How To Fix Ylod Ps3 Without Opening It

There is an extremely high chance the only reason you are reading this guide is because your PS3 has died and you are looking for any way possible to fix it. You will know you have a major problem when you press the ON button, but all that happens is the red light flashes and nothing else. This is called yellow light of death or YLOD because the red light actually flashes yellow quickly before it starts flashing red.

Just to save you some time instead of reading all this leave it unplugged for at least two hours then come back and see if it turns on. If it did, sweet! If it didn't lucky for you I'm going to explain exactly how to fix it. I'm going to start with the easiest to hardest way. Easiest way will take about 1hr and fix the PS3 WITHOUT opening it. Hardest way is only if you absolutely have to, meaning opening it.

Now you may be thinking to yourself "cool, but what qualifies this guy to teach me about how to fix a PS3?". Excellent question and the reason is my personal PS3 YLOD on me and died with all my save game data still on it PLUS a game stuck inside. Not only that, but the game that was stuck was Gran Turismo 6 which is by far the most important game I own since I use it to make this site. I tried everything, but it was stuck so bad I was forced to open it myself to get it out.

I also made some critical mistakes and broke some pieces which I will be giving tips on how to fix if that happens to you. It was basically a worst case scenario, but I was determined to fix it. Ideally in the cheapest way possible of course.

This guide is for the old school fat PS3 (mine was 80GB), but some techniques can be applied to later versions such as backups, fan test etc. I strongly suggest you bookmark, save, share with others, and whatever other ways you can think of to get this guide out to everyone. The PS3 is a last gen system that WILL break on you or someone you know eventually. Trust me the last thing you want to be doing is searching all over the internet on what to do when it happens.

my ps3 opened

I decided to make this guide as a lot of the problems I had were all over the internet and not easily found in one place. I had to read multiple guides and watch many videos before I understood exactly what to do. This guide is going to be a one stop shop. It contains everything in one place so you don't have to waste your time researching. For legal reasons if you follow any part in this guide and break something or hurt yourself etc that is your own fault and I take no responsibility for it.

Before I list the tools you will need you need to ask yourself a few simple questions. Have you ever taken apart an electrical device? Do you have any experience with repairs on small electronics? Do you have any idea what you are doing at all? If you answered no to one or all of those questions you are qualified! This may seem like a overwhelming task you are about to try, but it's actually pretty easy. I have 0% knowledge in what I was doing and managed to take everything apart and put it all back together with very few issues. You probably won't have to go that far so no need to worry.

Also, always remember that a 10yr old boy in a Chinese factory is making about 1000 of these systems a day, so there really is no excuse why you can't fix the problem.

PS3 Yellow Light of Death cause

Hard to say exactly the reason why your system has decided to die. Usually it is because the system is very old or you play a lot which equals years of abuse. The cleaner the environment the PS3 is in the longer it should last since there will be less dust getting sucked inside, but eventually it can still die.

The most common reason for YLOD is because it has overheated. The parts inside only last so long and years of heavy game playing puts a lot of stress on them. What I find very ironic is the reason the PS3 has died is because it overheated and the way to fix it is with extreme heat. You would think that would be the worst thing for it, but you would be wrong.

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph I'm going to start with the easiest to hardest ways to repair it. The tools you'll need are based on the choices you make based on this article. Browse the categories below quickly before you buy anything. No matter what choice you made everyone needs a blow dryer to bring it back to life. Even if you plan on doing a full repair of the system the heat trick (step 10) with the blow dryer should be done first to get your saves off.

Tools needed:

1. Still under warranty?

Number 1 is, is your PS3 still under warranty? If it is I highly suggest you contact Sony for repairs and let them do it. No point in risking possibly ruining your system forever when they will repair it for free. Since you are probably out of warranty continue to read on. Do realize however if you have a disk stuck inside or important game saves there is an extremely high chance Sony will NOT return them. All they will do is the second they receive your system they will just send you out someone else's already refurbished system in exchange. You can still try the heat trick (step 10) first to get the game and saves off WITHOUT voiding the warranty if you want.

