# PS3 redux [56k]



## Solaris17 (Sep 1, 2012)

A long time ago I bought a 360 elite off of erocker. For no reason other then to tear it open and see what they changed to make it not RRoD. With really no interest in it I played the halo games with my GF and eventually traded it for a launch 20GB PS3 phat. Of course like anything else I had it about 24 hours before I just NEEDED to mod it. I suppose if anything this is a good forum to post those changes in. First things first the PS3 needed a bigger HDD.

With that said I made the swap the following day to a WD carvier 320GB.

All was fine and dandy until about 2 weeks after I got skyrim. The PS3 started exhibiting strange behavior random lock ups and forced restarts. Then it became apparent. One day upon starting the system. it happened. The system started and the fan was on stage 3 idle at the XMB for less then 5min. HEAT was the issue here and so my journey began.

We start with a normal PS3 complete with 2 usb ports and 0 backwards compatibility.







complete with trademark solaris pajamas required for every online guide.

Next our ingredients.

GELID GC-2 TIM






and finally 

Disassembly

Remove that HDD chief.






and make sure you take off that warranty sticker because seriously no one even needs it. and its not aesthetically pleasing.






and remove the rubber cover to the top plate screw which is a security allen, that I affectionately drilled the center out of with my dremel.






now push the cover up with playstation lettering from left to right.






Take the screws out on the top and with a tad of force the actual top cover comes right off as their are no wires just the touch pad relays on the phat.






looking down you are greated immedietly with BD player left and PSU right. as well with WIFI antenna bottom and BT antenna top (they look like caps)






unplug what you can see going into the PSU and BD player unscrew the ground from the PSU bottom left with washer and the retainer screws on the corners. pull the PSU right out. the BD player has a ribbon on the bottom. you cant space shuttle it into orbit but their is more then enough room to remove it without fear of destroying it while lifting the player off its mounts. That said with both removed you are starting to get into the meat.






As you can see the PS3 phat is alot like the old GX2s you are looking right at the retention brackets for the board 1. it actually has 2. the second is under it facing up toward you but only half the size this is the network control board. The one with the cooling brackets well you guessed it GPU/BBE the screws here are actually long and screw into a plate mount underneath. The tension actually flexes the board a little to press them against the cooler surface while the fins are all the way at the bottom. basically its an upside down PC. Well take it out.






ello poppet. Surprisingly while totally dry it looks like some kind of non conductive ceramiqe style TIM nice job sony.

the broadband engine. my favorite arc. with a little love and some funding i can only wish this somehow hit mainstream.







the reality sythesizer or RSX engine. my bro.











Front and back NEC capacitors. these in particular seem to directly link to the CPU/GPU power phases.

After we take care of the chips and dusting the board we get this this cluster fuck.







remove the plating











multi stage 14 blade fan thanks too delta electronics.

the other side







the heat sinks are aluminium. Eventually I want a shop to custom make copper ones. they are also not screwed down. they come right out when you pick them up they are 2 seperate peices and are not connected. they sit in the plastic case by channels molded into the plastic to help guide them. They are TERRIBLE and the groves are really bad. You should lap them given the chance.











With the entire system clean alcohol swabed and new paste put on we reassemble to test.






works mint plays everything and i dont even leave the first stage of the fan.

Now that I know how to tear down reassemble and not destroy it. im really tired of normal looking stuff. PAINT IT!

Now originally i was going to go with a custom krylon pearlessent. I still will but i had to go to the store and settled on a color scheme I thought would look nice. Green white and some clear coat are my tools today.








Lets get started by doing a full tear down. including removing Disk plate and taping stickers and touch plate. I started about 11am when the day was hot and I had sun left. I washed and rewashed the PS3 case before painting.

Lets get started.

first I wanted to make a stencil that simply said PS3 in a squarish font going up the side. I wanted it to bleed a little to give it that irridecent "glow" around the edges. Next my plan was to do white primary with green accent. and cover it all with a few layers of clear coat. Followed by a razor sticker. Lets get started.







Here we have the top. this inherently needs a few coats like everything else but extra detail on spray pattern and equal color need to be applied because this is actually smoke black and translucent if you look carefully. Also pro tip this is GREAT if you want to add LEDs when i make the PS3 pearlescent I will be doing a glow mod and of course ill post it.

I masked the feet and the strip on the bottom and side so i can still read the HDMI Bluray etc logos. I think they add a nice touch.







Getting the playstation logo out of the Disk plate is a huge bitch but needed even though the whole assembly is crap the disk plate detaching from the main body is almost like 2 ships colliding in the middle of the ocean i really thought i was going to break it. the same with the little shaft on the PS logo.







This is the little plate next to the touch sensors. theirs actually quite a bit of space under it and i cant wait to show you what i have in store. remember though this is also translucent like the cover so add an extra coat if needed.







days wasting start putting coats on!!







HDD cover







trim piece next to the touch pad






Rear connector and vent assembly plate






top plate after last coat. so bright the camera was flipping out.






bottom case assembly done. with a shadow not a missed spot.






