Hardware PS3 boot issues

[britain4]

Hi all,

I have a DECHA00A debug PS3 system which currently appears to be faulty.
Sometimes it boots up fine, other times it will stay on a black screen, power light and fans on but no display, sound or controller sync. Brief second of HDD activity light then nothing.

Occasionally when it does boot, it will freeze up in the menu requiring a hard reset just freezes, no other symptoms)

My first thought was the HDD but replaced this with a known good one and still doing the same thing.
Does this sound like it could be a GPU GLOD issue just intermittent? Would really like to get this rare system up and running again but feel like it might need professional work.

could it also be an intermittent symptom of the NEC/Tokin capacitor failure?

Thanks!

 

[britain4]

Spoke too soon - had this crash browsing f through the menu, hard lock with a blue square pattern on the screen, looks like the GPU to me

 

[Deleted member 388531]

Yeah I'd say try replacing the capacitors first since it's pretty cheap.

Failing that, it's probably a dead/fried GPU. Same thing happened to my laptop gpu a few weeks ago. You'd have to get an RSX chip off of ebay ($20-30 depending on where you live) and you'd also have to find someone to install it for you. Basically, unless your system is worth that much to you, I'd decommission it.

 

[nero99]

try reflowing the RSX chip with a lot of liquid flux to re-saturate the solder joints. If you still have issues after mine and SpiffyJUNIOR suggestions, try reballing a new rsx chip. they dont cost much these days

 

[britain4]

Thanks guys, I’ll try doing the caps first and see where I get with that, as it’s basically an early CECHA01 board it’s probably the hottest and most prone to failure. If it wasn’t a full BC debug model, I’d probably just chuck it.

If the cap replacement doesn’t work, I think I might even have a YLOD 90nm console in the loft (probably capacitors) I could use as a GPU donor and take to a local place.

Since this isn’t the typical YLOD type failure (capacitors) and looks like an actually faulty GPU i wonder if heat gunning it might have good enough results?

 

[Deleted member 388531]

No idea about the heatgunning, I've heard conflicting opinions on how good it is. Besides that, I realized since it's a CECHA01 board you should probably delid and repaste the Cell and RSX. These launch-era models get hot, and are usually extremely noisy too. Keep in mind though it's somewhat risky and I'd recommend practicing on a dead board first.
https://quade.co/2017/ps3-delid-ihs/

 

[britain4]

No idea about the heatgunning, I've heard conflicting opinions on how good it is. Besides that, I realized since it's a CECHA01 board you should probably delid and repaste the Cell and RSX. These launch-era models get hot, and are usually extremely noisy too. Keep in mind though it's somewhat risky and I'd recommend practicing on a dead board first.
https://quade.co/2017/ps3-delid-ihs/

Thanks. Yeah if I can get it working I will be delidding it for sure. I’ve done a few of them now, including a few CECHCs (UK launch model, part BC but still 90nm) using more or less the same technique as that guide.

Will do caps on it first and see how I go on. I do have BC PS3s but not full BC so would be interesting to have. If not I will sell it but want to get it working first.