2. Is your disk stuck inside?

Before you do anything ideally getting the disk out first is best. Even if you are under warranty getting the game out allows you to keep the game. No point in buying a game you already own again when its just sitting right in front of you. The first thing to try is called the fan test. Turn the system off from the back switch, hold the eject button, then keep holding while you turn the system on from the back. This should set the fans into max speed and also eject your disk. If this works, awesome! I have heard it works for many, but it didn't work for me so read on if this is you. As far as I understand only newer fat PS3 systems this is built into. Original launch day systems and the first couple year systems it won't work for.

Video shows a PS3 Slim which has no back button. For Fat versions use the back button instead of unplugging like I said above.

3. Do you care about your game saves?

I personally don't play that many games anymore so don't care too much about the old games, however I do care about my current games. For me GT6 and my GTA5 saves were the most important. I had old saves backed up, but they were 271 days old. Meaning pretty much the past year of saves would be gone. This is really important question to ask because even if you buy a brand new PS3 you can NOT simply put the old hard drive into the new system and still have everything the way it was. The new system will tell you to format the hard drive losing ALL your data. Years of work playing these games and now it will all be gone. I don't know about you, but that wasn't something I was willing to accept.

4. Fix it or f**k it?

At this point you can either take out the hard drive and possibly stuck disk or say f**k it. If you picked the second option please note we will be using extreme heat which may or may not melt your stuck disk and ruin your hard drive. The next few steps will explain how to take everything apart which is the least risk to game and hard drive. If you don't care skip ahead to step 10.

5. How to take out the hard drive?

I suggest everyone take out the hard drive first. Why risk the possibility of heat destroying it when taking out just one screw can save it? To take the hard drive out look on the side (opposite of the vents) for the little piece of plastic and pop it off. You can use your nail to pop it or a knife, screwdriver etc. Once it's off there is one blue screw. Just unscrew it with the Philips #1 Screwdriver, then slide the hard drive over in order to use the tab to pull it out. Just set it aside for now and obviously make sure not to drop it or destroy it. A PlayStation 3 Hard Drive Replacement guide with pictures if you somehow can't figure it out. You do not need to take the hard drive out of the hard drive case just yet like their guide shows.

Video shows how to replace the hard drive with a new drive, but stop at 5:10 for just taking it out.

6. Taking the stuck game out

If you don't have a stuck game just skip reading this. If you do have a stuck game and the fan test didn't work you get to make a difficult choice. On one hand you can move on to the heat step (step 10) which will bring your PS3 back to life and just press eject button to get the game out. However the risk is melting the game inside the system ruining the system forever. The other hand is open up the system and remove the game guaranteeing it won't melt inside, but risking damaging the internal wires resulting in ruining the system forever. I'll give you some pros and cons to both ways to make the choice easier.

If the game is super important like GT6 was to me risking melting it in the system was not worth it. Blu ray disk are supposed to be super strong and not melt very easily plus the game is inside the Blu ray drive which acts as a metal enclosure so the chance of it melting should be extremely low. However there is still a small chance something goes wrong. It's not that difficult to open up, but I wish I didn't. I had many problems when I did it, but I have listed all the tips to avoid any problems you may run into in the rest of this article. I recommend trying the heat test (step 10) with hard drive removed first. If that doesn't work after that then open it up.

If the game is super important opening it is your only option. It was super easy as it's basically just a bunch of screws to undo, but you do have to have the correct screwdrivers and there is a couple tricky parts. There are only two wires you need to unplug, but one is much easier to destroy, ruining the system forever. I found out the hard way by breaking this wire connection like an idiot, BUT found a way to repair it and still have everything work perfectly fine. I'll include what I did at the very end in case this happens to you.

