My 60gb PS3 Fat Preservation Project.

[fazerco]

Thx Dash, i might need this vsome day.

[bobster]

Thanks again Dash! This was a very thorough look at what you did. You've convinced me to try and revive the dead BC ps3 my girlfriend's brother gave me to fix if I wanted to. Maybe I'll pull that out tonight. Glad to hear you got it working (somewhat) how you want now.

[dashv]

Thanks again Dash! This was a very thorough look at what you did. You've convinced me to try and revive the dead BC ps3 my girlfriend's brother gave me to fix if I wanted to. Maybe I'll pull that out tonight. Glad to hear you got it working (somewhat) how you want now.

In the end the thermal paste is what did the trick. I could easily do it again. The power supply and 19 blade fan "upgrades" seem entirely pointless and are a waste of money to me.

[DreamsDied13101]

Thanks for the write up on this issue!

My original PS3 still works except that it won't play most games past a minute or two if they are full 3d (started off only when using 3D glasses on games that supported them). Now it sometimes even overheats and shuts down on 2d games.

I have been holding off doing anything for fear I might damage it as a blu-ray / app player for my office.

[dashv]

Thanks for the write up on this issue!

My original PS3 still works except that it won't play most games past a minute or two if they are full 3d (started off only when using 3D glasses on games that supported them). Now it sometimes even overheats and shuts down on 2d games.

I have been holding off doing anything for fear I might damage it as a blu-ray / app player for my office.

Glad this info helps. The 60gb  launch model will always sound like a vaccuum cleaner. As long as you feel hot air when you put your hand behind your PS3 the fans are doing their job. If the air feels cool while the fans are running loud then that means the thermal paste is no longer doing it's job.

[DreamsDied13101]

As long as you feel hot air when you put your hand behind your PS3 the fans are doing their job. If the air feels cool while the fans are running loud then that means the thermal paste is no longer doing it's job.

I never even thought of it that way. I'm going to go try that out tomorrow morning when I get some time.

I appreciate the feedback.

I'm hoping I can just put some more paste on there and get this thing running again. I have a backlog of PS3 titles that I haven't been able to play.
I have a few original Playstations so the backwards compatibility isn't a big deal (some games run like trash on the PS3 anyway compared to the original systems).

[dashv]

As long as you feel hot air when you put your hand behind your PS3 the fans are doing their job. If the air feels cool while the fans are running loud then that means the thermal paste is no longer doing it's job.

I never even thought of it that way. I'm going to go try that out tomorrow morning when I get some time.

I appreciate the feedback.

I'm hoping I can just put some more paste on there and get this thing running again. I have a backlog of PS3 titles that I haven't been able to play.
I have a few original Playstations so the backwards compatibility isn't a big deal (some games run like trash on the PS3 anyway compared to the original systems).

Yeah. Definitely do the hand heat test first before pulling it apart. Mine was blowing cool air so the paste wasn't transferring the heat to the heat sink/fan assembly anymore and the processors were just baking.

I have spare PS2 and PS1 units as well. But nothing beats the convenience of virtual memory cards and rechargeable blue tooth controllers for PS1 & 2 games.

[davifus]

The struggle of finding a good price backwards compatible PS3...

[maximo310]

I'm trying to convince my friends to trade his fat launch PS3 for fixing his computer. The thing works perfectly fine, even though he got a slim because he thought the fat was dead. So far, he seems open to it but I'm gonna have to see how it plays out. I really just want it.

[cobraseph]

Awesome thread Dashv. i still have my 60gig. it ylod on me a couple times and before anything could get worst i updated to a super slim. but i always wanted to try and fix it. one thing i noticed was that it never ylod with the room A/C on. and never when playing downloaded games (games from my hdd) i must admit that the thermal pasting process scares me.. but if i can save the console it would be cool.

[seberhusky]

Wow, I should hire you to spiff up my old girl. Got her USED from GameStop back in '09 as a "sorry your previous console from us broke". I didn't even pick that one either, the employee just grabbed a random one and went "oh hey, you got a backwards capable one".  She still works to this day, but hasn't been used heavily since 2012 when was replaced with a PS3 Slim due to the hard drive being full and the disc grabber getting weak. I always forget how heavy these are when I pick them up. I'm like "jeezus..."

[dashv]

Wow, I should hire you to spiff up my old girl. Got her USED from GameStop back in '09 as a "sorry your previous console from us broke". I didn't even pick that one either, the employee just grabbed a random one and went "oh hey, you got a backwards capable one".  She still works to this day, but hasn't been used heavily since 2012 when was replaced with a PS3 Slim due to the hard drive being full and the disc grabber getting weak. I always forget how heavy these are when I pick them up. I'm like "jeezus..."

Just to follow up. My PS3 is still going strong. Used for at least 2-3 hours every day.

[DreamsDied13101]

I can't believe it was last October that I said I was going to undertake fixing up my FAT 60gb PS3.

I finally did it today.

All I did was pull the thing apart and dust it out. Then I applied fresh Thermal Compound on the GPU and CPU. Closed it back up and it runs flawless now. It no longer overheats and shuts itself down so I can actually play games again.

Dashv - thanks again for posting this originally to give me the idea and links to make this a reality. Now I have a cruddy 12gb system for the kiddos to use and my Backwards Compatible system is back up and running in my office!

[dashv]

I can't believe it was last October that I said I was going to undertake fixing up my FAT 60gb PS3.

I finally did it today.

All I did was pull the thing apart and dust it out. Then I applied fresh Thermal Compound on the GPU and CPU. Closed it back up and it runs flawless now. It no longer overheats and shuts itself down so I can actually play games again.

Dashv - thanks again for posting this originally to give me the idea and links to make this a reality. Now I have a cruddy 12gb system for the kiddos to use and my Backwards Compatible system is back up and running in my office!

Glad to hear it!

How did you get the heatsink off the cpu?

Just so folks know mine is still running strong!

[DreamsDied13101]

Glad to hear it!

How did you get the heatsink off the cpu?

Just so folks know mine is still running strong!

I had read online that the heatsink should just pop off easily if the Thermal Compound (from the Sony factory) had dried out, but that was not the case for me. It took me really prying on the heatsink/fan assembly to get it off the processors. There was quite a sticky vacuum that had built up. Even though the compound was "wet" enough to still be tacky it obviously wasn't doing its job.

I was really scared at first that I had missed a screw or was going to break it somehow, but it did eventually pop off. I didn't ever get really rough with it, but just kept forcefully tugging on it a little at a time until it finally popped.

I think the hardest part of the process for me was putting the inner top cover back on. I had a hard time lining the tabs back up and getting them to click together.