A lot of people are not familiar with the PS3 Fat models. Let's start with the delid. You don't have to delid your ps3 if the temps are normal (64°C RSX, 70°C CPU are normal temps while playing) if you are looking for the best temps you can place liquid metal under the both IHS and one mistake I saw in the video is that he doesn't removed the glue from the rsx memory chips. If you don't remove it you will not have proper contact between the RSX chip and the IHS. Now with the thermal pads. From my experience there is no need to change them. You only need to change them if they are damaged. Now for the fan. NEVER change the 15 blade with 19 blade fan. There are tests that show that 15 blade fan perform better and keep the ps3 cooler and also use less energy than the 19 blade one. And the last thing I want to mention is to NEVER drill holes in the case if you are not planing to add additional cooling to the PSU. The holes on the bottom change the whole air flow in the console. Yes they help with the cooling off the CPU and RSX but at the cost of overheating PSU.
@ShadowZero1980 I recently worked on a backwards compatible ps3, bare minimum would be replacing the thermal paste and giving it a good ol dust blowout. As OP said the thermal pads don't need replacing unless they are badly damaged which if you're the first one in there they probably won't be 👍
I came to the comments to say exactly this. I drilled the bottom of my ps3 console just like he did and I found that I got even worse cooling than before the drilling. I continued to cut apart the factory shell to allow more air flow but all I did was make the air not flow through the actual fin stacks. For anyone reading this, do not drill the console shell without also adding external fans. It just doesn't work.
@@ShadowZero1980 Very late here, but if anyone is reading. The best way to prevent YLOD is to keep the temperatures of the RSX below 68°C. Personally I want them below 64°C because there are hotspots on every chip but we only have 1 thermal sensor. The best way to keep it cool is to change the thermal paste, delid (not necessary) and install webman to control the fan. If anyone want to play online there is other method too. From 1 year it's possible to edit the fan table by connecting to the syscon chip on the motherboard. This way you can create your own fan table.
@@jelkobg5944 Early fat ps3s will all succumb to YLOD, it's not the question if, but when. You can't prevent it, but with good maintenance you can extend the lifespan of the console significantly. For detailed explanations on this topic, i highly recommend the PS3 YLOD video from RIP Felix.
Drilling holes like that will pretty much cut off any cooling to the PSU by killing the vacuum effect used to cool the rest of the system. I wouldn’t suggest that particular step but otherwise really well done!
I nearly cried when I watched him drilling those rough as fuck holes with a power drill through what used to be basically a mint PS3 case. All to accomplish the exact opposite result he was looking for
I bought a 60GB in 2015. Replaced the thermal pads, paste, and polished out the all the light scratches. Already had the 19 blade fan & APS 226. No screws lost in the process either! Currently playing Silent Hill on it.
@@Sammmmmmmm617 I installed custom firmware so I could set the max temperatures to be lower than stock. As a result it can be loud when playing PS3 games, but stock it’s much quieter than my PS4s.
I've had a 60GB phat console for years (about 2009 i think) Still works today. Only thing i realy did was replace the fan and thermal paste. Still the original NEC/tokin caps as well. Must be Lucky.
The more idiots who destroy their CECHA0X like shown in this video, the more valuable my pieces become. A true Ultimate PS3 is one where you replace the RSX with a 40nm one, instead of drilling through the bottom case.
The drill holes absolutely drive me nuts, but you're right about the airflow. The way it was designed doesn't give it quite enough room to really breathe. You also got me digging into the rabbit hole of SYSCON troubleshooting. I appreciate the PlayStation love. You've got a new subscriber out of me.
Not really. The PS3 was designed to pull the heat down into the vapor chamber and shoot it out the back and top side. Drilling holes completely breaks this and can cause excess build up of heat around the power supply.
This looked so solid! To make the appearance of the newly drilled ventilation holes look a little prettier, use a countersink drill afterwards to remove the blowout, and make it look a little more uniform. Purely aesthetic for something you won't even see, but still.
