The YLOD Thread! What is it and how to avoid it when playing GT5.

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Can anybody tell me how much money gamestop will give me if I sell them, NOT trade in, my 80gb PS3 which had the YLOD?
 
yo guys i have been recentlly been researching this ylod problem. I know its somewhat of a common issue these days but is it that bad where its as bad as the rrod was? I have the 40 gb purchased i think april of 08 and like 5 months ago the blu ray drive went out got it replaced and is working really great now but anyways my 40 gb is the CCEHH model i do believe. Has anyone had a ylod or any problem on this model? im just curious. Any feedback would be great!!

thanks
It isn't as bad as RROD. I expect many people will use their original systems until the PS4 comes out. It is impossible to tell whether your system will fall to this or not.

Can anybody tell me how much money gamestop will give me if I sell them, NOT trade in, my 80gb PS3 which had the YLOD?
Is it still YLOD? If so, barely anything. Put it on Ebay. If it is working now and you tell them, maybe $50 at max, but that will likely be in-store credit, not money. I have yet to know of Gamestop giving money for anything.
 
I have a 80g unit. It's been running for a week now. Doing my 4th Le Mans in a row in fact. I stand the console on it's side to dissipate a great deal of heat. Since most is on the underside. I keep the room temp around 68 degree's as well. Zero issues and still trucking.
 
It seems like the thread is doing a nice job keeping itself up, If anybody wants to add anymore to the main post just PM me and I'll validate it, it's a lot better if the more technically inclined people here in GTPlanet help out the users here.
Thanks everybody!
 
My launch 60G from Japan just YLOD two days ago (about 4 yrs old I guess). It wasn't even warm when it die, was only playing mp3 for about 10 mins, then die. But did get the red light about a week ago, let it cool down and restart it works fine until two days ago. I thought it will be fine after cooling down, but not this time, never start up again.

As it is a Japanese model, I will have to send it back to Japan which is a lot of hassle. You need to send it to a Japanese address first (a friend of you in Japan maybe?) so that Sony can accept the repair request, as they not accepting any repair request from oversea. nice.

So I just find a guy who said he can fix it for $150 NZ (am in Wellington New Zealand). He said it is not the heat gun fix, but properly refllow the mother board and will give me 6 months warranty. I will send my PS3 tomorrow and see how it goes.

One thing I know about the data in your hdd when get YLOD. You will get it back if your PS3 is repaired, NOT replaced. Each PS3 format the hdd in a unique way so if your machine had been replaced or the mother board had been replaced, you will not be able to get the data back even you have the hdd at hand. You need the original PS3 that wrote all those data, that is the only machine can read the hdd. There is no guarantee that you will get your original machine back from Sony, they might send you a refurbish one that will not read the hdd from your old PS3. Further, from what I have read so far, Sony will format the hdd anyway. So try send the PS3 with a hdd that you don't mind being format and hope Sony will repair your machine instead of replacing it. Hope this help.

I will update how it goes with my PS3. should be able to get it back by next weekend.
 
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Little late to jump in, but I have to say that the OP has written the funniest, sidesplitting-est, soda up my nostrils-est post I have read on this entire site.

Kudos... :bowdown::cheers:👍
 
I changed out my HDD to a 500 gig two weeks ago. Tonight after playing GT5 for about 2 hours my PS3 just went blank and repeatedly flashed a red light.

If I try to turn it on, it will go green and the fan will start for a second, it will flash yellow, and then repeat the red light. Anyone know whats up?

I still have a game disc, and a new HDD in there. What is my best course of action??
 
Wow you really are a massive Playstation fanboy. The funny thing is, the Playstation's YLOD is just as common as the RROD and the YLOD kills your save data

You realize there was a point the 360's failure rate was at 33% while the PS3 and Wii were under 1%??? I'd say a 360 fanboy is trolling about.
 
Im going to look into doing a mod which will see the power supply unit become external. I have been playing the pse without the top cover one and the heat generated by the PSU with in minutes is phenominal.

Will take temps of the internal of the case before and after use.

Hopefully those who havent experienced this problem yet could benefit from this mod if it reduces case/operating temps. Maybe even future mods will see internal fans seated in the space where the once internal PSU was, drawing in cool air in while the factory fan expells hot air.
 
I got a video card problem with my 60GB BC PS3 launch model several DAYS before GT5 came out... Not the YLOD, no no no. It will boot up, mostly stays black, but when it wants to display anything it is in green pixelated squares, definitely the video card messing up, and the light on the front remains green. Now, if consoles were like PCs I would go out and get a new card and still have my launch model but instead I am stuck using my roommates launch 60GB until I send mine in (no warranty of course - $100 for the slim replacement, or $150 or so for the BC one and if it is 60GB remains to be known). Regardless, I was not happy, and still am not very happy about it. I treated it well, but for a while I lived in Hawaii where it is very hot and humid, and it worked perfectly. Came to California for school (Game art / programming) and it just stops working overnight. Bad luck, it was working perfectly the night before the card spazzed out. I spent the money I barely had in the first place to get an HD monitor to play GT5 on and it dies on me. Imagine christmas morning and nothing under the tree when your young. Being poor sucks, going for the slim model to save that 50 bucks, otherwise who knows if I will be drinking sock sweat for substance.
 
