PS3 TLC Refurbishment

What do you get with this service?

If you have a PS3 and have never serviced it (specially an original “phat” model) there is a risk that it will overheat due to dirt and old thermal paste. This generation of consoles moved a lot of air through powerful fans to cool down their internals, and even in clean environments, it will cause accumulation of dust and fluff that can clog the airflow and reduce how effective the cooling fans are. Coupled with this, old thermal paste aiming to transfer heat from the processors to the heatsinks, to be dissipated in turn by the moving airflow, loose properties as they get old. Poor thermal dissipation in PS3s, particularly old models, can lead to failure of their GPU chipset causing the so called Yellow Light of Death (YLoD).

Our PS3 TLC Refurbishment is a preventative measure to extend the life of your PS3 console. While the GPU design issues leading the YLoD will always be there, keeping your console well maintained reduces the chances to trigger the problem. Our refurbishment service includes the following:

• Full disassembly to its component parts in order to properly be able to reach all separate internal and external componets
• Wash with soap and water all plastic parts and metal shield
• Clean the motherboard, the PSU and the heatsink(s) with compressed air, brushes and non-conductive liquids as required
• Disassemple the Blu-Ray drive for internal cleaning, lubrication of moving parts and cleaning of laser lenses.
• Cleaning and oiling the fans
• Replacing the battery
• Changing thermal paste from CPU and GPU
• De-lid the GPU package to also replace the thermal paste of the ram chips and the GPU itself
• Remove scratches (to the extent possible), polish the gloss cover of phat models, and apply a plastic protector to the rest of the console
• Remove rust in the metal shield and protect it from further damage

Will this service fix a console with YLoD?

No. Once the console suffers this fault there is no amount of TLC that will permanently fix it. The only solution is to replace the GPU package, which is not a service I provide. Some technicias will say that reflowing the chips (heating them up to melt down the solder connections that goes bad and causes YLoD), reballing (replacing the small solder balls that connect the GPU and CPU chips to the motherboard) or replacing the TOKIN capacitors (special type of capacitors nearby the CPU and GPU) will provide a fix. However this is possible but very unlikely. Please check this video documentary that explain the issue al length.

What you don’t get with this service

This is not a repair service. Please ensure your system is fully functional as stated in our Terms and Conditions, or contact us before purchasing the service if unsure what will be covered.

Please note:

• Some freezing within games but not leading to a YLoD (red light or flashing yellow light) can be a symptom of overheteating in RAM chips and maybe addresseable by this service.
• Disc drive issues where the disc doesn’t go in or eject properly can normally be solved by cleaning the drive.

CPU de-lidding isn’t part of the regular service as it is more risky to undertake and the overheating issues tend to be more on the GPU chip. However the CPU also has thermal paste between the chip and the lid which would need replacement at some point. Please contact us in advance if this is a service you would like to have.

Heavily rusted shields ideally need to be painted after removing the rust. Shield painting is not part of this service but it can be added for an extra fee. If you know you want this as part of the service, please let us know via a note at checkout or by the contact page. If during the refurbishment process we find heavy rusting, we will get in touch with you to ask you if you would like to add the painting service or not.

Shipping

You are responsible for shipping the system in adequate packaging to our address. An email will be sent to you after purchase with some suggestions about how to do this as well as shipping details. The cost of you shipping your system to us is not included in the price of the service.

The shipping we do charge for this service is to send the console back to you when the service is finished. To the extent possible, we will use the same packaging material you used to send the system to us in the first place. We will replace packaging material if it is damaged when we receive it at no cost to you.

Other information

Package installs are also available which bundle multiple installation into one more economic purchase.

We also offer some pre-modded consoles. Please check out this area of the shop for any existing stock.

Please check my account on X for photos of refurbishments of various consoles.