@@WinchesterxNL They actually aren't. The case is designed to have air flow a certain way. Those folks that get engineering degrees, they test those things. When you drill holes, you change the pattern of airflow in the case, which then doesn't cool all the components properly. I know you think you know what you're talking about, but unless you have a degree in aerodynamics and thermodynamics, I'd leave this one to the professionals. But you do what you know works better... XD
@@jamess1619 Thank you for explaining. Wasn't trying to act as a knowitall or something. I honestly wondered how. Though I can see how my response can be seen in a more negative way than genuine curiosity
@@WinchesterxNL I understand. I was in a bad mood this morning and I may have interpreted your comment the wrong way so truly I apologize. I suppose i should have had positive intent with your post and then maybe I wouldn’t have been so snarky. I hope you have a great day!
YES you are right i drilled holes and after 15 minutes the psu and the motherboard are very hot almost hot to the touch,this is bad for psu and it can die later and for the motherboard the nec tokins are gonna be heating up more which reduces the lifespan.luckily i have another case so i dont have to buy another one
I have a PS3 which i sadly don't use as much cuz I'm busy but i would like to. PS3 Slim. Had it since 2015 from a guy. So maybe it's more than 5 or 6 years old. And it's still kicking. It COULD do some upgrade. Same for my PS4 Slim. So many things i wish and i hope that people might do. PS3 Slim Backwards Compatible and PS4 Slim with PS5 things like 4k or even 8k! 120 FPS or less, and more. Why need to buy something new when you can upgrade the thing you already have? Also thing about the PS3 depending on what disc you have putted in it'll play the PS2 or PS1 theme or whatever it is. I mean the Logo is fine but that'll be cool too.
You played the PS3 back in 2009. Wow I only got to play with one back in 2011 or 2012 if. You 1996 nice, I am 1998. Super Mario 64 came out in 1996 for the Super Nintendo while Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast came out 1998. Both good games.
@@MariusBoss11458 By the way. My like is to buy an CRT screen. We used to have one but I stupid gave it way to an aunty. Saying "oh we got a new 49 inch Sony LCD (I think) www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/televisions-projectors-lcd-tvs/kd-49xf7003/specifications PS3 is best with a CRT screen/tube screen or heavy long tv from early 2000s.
@@fahadmalik8862 hmm games were probably designed on some crt high grade monitors even in this era i suppose, though hdmi really came along came with lcd.. you can still find crts with hdmi, ps3 would probably look great on it, tbh ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M2EQ8gZ9BgM.html, even component 720p could look great
Don’t ever drill holes in the case. It was found out recently it screws up the consoles airflow and allows heat to get trapped on the left side of the system where the power supply is
Disclaimer for anyone, do NOT drill holes in your PS3. it may report slightly lower CPU/GPU temps, but it messes with the specifically engineered airflow path designed for the system. Basically, air that may have mean to originally go one path to cool nec/tokens or the EE chip, or the PSU may no longer NEED to go that path because there is such an easy exit path.
The entire process looks like a nightmare for me, especially with how many ways you could mess up. Props for mystic but I'd be to scared to try this on a console that cost me 400$
Half of these mods are more harm than good. Adding fan holes doesn't help anything, and just fucks over the air trafficking in the system. Adding a pot for the fan overrides it's automatic ramp up and down, and leaving it max all the time will wear out your fan. Softmods can take care of the fan speed situation automatically, there's no reason to add a dial like that
Given the size of a fat PS3 I can easily see that. Probably swap the big ass heat sink for a more compact cooling solution like in many PC or Series X. It's been a while, but I believe the reason for PS5 huge length is due to how huge it's heat sink is. Mind not saying that's bad, but of course if one can make things smaller while still maintaining same conditions. It's preferable for a system. Well b Without counting controller/handheld depending on hand size of course 😅
DO NOT DRILL ANY HOLES IN THE CASE!!! This completely circumvents the intended airflow design and will lead to the premature death of your console. Sony spent millions of dollars in engineering this device, i doubt any of you hold degrees in advanced thermodynamics. For real advice, i highly recommend watching the PS3 YLOD video from RIP Felix. Also, exchanging the HDD with an SSD may improve performance in the short term, but the PS3 firmware does not support this kind of storage media natively and will treat it just like an HDD. This means no support for TRIM (ssd garbage collection), which SSDs need to function properly and retain their performance. Also they will wear out faster and die sooner because of this.