I changed out my HDD to a 500 gig two weeks ago. Tonight after playing GT5 for about 2 hours my PS3 just went blank and repeatedly flashed a red light.

If I try to turn it on, it will go green and the fan will start for a second, it will flash yellow, and then repeat the red light. Anyone know whats up?

I still have a game disc, and a new HDD in there. What is my best course of action??

That is it, YLOD. Sad to know.

You can leave it to cool down and see if it can start up again. If it did, the first thing to do is back up your needed data. It is likely to happen again, and it might not be so nice next time. Mine die again after a week of the first hit, and never start up again. Interestingly, I changed the HDD to a 320G drive recently too, but I don't think that is related. Changing HDD should not causing YLOD, well, from what I know.

May I ask what model and how old is it?
 
I got a video card problem with my 60GB BC PS3 launch model several DAYS before GT5 came out... Not the YLOD, no no no. It will boot up, mostly stays black, but when it wants to display anything it is in green pixelated squares, definitely the video card messing up, and the light on the front remains green. Now, if consoles were like PCs I would go out and get a new card and still have my launch model but instead I am stuck using my roommates launch 60GB until I send mine in (no warranty of course - $100 for the slim replacement, or $150 or so for the BC one and if it is 60GB remains to be known). Regardless, I was not happy, and still am not very happy about it. I treated it well, but for a while I lived in Hawaii where it is very hot and humid, and it worked perfectly. Came to California for school (Game art / programming) and it just stops working overnight. Bad luck, it was working perfectly the night before the card spazzed out. I spent the money I barely had in the first place to get an HD monitor to play GT5 on and it dies on me. Imagine christmas morning and nothing under the tree when your young. Being poor sucks, going for the slim model to save that 50 bucks, otherwise who knows if I will be drinking sock sweat for substance.

a lot of ppl try third party repair store that fix ps3, cheaper and usually give you better warranty. Very likely you will have all your data on your hdd back too.
 
That is it, YLOD. Sad to know.

You can leave it to cool down and see if it can start up again. If it did, the first thing to do is back up your needed data. It is likely to happen again, and it might not be so nice next time. Mine die again after a week of the first hit, and never start up again. Interestingly, I changed the HDD to a 320G drive recently too, but I don't think that is related. Changing HDD should not causing YLOD, well, from what I know.

May I ask what model and how old is it?

It's the 80 gig Metal Gear Solid Special Edition.

I guess I will call Sony tomorrow. I backed up my HDD last week. The only thing I'm really worried about is my game saves. I have almost 200 cars and 100 hours in GT5. Not to mention countless other games. I'd be devastated if I lost it all by either buying a new PS3, or getting a refurbish from Sony....
 
Or another option - fix it yourself.

All you need is a screwdriver, heatgun,some isopropyl alcohol and a tube of thermal compound.

I can help if anyone wants to attempt it. I've recently fixed one works fine again.

It is caused by the solder cracking around the CPU and GPU, so you have to heat these areas on the motherboard to melt the solder again and 're-flow' the processors to the board.

Simples!
 
It's the 80 gig Metal Gear Solid Special Edition.

I guess I will call Sony tomorrow. I backed up my HDD last week. The only thing I'm really worried about is my game saves. I have almost 200 cars and 100 hours in GT5. Not to mention countless other games. I'd be devastated if I lost it all by either buying a new PS3, or getting a refurbish from Sony....


If you can get your hands on a friends PS3, the HDD is located under a panel on the botton (or top) of the PS3, accessible without having to take the thing apart, take out the blue screw and the HDD will slide out. Put the HDD in your friends PS3 and back it up from there. Do this before you send off the unit because they will only send you a recon, not your original.
 
If you can get your hands on a friends PS3, the HDD is located under a panel on the botton (or top) of the PS3, accessible without having to take the thing apart, take out the blue screw and the HDD will slide out. Put the HDD in your friends PS3 and back it up from there. Do this before you send off the unit because they will only send you a recon, not your original.

Great idea, but it won't work.
 
OK. My PS3 phattiecakes has been on for 2 weeks straight (and to be honest it will be on for several more days[ I think they put crack in my copy]).
Any thoughts on cooling down progressively to limit the issue?
 
