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I had the Yellow Light Of Death (YLOD) on my PS3.

I found many videos on YouTube that explain how to repair it.

I read and search a bit further and the problem may be caused by a disc error or a power supply failure or a "reflow"

How could I know what caused the YLOD ?

EDIT: I followed all instructions in this video and my PS3 has rebooted! I don't know for how long but it works!

EDIT 2: After 4-5 weeks, the PS3 has died again.

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  • have you given up on the ps3, or still exploring additional fixes?
    – Dolan Antenucci
    Apr 22, 2011 at 14:33
  • @dolan I bought a new one. It's a long process to do, I given up.
    – Luc M
    Apr 22, 2011 at 15:37
  • i do have the same problem with my ps3 and I did what a video on the internet suggest. I replace the thermal paste with a better one(arctic silver) and about 2 weeks later it did it again so my personal opinion is by a new ps3 it worth it
    – user47567
    Apr 26, 2013 at 0:41

2 Answers 2

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The Yellow light of death is used by the PS3 to indicate a hardware failure with the consoles motherboard. On the Xbox 360 this is equivalent to the 3 part Red Ring (often known as the Red Ring of Death).

There are a lot of things which can go wrong with a motherboard, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. The most common reason for Montherboard errors in Consoles is caused by overheating. Consoles have notoriously bad air flow and push their thermal limit rather regularly. This usually results in solder (a material used to connect computer components) heating to a point where it liquefies and detaches. There are many components for which losing solder is non-fatal, but many RRoD and YLoD are caused by GPU (and sometimes CPU) becoming detached as a result of this.

Because turning off your Console will cause the solder to cool (and sometimes reattach) a common solution to these problems is to increase air flow. Alternatively when solder does become detached, it does not always re-liquefy on subsequent heating. As a result some people will suggest just the opposite: decreasing the air flow. The goal here is to re-liquefy the solder to reconnect the components. Frequently a damp towel is recommended.

While neither strategy is guaranteed to fix the problem, these home remedies do have a non-trivial success rate. The only way to guarantee a fix is to either re-solder the component yourself, or send the console in for repair (where they likely will re-solder the component).

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  • I guess OP is trying to diagnose if YLOD is caused by disc failure or overheating. I was about to mention the same things that you have but stopped cause I am not aware of any method of finding out if some parts have melted due to overheating, OTH, disc failure can be detected by removing disk and restarting the PS3
    – Rohan Monga
    Dec 7, 2010 at 19:39
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    @bronze perhapse it wasnt clear but I was trying to suggest that there is no easy way. Unless you're willing to get out a voltmeter or have the expertise to know what a decoupled component looks like, you're not going to find it. If you do have that expertise, or are curious, then the answer I supplied should be sufficient.
    – tzenes
    Dec 7, 2010 at 21:17
  • I tried to start the PS3 without the hard-drive and I get YLOD with the same "bips". I can conclude that's not the hard-drive. I'll try to re-solder the GPU and CPU by myself.
    – Luc M
    Dec 8, 2010 at 0:58
  • I find it difficult to believe that most devices would survive at their soldering temperatures (~240 °C) and only cause any problems until they detach, rather than the parts simply exceeding their maximum junction temperature (125-150°C common for most ICs/silicon) and deviating from specifications
    – Nick T
    Apr 2, 2011 at 4:09
  • @Nick has to do with the flux in transfer of temperature over the component and the circulation of heat throughout the area. Not to mention it takes 5 times as much energy to heat silicon as solder.
    – tzenes
    Apr 2, 2011 at 4:39
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Try and avoid placing the system on anything that has static such as, Carpet , Cloths, Towels ect.. Avoid placing any of these near your system as well. If your system is on carpet is also can overheat your system and ruin your hardware, Keep your system on a hard surface and clean it once a week.

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