These are standard upgrades however the fan "mod" he added replaces the consoles PWM meaning it can no longer regulate its own fan speed. If the console heats up and it goes unnoticed the ps3 can fry its RSX in minutes. Not only that but the mod increases fan speed by sending up to 12v to a circuit connected to the syscon chip (bad idea). Also the PS3s fan is designed to push air horizontally through the entire console. Also by drilling holes under the fan you reduce the internal vacuum so that more air makes it to the heatsync but other components loose cooling.
it's worth noting that while nothing is perfect, Sony DID hire experts in fluid dynamics to design the airflow of the PS3. drilling holes defeats that design and often does more harm than good. RIPFelix has a couple really good videos that talk about this
I personally wouldn't recommend drilling holes in the bottom as it affects the way that air is supposed to flow through the console which in result will have your console running hotter than without drilling the holes.
That would be the case if the holes were random but placed properly and it will reduce airflow restriction. Make the holes next to where the original air intake is.
@@randybobandy9828 Yes, the gpu and cpu will run slightly cooler, but you disrupt the intended airflow in the console. Which leads do premature death of components that rely on this airflow cooling.
Okay, I'm all with you, doing a full scale maintenance on an almost 13 year old device. Nicely done that delide, I usually do this with tooth silk, slowly cutting through the glue. Only thing I think in my opinion is the holes in the bottom plate, they are probably conflicting with sonys airflow sandwich concept, making airflow a certain spots probably a lot slower since the huge fan can suck now from somewhere different.
Really awesome guide dude... just used this to repair an original 60GB CECHC04 Backward Compatible PS3... even with the stock fan etc its running lovely after the delid process. Removing the glue without damaging the cell processor through is no mean feat! I did slip and take the plastic lid off of one of the nearby NEC / TokiN caps but got away with it! Phew.
@@Siverslayer I hope you haven't drilled any holes in your device. If you did, congrats, your ps3 will die way sooner as it originally would. Best thing you can do is close them up again.
Don't cut holes in the bottom of the case. sure it can allow for a little more airflow at the bottom but totally ruins the airflow to keep the top of the board cool. just use good quality thermal paste and pads and use the fan control. I keep mine at about 37% and it keeps the cpu in the low to mid 60s and the rsx in the mid 50s. Sony engineers even did a presentation about the airflow in their different models. The people telling you to cut holes I'm the bottom have zero experience with fluid dynamics.
Drilling holes messes with the air flow inside the console. That means that some components can be cooled down, but at the cost of other components not receiving enough cold air to refrigerate.
A PSR / Playstation Retro makes perfect sense to me. A console built specifically to run retro games with basic up scaling for more modern displays, but still having the outputs to connect to CRTs for the hard-core. I wouldn't care about wifi and online personally but I know a lot who do. Also, installing game patches is a must.
Dear god *WHY* would you drill holes in the damn case?! Just mount an external PSU if heat is that big of a deal! You likely just demolished the PS3’s cooling efficiency doing this.
Regarding adding additional holes: I recently watched a video saying adding any additional holes/vents like that does help cooling down the CPU and GPU. But, it makes everything else in the system runs hotter because less air is going throughout the system.
So glad to see you post this video! Just got tools to delid my AO1 recently. I do have a dead one that I can practice on but still scared of messing up my completely functional AO1 so much that I’ve been kinda putting it off lol but still I will give it my best to keep my system alive!
Look dude you better at least delid the RSX (gpu) on your A01. The thermal paste dries out under its heatshield and ends up heating up the chip a lot. If you let the console continue like that, the heat will eventually kill the gpu and make it a no-video console. Delidding and replacing the thermal paste on the RSX is much easier than doing so for the CELL processor (as you can see in the video). You should definitely at least do that if you want your console to last.
@@rifathhossain8186 What happens if I leave the other chip without delidding it? Would it affect the performance at all or is deliding the rsx and replacing the thermal paste basically the same result?