I thought the 80GB one is the one that has new 45nm manufacturing and a cheap shiny silver heatsink at the bottom like the one on the pic below, no orange heatpipes whatsoever and that it shouldn't heat up a lot. I know mine does because I took it apart, the other good things about them is the easy route disassembling them. Strangely enough it came with an original sixaxis, go figure. I feel bad for those with an old PS3 model, it was SONY that should take care of it, anyway not nearly as bad as RROD. ;)

5e779a0c7fff.jpg
 
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It's the 80 gig Metal Gear Solid Special Edition.

I guess I will call Sony tomorrow. I backed up my HDD last week. The only thing I'm really worried about is my game saves. I have almost 200 cars and 100 hours in GT5. Not to mention countless other games. I'd be devastated if I lost it all by either buying a new PS3, or getting a refurbish from Sony....

You'll not get anything helpful from Sony, if you want your game saves, you need to get that one up and running again.

Your options there are a 3rd party shop / bloke in a shed to fix it, or do it yourself.

If you have access to a heat gun (or can buy one), it's very simple to do it yourself, google 'gilsky guide'.

Did this myself over Christmas, twice in fact, as it snuffed it a day later before I'd bothered backing things up.

As it's dead, you might as well give it a go, take a picture of each step of the disassembly if you haven't got a good memory for that sort of thing...
 
I've had my 40Gig Fat since late 2007, the serial is CECHG. It's been played a fair bit over the years but there are periods where I wont play it for 2 - 3 months. I'm guessing I have minimal chance of YLOD.

I've been lucky so far? 3 years seems a very long time. But that said, my old PSX and PS2 have never missed a beat and still work to this current day.
 
Reading this has gotten me a bit concerned....

I've got one of the infamous 60GB models originally from the UK. Now I'm not such a gamer any more. I use the PS3 more for DVDs and BDs than for games. But now that I have GT5, I've been at it for about 2 hours a day for a week.

The PS3 is standing upright on its side, on top of the my surround system's subwoofer in the open room, so the heat should be escaping as well as possible.

Should I be a bit more careful and let my PS3 warm up and cool down before and after playing respectively, or do the experts here think I don't use it intensely enough to need to worry?
 
I suffered the YLOD last week :( Damn, all my Christmas holidays ruined :(
I took the PS3 to a third party store, the repair is going to cost 99€ and I should have it back by next week. For sure, the first thing I'm going to do is to back up my game saves, how in the world didn't I do it before, just in case.....
The guy at the shop told me they repair PS3 that have suffered a YLOD replacing that crappy tin with a mix of tin and lead, so I guess I should be safe for quite a while.
Anyways, I should have expected this to happen, becasue since I bought it (in July '08, 40GB fatty) it had never really been in a well ventilated place, and had always had other electronic devices under or over it. But that's over for sure, as well :)
And that's about my experience. I just can't wait for next week, when I can finally crank GT5 up again :D
 
I changed out my HDD to a 500 gig two weeks ago. Tonight after playing GT5 for about 2 hours my PS3 just went blank and repeatedly flashed a red light.

If I try to turn it on, it will go green and the fan will start for a second, it will flash yellow, and then repeat the red light. Anyone know whats up?

I still have a game disc, and a new HDD in there. What is my best course of action??

Have you try force eject your disc out by turning off the power switch and hold on to the eject and turn the power back on, the ps3 should force the disc out
 
Thanks for the heads up. I keep all my consoles horizontal to avoid scratching the disk. Never had a disk scratch in my lifetime of gaming (with systems tha used disks).
The first post did make me lol especially the last few responses with the pics.
 
Got a slim and put my 60 gig back in the original box. I will fix it one day, I miss the card reader and extra USB ports but the slim is a nice little machine. I still back up saves after every session.
 
Have you try force eject your disc out by turning off the power switch and hold on to the eject and turn the power back on, the ps3 should force the disc out

I'll give that a try today.

I've always been one of those that was never too concerned with ylod. Despite that I had a PS1 that had to be turned upside down, a PS2 that got DRE, and now this.

Dammit anyway
 
It's the 80 gig Metal Gear Solid Special Edition.

I guess I will call Sony tomorrow. I backed up my HDD last week. The only thing I'm really worried about is my game saves. I have almost 200 cars and 100 hours in GT5. Not to mention countless other games. I'd be devastated if I lost it all by either buying a new PS3, or getting a refurbish from Sony....

don't bother with Sony. just fix it yourself. it's not hard.
if you send it back to Sony, all they are going to do is charge you $150 and send you out a refurb.

as mentioned in previous posts, go to youtube and search for ps3 ylod fix by gilksy.

one thing I'd recommend is to use flux.

I had to fix mine twice(60gb unit). first time didn't use flux, lasted about a month.
hopefully this time around it runs a little longer being fluxed.

if I could get few more months out of it, I'd be happy.
hate to loose the card reader and extra usbs... they are so handy.

anyway, the fix should last you, at the very least, until you can back up your saves and get your disc out(if it's stuck in the unit).
 
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