Fix the YLOD with a Heat Gun Reflow

In the previous tutorial I showed you the process of taking apart a fat (phat?) PlayStation 3. This time I'll show you how to fix the Yellow Light of Death! Like I said in my previous post, the YLOD is very, very similar to the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death (RROD). It's also fixed the exact same way!

Disassemble a PlayStation 3

I recently acquired another 60 gig, backwards-compatible PS3 on craigslist for a mere $30. Only catch? It has the "Yellow Light of Death" (YLOD). This is basically the PlayStation 3 equivalent of the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death (RROD). It's caused by the solder joints under one of the microchips on the board (usually the GPU - just like the 360) breaking or pulling away from the board.

In this tutorial I will guide you through the steps needed to disassemble your PS3 (fat model) so you can then later fix your YLOD. Another reason to disassemble your PS3 would be to dust it! This is the main cause of excess heat in these systems that leads to the Yellow Light of Death!

First thing you'll want to do is pop off the small plastic cover over your hard drive (HDD).