Just wanted to come back to say after a year from this comment I finally built up the courage to delid my A01. I was able to get the RSX but the CELL was a different story. Worked for hours using a heat gun and paint tools that so many people use and ultimately just could not get it through the glue. I’m afraid after even being as absolutely careful as I could possibly be the corner I was working on got scratched. After so many hours trying to get it I gave up and put the console together and tried powering it on all for it to have a GLOD and my heart sank. My A01 is now dead. Grieving really hard currently. I genuinely don’t know why people consider using paint tools as a viable method to delidding especially with the CELL I highly recommend that you don’t go with this method it is an extremely terrible way to go about it even if it’s the most recommended and commonly used by people. They are effectively leading you to kill your console. There are better ways to do it and I wish I tried those instead :(
Thank you for this, I wanna keep my 60gig running healthy for a nice long time! This will really help. The console didn’t even run reliably when it was new, so maybe these mods will finally give me the reliable PS3 I never really had to begin with :P
Dude I would absolutely love to see more content like this, amazing video! How has the performance been on the machine since your mods? Would be cool to see a video on that too... Much love!
Stop drilling holes in Playstation cases! The temperatures are obviously lower, but the air is no longer drawn over other components (power supply unit, voltage converter, etc.) and these are therefore no longer ventilated. There's more than just CELL and RSX that needs cooling. The case is built sensibly in its normal state and if you drill holes, you destroy the airflow and kill the console.
Those are still ventilated, but less so than before. If they were already cool enough then it doesn't harm things to remove some airflow from them. However, if the main thing that kills PS3's is thermal cycles instead of overheating (Xbox 360), then cooling mods won't fix that issue. If that's the case, a cooling mod WILL make the silicon die last longer, but that doesn't help if thermal cycles still disconnect it from the substrate/motherboard long before that's an issue. Again, I don't know for sure if the PS3 failed for the same reason as the 360's.
DO NOT DRILL HOLES IN YOUR PS3. While this will keep CPU/GPU temps down. It will draw air away from the upper chassis. This will cause the power supply and BD Drive to run hot. This might not be an issue at first HOWEVER all PS3s have a BD Drive married to the motherboard. If the chips on the top of the motherboard OR the BD Drive go bad you are totally screwed from playing disc games. You have been warned. Fresh Thermal Paste and chip De-lid are more than enough to keep your system running cool.
Several years ago I found an old bc phatty left near curbside trash on my way from work. Watching this video makes me want to open it up and see if I can get some life out of it
You probably should never know what working condition it is in. Do it in the garage as it may or may not be infested by now. My brother restored my PS4 slim 500 gb and he installed new thermal paste. So it’s never bad to try and mad ur own with various new parts.
This is Master Piece! This is very relaxing to watch, the degree of difficulty is high but for the love of details and electronics things get done flawlessly. I hope that I can meet you in person you’re such an inspiration for PS3 fans out there ❤️💯Thank you and Godbless 🙏
@@bobbysavagehill is it not human to want to meet people I'm an older guy and in my days people were friendly to one another nothing creepy about it the guy is in awe off this man's masterwork he is a true fan
Drilling holes in the bottom of the case is one of the dumbest things you can do to these, does not help with cooling, if anything it hurts cooling on the top end of the console
Oh man you should totally offer repairs. My cecha01 was serviced by a third party company and it was YLOD 2 years later and has been sitting in storage ever since. I might get up the courage to do it myself but paying you would be a lot easier haha. Great vid!
Reflowing and reballing will temporarily fix it, but that's because you are heating up the gpu. The fault isn't in the solder, but the chip itself which is why the gpus die, not the cpus
@@TheGamer-hy4om the gpu was defective from the day they were made. The gpus use something called underfill which holds the die (the shiny mirror like part) onto the substrate (the green part that connects the die to the motherboard) which is known to be bad in many gpus from the time period 360s and ps3s were being made. Thats also the reason why the cpus on them rarely fail, because they use different underfill that isn't faulty.
I've built multiple PCs in my life but, Watching this was getting me overwhelmed. All those Ribbons and screws. This is an undertaking that must be done by somebody that knows exactly what they are doing. Great Stuff!
@@Harryd06 I still have the fat 80gb ps3 and it still plays games fine today but I need to do the thermal paste for the CPU atleast. Only time I opened the ps3 was to clean it for dust lol
pretty sure adding holes at the bottom lowers the air pull from the top of the console, from the power supply and such which gets pulled from the top to the bottom and out the back
Great work but drilling holes is not a good idea. The fan just isn’t designed to push the air out of those holes, the PS3 is likely to run warmer because of that since the airflow has been disrupted and rest of the components are no going to be cooled aswell. I recommend swapping out the bottom case. The fan is designed that way so it can exhaust air out of the back. A simple repaste with some high quality thermal pads is enough to keep the PS3 cool. A Delid is only recommended for the skilled and experienced. If you can’t do it, then get it done by a professional or just repaste the IHS and do not drill holes. If you have then add a grill to the holes or cover it up.
