Playstation 3 Yellow Light Of Death or commonly known as YLOD , The Video below is off a PS3 being affected by the YLOD, this is one of the most common signs / signal that your console may have the YLOD , the YLOD can often blink Red as well , not Just Yellow.

The Service we provide here at Repair Central is a REFLOW SERVICE not a Reballing Service

Reflow Service

A reflow service is a computerize temperature control system , which heat's up the motherboard at a certain temperature and graudually increase and decrease the temperature to avoid solder splatter , the temperature control BGA rework system enables any dry or crack solder to heat to the right temperature to allow the solder joints to melt and remove any cracks

Reball Service

Reball service , is when you remove the Chipset and clean and remove all traces of solder , then replacing the solder and refitting the chip back to the mainboard. Easy as it sound you need a Robotic BGA system to successfully remove and refit the chip , as there are hundreds and even thousands of solder joints , the refitting must be 100% accurate to prevent any short circuiting .

These Robotic BGA systems are normally only employed by manufactures as they cost Hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtains and operate. Thus any small firm's claiming that they are reballing PS3 CPU are infact falsely advertising.

We have attempted to reball the PS3 CPU with our BGA machine , however the success rate is only 2/10 , the other 8 console where short circuited , an average PS3 Reballing process takes approximately 8 hrs to archived , we test every single point to see if they are bridge , however during the refitting process it's seem impossible to control anything , a slight touch of the chip will send the solder out of place.

Please Be aware of any place offering Reball service.

The PS3 Yellow light of death "YLOD" is the equivalent of the Microsoft XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death or know as the RROD , the yellow light of Death also has it own internet nickname accroynym YLOD.

The Yellow Light of Death "YLOD" is currently only effecting the first release models of the PS3 , the Slimline PS3 has yet to be confirm if it is effected by the YLOD , currently with our statistic we have only ever encounted the original PS3 console affected.

Why does it happen ?

The PS3 is a powerful console , if many of us may recall at the height of the release of the PS3 numerous government agencies in the United States claimed that the PS3 was as powerful as a Supercomputer capable of launching intercontinental balistic missile , Well many of us arnt capable of launching  intercontinental missile with our PS3 , but we are sure able to give it hours on end of intense game play with demanding graphics.

With the powerful graphic processing unit and high speed central processing units ,  all cram into a single motherboard , this will obviously cause problems , unlike our PC where as the Motherboard is the motherboard , the CPU is the CPU and the graphic card is it's own seperate entity, the PS3 motherboard integrate borth the CPU and Graphic cards in to 1.

The integrated motherboard seems like a good idea at first , but the engineers at SONY fail to take intoo consideration the amount of heat generated from the console , the fan unit , the heatsink and the heat sink compound responsible for the heat extraction is not sufficient for intense long hour game play.

With the heat extraction system terminally insufficient this will cause the solder on the motherboard to dry and oxidise thus therefore causing cracks within the solder , with these cracks , occuring poor connection joints between the hundreds of  resistor on the mainboard with send the machine into a fatal error.

This fatal error is known as the Yellow light of Death "YLOD" .

Why is it called Yellow Light of Death "YLOD"

The Yellow light of death "YLOD"  got its name from the blinking yellow LED light , the yellow led indicates that there is a fatal hardware failure and the console is unable to start up.

Red Light - The console is on standby

Green Light - The console is active and functioning as per normal

Yellow Light - Fatal Hardware failure

Blue Light - Media Disc inside console

How We fix it !

Yellow light of death | YLOD reflow service

We repair the Yellow light of death "YLOD" by a series of Reflux, Re-solder, Reheat "BGA rework" and burn-in test, during the process of re-solder, we also replace a series of capacitors and resisters.

How Long Does the Yellow light of Death "YLOD" Repair Takes?

The Yellow light of Death "YLOD" Reflow service generally takes approximately 3 working days, why?

Day 1 – Dissembly and clean console , reflux and reflow console

Day 2 – Burn in test and system test

Day 3 – Final Test preparation for despatch

For instore drop off customers -Payment will not be taken until you see your machine working.

If you have chosen to use our postal service please book  your repair by clicking on " ADD TO CART " and then " CHECK OUT ". That way we will have your shipping details and will expect the arrival of your console. The best way to send your console is at your nearest post office, a courier method can be used if preferred instead. Please remember to send your console to us with in 7 days of booking other wise a $15 cancellation fee will be charged (We will not authorize for the bank to process your credit card payment until the repair has been completed and tested 100%) .

Non-successful repair will only be charged $40 for our parts. You WILL NOT BE CHARGED for our time spent on the repair.

Why Should i Fixed it ?

We found that many customers store important data on there console , such as videos , pictures , music and downloaded games , the PS3 Harddrive is encrypted and can only be extracted from the orginal PS3.

How Long will the repair last ?

Every single repair is done to the highest standard and every step must be perform , thus we are 90% confident that we are able to resurrect your console , but determining a time frame is impossible.

Equipment we use to repair the PS3 Yellow light of Death "YLOD"

You may have seen many guides on the internet which suggest you buy a cheap $40 heatgun , hairdryer or even a cooking oven to reheat / reflow your PS3 Mainboard , while this prove to have some sort of success it is in no way safe for your PS3 , Here at Repair Central , we ultilise a professional Rework Computer Control BGA rework machine to address all PS3 YLOD related repairs , the Computer Control rework machine , provide accurate temperature control , which will reflow the board to the right temperature for the right period of time , the YLOD BGA rework machine not only fixes PS3 but also does laptop and high end mainboard , with the expertise of our staff , we can ensure you that we are using the Electronic Industry standard to repair your PS3 ylod.

Warranty

Unfortunately we do not provide any warranty for this service , we dont provide warranty on this service not because we are not confident in our technicians skills and or repair method , but as a reputable repair company offering warranty we must take the approriate  proceedure  to ensure the console is repaired too 100% perfection.

To ensure the console is repaired to perfection we must employ a 3rd party component XRAY scanners , which cost $150 per a scan , if we were to let's say , Scan " to determine fault locations" $150 , Fix "apply BGA rework" $100 then Scan " to determine fault is repaired the total amount payable for the repair would be $500 this would prove uneconomical for the repair to be undertaken as a replacement console would cost you approximately $488 at JB Hi Fi or EB games .

Repair Central is also a repair agent of choice for QBE Insurance , Westpac Home Content insurance , NRMA Home content insurance and THE Warranty Group - DSE Electronics. Generally with these company any PS3 effected by the Yellow light of Death is an automatic writeoff , thus therefore we dont understand why some companies are providing 6 - 12 month warranty on such repairs.