PS3 motherboard rust, is it toast?

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Retrowire

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Hey everyone!

I have an awesome brother in law that works at the waste management facility nearby and sometimes, stupid people throw out nice things.

He regularly receives some technical treasures in his line of work, and today, I was presented with a PS3 game console.

I've got plenty of experience repairing consoles, as I used to work at a video game console repair center. However, I've never come across this.

The unit receives power and then gives a flashing red light. Upon further examination, I discover this thing has NEVER been serviced. The previous owners never attempted a repair, and according to it's condition, I'm guessing they just put it in a garage to rot.

The poor thing.

At first, I thought it was a dust thing, because this thing is DIRTY. But further inspection found something else.

I opened it up, and got to the motherboard. There is rust on it. Not a little, a good amount. I'm wondering if this is the death knell for the system. Is it not repairable because of this? Or are there ways to clean rust and work around it?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks.
 
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Retrowire

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My step father has suggested using WD 40 to clean the rust. And I've read sources online that WD 40 will not damage a PCB. Any words on that?

Also considering putting this thing in a dishwasher. Hmmm...
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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could give a bath in iso-alcohol, and a toothbrush to try to remove most of it, then let it dry fulling. the red light sounds like the "yellow light of death".

timing from the time you press the button till it turns off usually tells me if it's worth trying to fix. instant, usually not fixable. 3 seconds, I'd reflow it and probably bring it back. 7 seconds, usually not fixable either. 3s is the key time.
 
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Retrowire

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Sadly, I don't have any isopropyl alcohol on me. I really need to get a bottle of that stuff!

But I do have a can of CRC QD Electronic Cleaner and a new nylon brush. So I'm going to give this thing a scrub and brush with this stuff and see if it removes the rust.

The cleaner says it removes dirt, dust, grease, flux and "other contaminants". Here's hoping the other contaminants are rust.

Also, in my experience with PS3 repair, an immediate red light (which this is) isn't always a terrible sign. If cleaning this thing by brush doesn't work, I'll attempt a reflow of the board.

Any other ideas anyone? And has anyone ever had success with removing rust from a PCB?
 
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Retrowire

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I found a can of some CRC QD Electronic Cleaner. Will that work?
 
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Retrowire

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Well that removed a lot of the rust. There's still some brown coloring here and there though. Everything looks okay despite the staining. I just cleaned all the old thermal paste off the chips. Now I'm wondering what I should do next... Should I put this in a dishwasher or reassemble and see the new result?
 
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Retrowire

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It's been reassembled and I'm sorry to say that we still have the green light, then yellow, then red blinky light of death.

Should I still attempt the yellow light of death fix by reflowing the motherboard or is this thing shot?
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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that's the fun of ps3's. no error codes to let you know like the 360. certain 360 error codes, you know don't bother. ps3, it's yellow light and that's it, have fun. anything can trigger it from a bad psu to solder to anything.
 
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Retrowire

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Here's an update everyone.

I performed the YLOD fix on it and boom, it works!

Turns out that rust is not necessarily the end of a motherboard. We got it running, it did a system restore on itself and now we're formatting the system memory to remove the previous owners information.

Thanks everyone for the guidance.
 
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beyondlogic

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nice to hear it worked though i would have suggested had i got to the post that make sure capacitors dont have any rust etc if do replace or it will be a short victory

 
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Retrowire

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According to this guide: http://playstation.about.com/od/hardwareandaccessories/ht/Can-Your-Ps3-Play-Ps2-Games-The-Lowdown-On-Backwards-Compatibility.htm

My PS3 MAY BE backwards compatible and it might not. It's the 80 gb one. So, who knows until I pop a PS2 game in there?

Also, I can't put a disc in the drive, it seems that something is blocking the way. I'll need to disassemble the BDD and see what's up.
 
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beyondlogic

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possibly the game got stuck in the drive lol hence why they chucked it

 
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Retrowire

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well i disassembled it, and extracted the motherboard.

i followed the majority of steps from ifixit.com's guide for fixing the ylod.

however as a detail i used an infrared thermometer to gauge the temperature of the chips while heating them with a heat gun. i kept the temperatures at 125 degrees celsius for 25 seconds per each chip. then i let it cool and reassembled.

sorry for the lack of capitalization in my posts, my phone is being weird.
 
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Retrowire

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i am appauled at the reasons people will throw things out. seriously.

this thing however must have spent a year in the shed because according to its user data, it was last used a year ago. after that, it accumulated rust, dust, bugs you name it.

never serviced once until now. and now it works.
 
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