it covered the appropriate amount of surface area I put everything back together.

It's about half the amount of paste I used last time.

End result. Fan level 2 within 5 minutes. Played Megaman Collection for PS2, beat the Cut Man stage, saved and excited. After quitting the fan stepped down to level 1.

Calling it a night.

Update: 8/14/2014
A week later system still stays comfortably between fan levels 1 & 2 during XMB-idle, Blu Ray playback, PS3, PS2, and PS1 gaming.

In the end it looks like it was all about the thermal paste and how it's applied.

Updated to latest firmware and started downloading stuff from my PSN account only to discover a new problem. The ethernet port and wireless shut themselves off for seemingly no reason.

Wifi will suddenly drop connection and fail to find any access points. Ethernet port light goes dead mid blink and the connection test says no ethernet cable is plugged in (even though here is on plugged in).

I do not appear to be the only 60gb fat owner with this problem...

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Support/4-46-Update-amp-now-no-network-on-TWO-60gb-PS3-Units/m-p/43169002/highlight/false#M325872

Update: 8/17/2014

Ethernet appears to be working properly now and the reason is kind of silly.

Since I've had the system apart for 2 weeks and tinkered with it so much I never screwed the motherboard back down in the case.

The fan and heat sink were bolted down but not the whole assembly to the bottom of the case.

I think what was happening was the thermal pads on the other chips (like the ethernet controller) were not making enough contact with the metal rf shielding. The metal shielding is supposed to tightly sandwich the entire board.

Once I screwed everything back in tight the ethernet has been going for over 12 hours straight without dropping out (I have a lot of digital content to install).

So for now my restoration project is complete! I have a relatively quiet Launch day PS3 with full backward compatibility.

I hope the details I've shared help someone else out. (I'll come back later and uber detail the network errors and behavior I was seeing before I fixed it).

Update: 8/17/2016
It's been 2 years since I posted this and my PS3 is still running like a champ.

[desocietas]

looking forward to your results!

[bobster]

I'm definitely interested in this project! My girlfriend's brother gave us a broken BC PS3. I thought it was a power supply issue, but the power supply I bought to replace it didn't help... I should pursue fixing it again. Thanks for the guide!

[dashv]

Updated my progress in the top post.

[retromangia]

definitely sounds like a heat issue... i had the same problem back in the day, but never tried to fix it myself.  From what i remember reading, after lots of research, is that it's a heat issue.  Try re-applying the Thermal paste... put a nice pea size amount on the CPU itself... then use a credit card to spread it evenly about.  make sure it's not to thick.. a nice flat even layer should do the trick.

[dashv]

definitely sounds like a heat issue... i had the same problem back in the day, but never tried to fix it myself.  From what i remember reading, after lots of research, is that it's a heat issue.  Try re-applying the Thermal paste... put a nice pea size amount on the CPU itself... then use a credit card to spread it evenly about.  make sure it's not to thick.. a nice flat even layer should do the trick.

Yeah it's heat no doubt. The only question is from where? I'm convinced it's not the Cell cpu.

The RSX unit (the graphics processor) sits below the PSU.  The psu runs "burn your hand hot" even when the system isn't under load. The psu also comes into direct contact with the bottom of the RSX heatsink assembly. So the RSX cooks on two sides of the heat sink. One side the processor itself, the other the psu. Meanwhile the fan and heat sinks can only effectively cool one side (the RSX).

The heat sink for the Cell processor itself is only slightly warm. Definitely not the problem. I doubt the RSX is doing enough work at idle to generate the heat required to activate the higher fan levels.

It's worth noting I've used 3 different thermal pastes so far.

First the stock paste as applied by SONY - fan level 3 in about 5 minutes
Second Arctic Silver 3 applied with the credit card method (spread evenly and thin across the entire CPUs) - fan level 3 in about 5 minutes
Third Arctic MX4 applied with the pea method - fan level 3 in about 5 minutes

The pea method is supposedly better than the credit card method because the actual cpu cores are in the dead center of the chip. This was the method suggested by the Arctic Silver engineers themselves when asked the best way to apply it to the PS3 Cell and RSX specifically.

[retromangia]

damn! you've really done your research

nice work man.... from what your telling me... it could be the PSU.  Hopefully a new one will fix your issues.  I have faith that you will fix it!

keep us in the know

- Retro

[dashv]

damn! you've really done your research

nice work man.... from what your telling me... it could be the PSU.  Hopefully a new one will fix your issues.  I have faith that you will fix it!

keep us in the know

- Retro

It's still just me making educated guesses. I could be totally wrong.

I figure if I document everything someone like you might come along and point out stuff I overlooked or have just plain wrong. If I figure it out, hopefully my deep dive diagnoses during the upgrade process will save someone else time/money.

There are a lot of folks out there tossing out speculation and just plain BS as fact just to sell old salvaged parts and unnecessary repair/upgrade services.

Other folks are well intentioned and share what they planned to do or predicted would help but don't follow through with reporting back what the outcome was.

Then there is the fact at with so many models out there and so many firmwares having been released mileage may just vary.

I just hope I can fix the noise issue. This particular PS3 was part of a bundle I got on Craigslist. While it was a good deal. It wasn't a great deal. Especially once you count the cost of all these "upgrades". But I really want a fully bc PS3 and the YLOD scares the hell out of me since these things are not easily or cheaply replaceable.

It can't replace my existing PS3 & PS2 combo if it remains as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

You may be right about the RSX heat spreader needing to be reapplied. This picture here shows the processor in the center with four DDR 3 memory chips in the corners.

http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3/PS3-With-the-RSX-CELL-heat-sink-spreaders-removed/td-p/7080488

I need to find out if the memory can get hot enough to worry about.

If so then I may need to pea method the Cell but whole cover the RSX.

I'll wait until the PSU arrives and is installed before I try to reapply though.

[GrooDWanderer]

Oh man, reading all this is giving me flashbacks to when I completely took apart a PS3 that had YLOD to see if I could fix it. I had all the parts strewn across the conference table at work. No one believed I could put it back together and have it work. But I did, and it did... for a while. Every time I would fix it the YLOD would come back after about a month. I just kept "repairing" it. I should have changed parts out but I just ran out of patience. Good luck!!!

[dashv]

Oh man, reading all this is giving me flashbacks to when I completely took apart a PS3 that had YLOD to see if I could fix it. I had all the parts strewn across the conference table at work. No one believed I could put it back together and have it work. But I did, and it did... for a while. Every time I would fix it the YLOD would come back after about a month. I just kept "repairing" it. I should have changed parts out but I just ran out of patience. Good luck!!!

Yeah this one has never had the YLOD yet.

How did you try to fix yours without replacing parts? Did you use a heat gun?

[GrooDWanderer]

Yeah this one has never had the YLOD yet.
How did you try to fix yours without replacing parts? Did you use a heat gun?

Yeah. I used the heat gun method. I was too lazy to go buy anything for it after I "fixed" it a couple of times. I should have though.

[dashv]

Updated my results.

The only thing left I can try is popping the ihs off of the Cell cpu and applying arctic mx4 to that.

I'm not sure it's worth it.

[dashv]

Tried and aborted an attempt to remove the IHS from the Cell.

But a different application method for the thermal paste and an adjustment of the heat spreader might have fixed my problem.

[dashv]

Solve one problem, encounter another...

[dashv]

Fully working!