PS3 Red Blinking Light

[TransAmDan]

View attachment 1203Turned the Playstation3 on Saturday evening. Heard a few fast bleeps and the power light changed from green, to brefly orange, than then flashing red light.
I heard of the XBox red ring of death. I was thinking this indication is something simular. I checked on forums, and the red blinking light means nothing can be done and to throw it away. Well I wanted to atleast give something ago. I heard that the BGA (ball grid array) chips become desoldered from the board over time due to excess heat. Well now I'm on a mission...
So yesterday took it all apart following this guide, http://www.llamma.com/PS3/repair/PS3_disassembly_tutorial.htm
No I have the circuit board ready to put in the oven and use of the heat gun on the 3 BGA chips. Not sure which one is more problematic. My playstation is many years old now. It was only the 20gb version, one of the first from Japan, I've upgraded it to a 320gb which is far larger than any you can buy at the present time.T
Tuesday I will ask the company who do a lot of soldering for me on the knight rider lights to reflow these chips. I'll do some research to find out which chip to target. Fingers crossed.

 

[Darren]

Dan, if it works, dont suppose you could find out how much they'd charge to re-flow my xbox? From the error message (blinking lights) it's the GPU that needs doing.

 

[TransAmDan]

Well, I took the circuit board to my PCB place on the way to work this morning. He said he has only done small chips, and as the chips on the PS3 main board were huge he wasn't too keen on doing it. Basically use a heat gun, and watch the temprature.
So at lunch time, I got a huge heat gun, and used my IR thermometor to monitor the heat. Got the top of the chips to about 200 deg C. I done the 6 ram chips and the two larger chips that appear to work as a pair.
Well got in from work and started screwing it all back took a little while, followed the dissasembly instructions in reverse.
Once done I brought it in from the garage and plugged it in. No smoke, thats alwats a good sign.
Plugged in the telly and powered up. I have a picture, and power lights look normal. Tried a CD and it reads the CD fine.
YAY, well chuffed withvmyself that it works. Will give it a longer test when I have time.

 

[TransAmDan]

Darren I could give it a go for you, but ofcourse I cant gurantee its gonna come back to life.
I wasn't gonna loose doing the PS3 as it was dead anyway, so I guess you feel the same about the XBox