This is the part where you actually go and fix the YLOD. Take the motherboard to a safe clean place, and set it on a piece of wood. Ensure that the motherboard is as level as possible. Turn the Heat Gun on, and make sure you let it sit for a minute or so to get to temperature. If you use the gun I linked to earlier, set it to slow. You want it to be around 700 Fahrenheit, and blowing slowly.
Once it's up to temperature, hold the Heat Gun about an inch away from the board, and heat up the areas boxed in on the photo. Each of the four areas should get about 15-20 seconds of concentrated heating, done in a circular motion. Just start with one sector, heat it for 17 seconds, then go to the next. Do this for all 4.
Now this is VERY important. Do not touch the board, and walk away. You have to wait 15-20 minutes now for it to cool off, and you do not want to move the motherboard. Moving it in this current condition will damage your motherboard beyond repair. What happened is that you liquefied all the connectors and soldering, and allowed it to merge back together. It will now cool off, and solidify. This is similar to the old graphics card in the oven trick. (don't do that to the PS3. Please.)
After 15-20 minutes (I took 20), turn the motherboard around. It's time to do the same thing on the top of the motherboard now. Again, you can see 4 areas highlighted on the photo. Each area needs about 15-20 seconds of heat in a circular motion. Same drill as before. Again, get the fuck out of dodge once you're done, and tell the dog to go outside. It needs to sit there and not move for 20 minutes again.
Congratulations. If you did everything right, you now fixed the YLOD! PRAISE BE YEVON.
Now for another crucial element; the Thermal Compound. On both chips on the front of the motherboard, spread a little worm-looking bead of thermal compound on one side, and then using a credit card, or any card like that, spread it evenly across the surface of the chip. We're obviously talking about the two largest chips on the board, but you should've known that going by what you cleaned off earlier.
You'll want a very thin layer on both. Too much compound can damage a system more than perhaps too little, so beware. You'll want it to be less than a millimeter thick, almost making it transparent. Look up some Thermal Compound guides on youtube or google if you're not comfortable with this.
That's it. Time to backtrack all your steps carefully, and re-assemble the entire unit. Again, make sure that all the little pads on the motherboard are exactly where they were before you took it apart. This is highly important for temperature conducting.
Turn that shit back on, and wham. Notice how quiet the PS3 is now, and how smooth it runs? Pat yourself on the back, buddy. You just fixed your problems!
First thing you should do? Backup your saves and what you can, because you never know if this will be permanent or not. If you followed the steps perfectly, then yes, it will be for a very long time. However, I don't know how deprived your motor skills are, so just as a friendly reminder; backup.
I might add some more crap to this later on. This is enough writing for one night, so excuse the sloppy format. Give me a break here. D: __________________  |