5:24 If U wanna know the exact amount of hours and the HDD is the original one, U can connect it to a PC and look at the runtime with Crystal Disk Mark or any other program that can do that.
Dude, those delid were reckless, AT BEST! Those dies could have died in just a split of nanometers. NSC's videos are good to learn how to properly set the heatspreaders once both delids are completed.
this is a what not to do when delidding, also the holes in the bottom are just going to redirect airflow from components that need it and cause a premature death of components.
He did but it messes up the cooling system. TLDR: the fan is designed to suck in hot air and push it out horizontally hence the grills at the back. The holes at the bottom are gonna screw with it since heat won’t properly dissipate.
@@cheeryos116 I agree 100% you are correct on the airflow. The PS3 needs to pull air flow through the PSU. The holes will just pull air directly from the holes and not from the top of the console. I also take the top cover off of the PSU so air moves over and through instead of trying to get enough airflow through the holes in the cover.
In this case, it is. The playstation 3 firmware can't distinguish ssds from hdds and doesn't know how to handle ssds properly. The initial performance boost will quickly vanish and drop to levels even below a hdd.
A few months ago i bought a PS3 slim, cleaned it and upgraded it with 1 terabyte of internal memory and jailbroke it. Now i have a gameconsole that plays PS1, 2 and 3, PSP, NES, Gameboy Colour and Advance and many more older games. It also has a lot of extra options like set the fan speed manually and copy games from the disc to the console. I paid only €80,- for the PS3 and 1 terabyte SSHD for the people that are interested.
I know this is an old video, but one thing I found where you could improve would be your polishing. Nothing wrong with what you did, really good job for the level of effort. However, you can just use a headlight polishing kit for a car. I use them all the time. Especially the Dupli Color brand one that comes with the tiny buffer pad and attachment that goes on a drill. All you gotta do is lightly sand it with the 3000 grit sanding pads, buff using the drill attachment and compound, and it will actually look brand new. The results are literally mind-blowing when you see it for the first time. Otherwise, it was a really great video, and I had no idea there was a better fan. I'm 100% going to order parts for that upgrade
Just picked one of these up two weeks ago. I fired it up just to confirm that it will play PS2 and PS3 games and haven’t messed with it sense. Don’t know how far I’m gonna go into it but definitely going to at least pull it apart and clean it up!!! thanks for the great video. I had no idea about the power supply in the early models and I guess that’s one of the first things I’m gonna look into.
I don’t think there are a lot of videos about physically modifying PS3 components. Man, it’s awesome to see my favorite and relatively complex console finally harnessed. Jail breaking, emulation, and now this.
I bought a new hard drive following the link provided. I installed it into my CECH-B (4 USB ports but no chrome trim or openable bay for storage). I backed up and put the drive in while signed in to psn and it just worked! The drive formatted and restarted. I was able to sync trophies and restore the backup immediately without needing to install the firmware! I am frankly bewildered.
I agree with almost everything here except two things : First, the manual fan control is dangerous. The risk of overheating is huge, I wouldn't trust myself with it. Second, delidding the RSX that way is SUPER dangerous! The memory chips can be destroyed. Better go slowly and unglue each chip before removing the lid. That being said, it's an important procedure to keep your PS3 as long as possible. On mine the CELL has lost 20°c after delidding it (running at above 90°c before that). This console is very well built, but the thermal paste they put is just plain bad!
@@ZERARCHIVE2023 Yeah, it's the only thing I didn't understand him doing here. Whereas it's understandable that Sony would have cheaped out with the thermal paste and possibly the fan, there's not going to be an executive oversight that says "Oh, we should have had more holes on the bottom!!!" 🤣
You missed installing an APS-231 power supply which runs cooler than an APS-226. Then it would be the ultimate PS3. Also drilling holes in the case is not worth it for the minute amount of extra cooling you will get from it, otherwise great video 👍🏽
