A PS3 Story: The Yellow Light Of Death

This video condenses the last 4 years of my life into 90 minutes! It was a passion project and I hope that comes across. I tried my best to be objective, but there's plenty of opinion and theory. I soft launched this video and corrected some of the inaccuracies viewers pointed out. Thank you, your feedback was helpful!

I don't claim to be 100% correct!

Links to all the posts mentioned in the video can be found here:

[POLL] Did your reballed PS3 last?

Tools & Products Used or Recommended (Affiliate Links):

About Copyright:
Where copyright materials are used, I transform, talk over, or change context for narrative purposes. Credits at the end of the video are in order of appearance. The purpose is educational, critical commentary. The "fair use" exception defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act in the United States should apply. I made a good faith effort, at least.

Licensed Music:

Chapters...
0:00 YLOD Introduction
4:19 PS3 Model Comparison
9:40 Preventative Maintenance?
14:17 YLOD Confusion
15:59 NEC/TOKINs?
21:12 YLOD, POST, and Google...Oh my!
23:39 SYSCON Diagnostics
26:41 The Great TOKIN Massacre
30:44 BGA vs Bumps
31:15 What the XBOX 360 taught us
36:21 "Who's to Blame?"
40:07 Disclaimer
41:45 "BumpGate" Theory
43:19 Science warning
51:37 The Defect?
56:30 Is Reballing BS?
1:00:01 The Solution?
1:01:25 Frankenstein Phat PS3
1:09:03 65nm or 40nm RSX?
1:16:20 Conclusion
1:24:08 End Credits

[middleclassthrash]

Early 2007, my ps3 died and i had to open it up and look around. Learned about thermal paste that day.

[KangJangkrik]

Kiaw's neighbor here, we know her as halina in real world. Her contribution is so big that her playstation repair shop always crowded, until she passed away because of breast cancer. Her contribution never be forgotten, rest in peace Halina

[calypsman]

Absolutely massive effort and a wealth of information. Everyone who owns the console needs to see this.

[LiEnby]

I absolutely love how you went crazy and reverse engineered the entire ps3 boot sequence and hardware engineering absolute fucking mad respect lol

[forwhomthebelltolls]

As a retired electronic engineer, I found your discourse on the PS3 YLOD and your conclusions/explanations fascinating and extremely informative. I have two PS3 first generation consoles with the RSX CXD2971 that have been languishing in ESD protective bags in my attic. I've kept them for exactly the reasons you mentioned-they are 100% reverse compatible for the PS2 AND PS1 consoles, and that's why I didn't junk them when they failed. Funny thing, though-my original PS1 console, and my two later PS2 consoles (not to mention my Mattel Intellivision) are still working perfectly after all these years. You did a fantastic job with this video, and it was a pleasure for me to view it. Thank you!

[Alex-seuy]

I just wanted to say thank you for this video. The human brains thirst for logic and its incredible ability to problem solve still leaves me in awe. What a species we've become.

[LL_]

You just speedrunned the ps3 ylod. You're a frickin master. No seriously, I'm impressed. Your obsession with this thing resulted in a long and very detailed video. I love it. If there was an award for such a work, you deserved it, as well as the community that helped you. I just replugged my old ps3 after seeing your video, I installed a cfw, and ran some games. It's greatful to see that it still works well after hearing what you're saying. You deserve better than only 400 subscribers.

[trojnara]

The amount of work required to collect all the technical details and make this video is amazing.

[BladeScraper]

This could easily go on TV or Netflix as an actual documentary. Truly incredible content.

[MickeyMishra]

FELIX you MAD MAN! This is TOP SHELF CONTENT! Bar none, one of the best I have seen this year. CONGRATS DUDE!

[samuhell]

This is a golden nugget of information and deep dive into the YLOD. Well done sir, you had my complete attention for over an hour!

[IdlirPrendi]

Back in 2011 i started the reballing business. For me having a bga chip removed, reballed down to 0.5mm balls and make the laptop boot again, was already the big accomplishment. I did not have the time and will to investigate further. After a few years i was shocked to discover that most of the reworked laptops were already dead in the first year and the others soon to come. So making the reballing as advicable as a reflow. The truth was that most clients, like you stated, because of being charged high, did not consider about returning again and simply got rid of the notebook.
Later, i tried to understand what was going on. I even reballed and removed the chips just to see the soldering. In 90% of cases it was perfect. So sth else was to blame. Digging around i learned about the bump and substrate thing, and since then went only for revised chips.
This video, was like a dejavu of my journey.
Thank you for this.

[GikeroMage]

My wife picked up a functioning launch PS3 a few months ago. I cleaned it and was happy to find it booted. I put it aside till I could figure out more about keeping it functional. I'd read most of the info you debunked.

I'm super happy you made this video and helped save another PS3 from a flawed mod. Your breakdown is top notch. I looking forward to more of your content.

[TheCarpenterUnion]

Fabulous documentary. My only comment as an EE is that we most certainly do not all learn CAD, especially not thermal or mechanical stress CAD. That would likely be in a master's program for a microelectronics engineer, if anything.

Edit: I cannot stress enough how much I love the balance between technicals and storytelling. For me, it's the perfect ratio. I'll be subscribing and hoping you continue. CHEERS!

[xozzyx]

I appreciate your knowledge and obsession with the research and electrical engineering information that you've displayed with this video.

Im currently fixing, recapping and modding classic game systems. The furthest generation I found i can repair and mod is PS2.

I want to get better, I want to hold that title of Electrical Engineer. I want to be able to contribute to the community. I want to be able to perform highly skilled repairs such as the 40mm RSX Frankenstein Phat PS3.

I apologize for this rant. You've given me an obsession to pursue and I've found a new drive for my work. Thank you RIP Felix.

[TodHunterGD]

We lived in Cyprus for a bit, dad wanted a blu-ray player and for the same price if not cheaper he could get a 60GB PS3. He didn't get much use from it though. We used his "blu-ray player" for games, maknly GT4/5. Being a warm country and being that we had no air conditioning that thing had to work in a very hot environment. I think the longest we got out of one was 3 weeks. At which point it would be a warranty claim with Sony UK, send back to the UK, receive the new one 2 weeks later. We must've gone through 7 of these before Sony threw in the towel and gave us a slim.
What a time to be alive. Just wished it had worked as a PS3/PS2/PS1 Combo was awesome.

[TheRabidTech]

This is the most amazingly detailed and educational PS3 repair video I've ever seen, well done and thank you for sharing.

[eenayeah]

Crazy how much passion makes or breaks a YouTube video. I wouldn't have thought I would be siting here watching a documentary on the PS3 Yellow Light of Death (which I experienced when I was a wee lad of 11-12 years back in the late 2000s), but here I am, and this video is thoroughly entertaining. If a documentary is not made correctly, or clearly does not have any heart put into it, it's boring, but this certainly was not. I appreciated all the editing and pacing and scripting that went into this. Excellent job, RIP Felix!

[arthbarros]

wtf, the sheer amount of research that was needed to produce this video is colossal.. This was massive, glad to see it. Congrats man!

[poppedgaming]

The best Video if seen in years. Thank you for that