Top half of case assembly






top plate with stencil on it painting on the florecent green with the stencil lifted 1.5mm from the surface to create bleed.






top plate complete with a few blemishes I touched up later.







clear coat it all and reassemble!!! its a little tight because of the added paint layers but i think it came out damn hot.






sweet sweet baby jesus







full frontal


















looks nice but needs a little something. so to go with the color scheme I added a spare razer sticker I have around.






much better. but of course my desktop is down. so no cool movies. what to do? my HDD upgrade was great and all but i DL so many PS3 games....oh wait How about I take another 320GB HDD put it in a self powered dock and mount it with velco and eventually get around to painting it green since I have some left? YES.











cute adhesive feet. so now that thats done. i just need $$ for this.

Targus ACH114US 4-Port Hub

remember all that space under the trim piece in the front? well im slotting the front and putting this underneath and expanding my USB ports. I mean seriously I have alot of stuff to charge.

FUTURE UPGRADES:

SSD for PS3 
1TB drive for dock.
USB hub to mod with.
Pearescent white paint (mother of pearl effect)

And thats all she wrote folks! hope you enjoyed it! with No desktop this thing is my media game machine. so I imagine it counts in project logs right?


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## GSquadron (Sep 1, 2012)

I think the PS3 text should be deleted


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## Solaris17 (Sep 1, 2012)

Aleksander Dishnica said:


> I think the PS3 text should be deleted



actually its just a starting stencil. i plan on doing other stencils on it later in random positions at random angles. like my SN or AAA titles and stencil images. give it a kind of graffiti feel. thats if i dont just pearlescent it first.


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## INSTG8R (Sep 1, 2012)

I can't believe how different yours is on the inside. Very educational. Mine is the ORGINAL "all singing and dancin" Phat with 4 USB, The Card Reader and Backwards Compatibilty

I can't believe the "cooler" setup on yours. Mine is all one piece with Heat Pipes(Pain in the ass TBH)Heck it's not even the same Mobo Layout(to the best of my recollection it's been going strong since it's last baking ) They made alot of changes pretty quickly.

I'm glad you posted this Solaris it was nice to see the differences and great job on your "mod"


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## Solaris17 (Sep 1, 2012)

thanks man  eventually when i have the $$ ill get a backwards compatible one iv been coveting it. then ill redo all the mods and live a happy life!


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## INSTG8R (Sep 1, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> thanks man  eventually when i have the $$ ill get a backwards compatible one iv been coveting it. then ill redo all the mods and live a happy life!



Like I said I just keep baking "The Precious" and it keeps coming back. Will continue to do it until it just doesn't wake up. It definitely has a more robust cooler set up than yours that was biggest shocker. My fan is completely surrounded by the "grills" and the heatpipes run into them, unlike your 2 "blocks" 

Good call on the lapping tho. If she YLOD's again I will definitely consider having a go at it. But it's a big one piece outfit so no easy task.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 2, 2012)

INSTG8R said:


> Like I said I just keep baking "The Precious" and it keeps coming back. Will continue to do it until it just doesn't wake up. It definitely has a more robust cooler set up than yours that was biggest shocker. My fan is completely surrounded by the "grills" and the heatpipes run into them, unlike your 2 "blocks"
> 
> Good call on the lapping tho. If she YLOD's again I will definitely consider having a go at it. But it's a big one piece outfit so no easy task.



from the baking standpoint iv done a bunch of cards and xboxs. if i may drop a suggestion and you know what chip is doing it. drop some flux on it before you bake it.


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## INSTG8R (Sep 2, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> from the baking standpoint iv done a bunch of cards and xboxs. if i may drop a suggestion and you know what chip is doing it. drop some flux on it before you bake it.



Good tip! But no not a clue what is puking. I did bake it last time using the Convection in my oven. It made sense to me at the time. Seems to have worked better. It's not failed in months.


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## UWOOD (Apr 13, 2013)

I have thought about lapping my heatsink as well. I have the same type of heatsink that you do. My question is how would you lap the block that has the indentation? Would you be able to smooth it all the way out, or would you need to make a block to fit the indented area?


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## AsRock (Apr 13, 2013)

Cool, noticed i kept seeing spray cans in the background and then Spray time happened too ..

Funny part is that you cleaned it out due to dust ( good job btw ) but then placed some thing over the vent area..


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## Solaris17 (Apr 20, 2013)

UWOOD said:


> I have thought about lapping my heatsink as well. I have the same type of heatsink that you do. My question is how would you lap the block that has the indentation? Would you be able to smooth it all the way out, or would you need to make a block to fit the indented area?



its gritty but you should still be able to start high course and work your way down without removing too much and ruining the contact



AsRock said:


> Cool, noticed i kept seeing spray cans in the background and then Spray time happened too ..
> 
> Funny part is that you cleaned it out due to dust ( good job btw ) but then placed some thing over the vent area..



the hdd is lifted off the vent it is not flush.


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## Lionheart (Apr 20, 2013)

Looks great 

What SSD you thinking of getting?


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## Solaris17 (Apr 21, 2013)

Lionheart said:


> Looks great
> 
> What SSD you thinking of getting?



honestly probably something cheap I was thinking maybe even just get a small ssd for the ps3 boot drive. but I will probably get a medium sized one maybe 128 or 256


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