7. Reasons for fixing the PS3

Before I get into opening it up and all the hard stuff I have been getting comments asking what is the point since PS4 and newer systems are out? Other than of course getting the saves off and fixing your system the whole point is the PS3 is an excellent media player. It is much better than any Apple TV or Roku Streaming Media Player because it plays Blu Ray movies, streams Netflix, has full internet browser, has USB ports, and so much more. It is by far the best media player you can buy for the price that makes any home theater setup much better.

As you will read later in this guide I bought a new PS3 and use that as my main one now, but my old PS3 that broke is now moved to a different TV to give it all the benefits the PS3 provides. Even if you buy a PlayStation 4 and don't touch your PS3 for games it can still be used. What is the point in buying a bunch of new devices when your PS3 can already do everything even better than what's out there and that's without even playing games.

8. Opening it up

First step to this is realize this has to be done. No need to cry and complain about it anymore. One big tip I'll give is don't force anything. This system is meant to be built and repaired and everything should come apart fairly easily. Some sections may need a little more effort, but before you do this always double check you got all the screws out. First step is take off the little piece of tape on the side that says don't take off or it will void the warranty. Behind it is a piece of rubber that you remove then the first screw which unlocks everything. The first screw you use the T10 Torx Screwdriver while all the others inside you use the Philips #1 Screwdriver.

I could list pictures and steps of what to do next, but I'm just going to link to the iFix article I used. I also have a easy to follow video below showing you exactly what to do. They know exactly what they are doing and make it easy to make sure you get the correct screws. I will be listing a few tips below as I had trouble in many areas of it as well as how to open the Blu ray drive itself which they don't cover. I suggest reading the tips below first just to give you an idea of what you may run into while reading their guide.

Make sure your PS3 is facing the same direction as theirs is. Basically have the chrome strip on the opposite side of you and back vents closest to you. This makes it A LOT easier to follow along.
Place the screws exactly where they should go on the ground. This makes it easier to put back together as everything is already lined up. See picture below
Make sure you take out all screws before forcing anything. If something is stuck check all the screws are out first.
Pry the case open carefully. Mine was stuck on one side and I had to use a decent amount of force to get it open. Just try to pry on all the edges carefully if it doesn't open. Might have to turn the PS3 and wiggle it around, but put it back in the position it was afterwards.
Super IMPORTANT tip is be crazy careful of the ribbon cable. That's the thin silver wire. There is a little flap you need pull up very carefully in order not to break it. If this breaks just toss your system in the trash. Lucky for you I broke mine like a fool and will share how to fix it at the very end for the unlucky few who also break it.
I also disconnected the ribbon cable and other cable from the system itself and left it attached to the Blu Ray drive which I suggest you do to.

Do this for all screws in this guide. Not all screws are the same and need to be placed back exactly where they came from. The easiest way is unscrew one and place it right beside the hole it came from like shown in the picture.

screw lined up

Be extremely careful undoing and putting back the ribbon cable. Watch this video for a view of how it works.

Follow along ONLY until 2:19. It's only opening and removing the Blu Ray drive we care about now. If you have the repair kit for full repair watch it all. I talk about that in step 12.

9. Case is off now time to open the Blu Ray drive

I am not sure why, but they don't show how to actually open the Blu Ray drive anywhere on the iFix site. This is not that hard, but be very careful as you don't want to break anything. The good news is you are so close to getting the game out!

You will notice there is lots of computer chips and wires hanging off the drive which I just left on mine. You can take them off first, but I wouldn't bother. Just follow the video below as he makes it simple, but the next two paragraphs are important. You do not want to screw this up and have to take everything apart again to fix your mistakes (like what happened to me…). The screws are different lengths and colors and must be put back the same way. You should be laying the screws right beside the hole it came out of like I mentioned to do at the start. All the screws are very small and need the Philips 00 Screwdriver.

