PS3 Yellow light of death

[Kaisha]

Some PS2 games with online functionality (Burnout 3 comes to mind) are marked copy protected and cannot be moved about. For PS+, you only have to wait 24hrs for redownloading one particular save.

As far as deactivating goes, no way to do it on a user-end without the PS3 operating. You're allowed up to 5 activated PS3/PSPs on your one account anyways, and if you ever cap it for some reason and are not game sharing, Sony customer support should be able to reset activated machines for you.

[hey]

Apparently one of my wife's coworkers had to do this to his system and has a heat gun I may be able to borrow. Any good video/site recommendations so I don't fuck it up? lol

Youtube has tons of videos on it. It's pretty simple to do, you just need to be careful not to overdo it.

I don't think any PS1/PS2 saves are going to fall into that category though, right?

Right.

Either you do a full HD backup (which may corrupt as its doing the process, as has had happen to me once), or you manually copy your PS3 saves one at a time to USB/OnlineStorage (if you have PS+). It's ridiculous.

PSX - Oh, my PSX died? Thank god my saves are on these memory cards!
PS2 - Oh, my PS2 died? Thank god my saves are on these memory cards!
PS3 - Oh, my PS3 died? Well FUCK ME for buying a system that's DRM-happy.

This isn't really a new problem. Honestly, it's far easier to backup saves now than it was in the past. They can be transferred directly to usb, with nothing more than the ps3 itself. Backing up saves for previous systems required either a modded ps2, or overpriced third party accessories. Or multiple extra memory cards, which would cost more than those third party accessories, which would give you unlimited space for saves.

It's really unfortunate that it's not possible to play the new games on cfw. In addition to being pure bullshit, it sucks because a lot of the problems with the ps3 have been solved. There is no save ownership bullshit, anything on the hdd can easily be backed up drag and drop style via ftp, if a system dies, the data on the hdd doesn't go with it, and hell, games even load faster from hdd than from blu rays, not to mention it saves you from using the most failure prone component in the system. Fortunately, even if the blue ray drive does fail, you can replace it yourself instead of sending the entire console back to sony, and paying out of the ass for a new one. Or just ignore it, since it's not important, and doesn't need to be replaced.

Fucking sony...

[Auspice]

Alright, so I took it apart and applied some fresh Arctic Silver to the system and it's still not working BUT it's doing something different when it boots. Before, it would light green for a sec, switch to yellow, then no light. NOW when it boots up it goes green, then yellow, then flashes red a bunch.

What the hell does THAT mean now? PSU needs replaced or did I completely fuck shit up?

[Jefe]

Did you reflow the mobo? Replacing the AS doesn't really help.

[Auspice]

I did not reflow the motherboard; that seemed to be the most extreme option and I was hoping not to have to resort to it yet so I opted to just replace the thermal compound.

I'm pretty sure that the problem is with the PSU though. I noticed when I took apart the system that the PSU smelled funny so I took the screws out of it and the underside of the PSU board is brown and looks burnt underneath the large black square box(not sure WTF it's called) in the middle of the PSU. None of the capacitors are broken as seemed to be the common problem. I tried taking pictures but the brown isn't noticeable on the pictures.

[*Shinzon*]

I was gonna say send it back, but if you already opened it Sony wont replace or fix it. Anyway there's several problems it could be, the most common include the thermal compound issue but there is also an issue with the solder that is used to hold the heatsink in place. After awhile the material that sony uses will heat up and shift the components around and it triggers the ylod as a hardware failure. My first ps3 they blamed the issue on the failure of the bluray player but after asking around it was actually more like that the solder had failed. It's the reason why using a blow drier against the back vents where the heat sink is works. If you try that and it fixes the problem, a more permanent solution is to re solder it your self, otherwise the material will continue to shift and trigger the ylod.

[Auspice]

At this point I'm going to be happy to get it working long enough to get my saves off of the HDD. If it actually works to play games that's just a bonus.

[hey]

I'd try replacing the psu then. If that doesn't work, reflowing will likely be your last option.

[Jefe]

Should've replaced the psu to begin with ;x Check your craigs, I usually see psus there. And if you're going to reflow it please don't use a hairdryer, you need at least 350C to even attempt a reflow.

[Auspice]

There's a bunch on ebay for around $30 so I think I'm gonna go that route. A friend of mine has a heat gun that he was going to let me borrow but I may end up buying one if this is a common problem that I'll be fixing repeatedly since it looks like they're only around $50 on Amazon.

[deshende]

I'm not sure if yours will qualify or not, but I had an out of warranty 60g that died on me a couple months ago. I went through Sony's site and they let me trade in my broken one for a new slim for $90. I didn't think that was a horrible deal (even though I lost my saves).

[gt_killa]

Do you still have the link to their trade in program?

[deshende]

It was just under the regular sony support site. After I picked that my system was out of warranty there was an option to send mine in and get billed for repairs or do the trade in

[Auspice]

Got the new PSU installed and it booted up just fine. Backed up all my PS1/2/3 saves. Problem I'm having now is that I can't get it to connect to the Internet. I'm getting a 80010201 error which according to a quick google search says my network card is fried. I tried both wired and wireless and neither will connect to my router. Router log shows it trying to connect but the PS3 cannot obtain an IP address. BAH, at least I'm partially fixed, any suggestions guys?

[Auspice]

Shameless bumping again since I'm still having problems. I can't get wired or wireless connections to work at all. Wireless won't pick up my network at all and I'm confused as to why wired would also be jacked. My router isn't even picking up that the PS3 is trying to connect at all. I know it's possible to fry the wifi card but BOTH? Had zero problems with either wired or wireless before I swapped out the PSU and I've got the PS3's mac address registered with an IP reserved so there's no conflicts on the router side.

EDIT: I found a sorta derp suggestion online that said to flip the ribbon cable around on the wifi card so I'm gonna try that in the morning when I'm not half asleep and see if I can make any headway there. Still doesn't explain why the wired wouldn't work though. . .

EDIT2: Stripped it down to the motherboard completely and reseated all the cables. Turned it on and everything's working fine. *shrug* Apparently I'm a dumbfuck or a speck of dust was stuck somewhere it wasn't supposed to be.

[Don Katsu]

This happened to me last year. I tried the heat gun reflowing trick. Didn't work. Power no longer powered on. Sent it back paid $150.00 got another BC one. Still working.. don't know for how long though.
Good Luck.

Oh as for the save data, you have to get it to work otherwise you're out of luck, there is no way to get that data off of there unless you use the PS3 you saved it there with in the first place.