I physically bent the rear piece of metal up so it can clear the case and lift the entire top off. The guy in the video did not. I would not bend the metal if you don't have to, but like basically everything else on my system, it was stuck. Be careful when taking it off, but it shouldn't be that difficult. He also shows removing a piece of tape and unplugging a wire. I also didn't do that, but instead payed attention to which side they were on and opened it towards that side. I personally would recommend not unplugging it, but be very careful you do not break the wire. Of course if you do not remove the wire you can not fully take the top off as it will still be attached. Continue to follow what he shows in the video until you have access to the game.Congratulations you got the game out !

Pay close attention to how he reset the drive to accept disk. I did not watch this video when I did mine and of course did not reset it to accept disks. I put it all back together, did the backups etc, tried to put a disk in and quickly realized it was locked… It wouldn't let me put anything inside it (that's what she said) meaning only option is taking it apart again! Do not be me. Fix it properly the first time.

I actually took it all apart again and did it the proper way and a game went inside, but for some reason got caught trying to eject. Yes, meaning I had to take it apart again! Three god damn times all because Sony didn't have an easy eject. At least they learned from their mistakes as Slims and Super Slims will not have this problem. The Slim has an easy eject screw at the bottom and the Super Slim the entire top slides open easily making game removal much simpler.

Once everything is reset and game is out I was super excited to see all my hard work pay off and you should be too. Now it's just reassemble everything. If you put the screws on the ground like I suggested this should be super easy. Just connect the cables and align, then screw everything back together.

Only problem I faced when putting it back together was the very last screw (first one that unlocks everything under the tape) because it is recessed it would not line up with the hole. It was just too deep for me to drop it and screw back. I just left mine undone. It won't make a difference to the system, but the top cover can slide off since it isn't locked. Just be aware of this in the future if you are moving the system around. You can try dropping it in and hoping it falls directly into the hole so you can screw it in or use a magnet to lower it down if it's that important to you.

10. Zombie PS3 (heat trick)

This is where we apply heat to bring the dead PS3 back to life! Go get the hair dryer ready. The whole point of this is number one to get your game saves off. To do this you will need to eventually plug the system back into the wall and into the TV. You don't want to move the PS3 around too much after the heat so try doing all of this close to the TV ideally. If this isn't possible just move it very slowly and keep everything level. Enough talk let's get started.

Safety first. Don't put your PS3 on something plastic or flammable like an idiot. There is always a very rare chance it will catch fire burning you and your family alive. The last thing I want to see on the news is how you now look like an overcooked hot dog because you were a dumbass and placed your system on a bag of cotton balls and it caught fire. Don't risk it! In all seriousness the chance is very very low anything will catch fire as a hair dryer isn't actually that hot, but there is still a chance something goes wrong. Use common sense.
Aim the hair dryer about 2 to 3 inches away from the back vents of the PS3 and set it to high.
Go back and forth along the vents for 15min. Always moving the dryer the entire time. This will reduce the risk of melting the PS3 plastic. Be prepared because this will be boring as hell. Get some headphones and crank the music or watch a long YouTube video on your phone. Setting a timer is recommended to make sure you heat long enough.
Once the timer goes off don't touch it! I can't stress this enough. The whole reason we are doing this is to melt the solder and at this point it will be a little wet. You don't want to risk moving it and a wire slips out of place.
Go get a fan and aim it at the back vents on low for about 15 more minutes. If you didn't buy or have a fan around just let it sit for at least an hour. We want it totally cooled before we plug it in. Again a timer is the easiest way to track this.
Put your hard drive back in if you took it out. This is pretty important to get it to boot and for the back up later
Go get the power cable and plug it in. Turn the switch on from the back and get super excited because next step is to press the power button.
Press the power button
At this point the light should be green and the system working! Go get the HDMI cable and plug it into the TV. If the screen is black or flickering press the power button to turn the system off. Now hold power button until you hear it beep twice then let go. It is approximately 5 seconds to hear the second beep. This resets the video output and just follow the steps on screen to get the picture.
If yours didn't come back to life start over from the top. This time heat it for even longer to make sure it gets nice and hot. Some people have suggested putting the entire system in a box to trap more heat or wrapping the PS3 in a towel to keep the heat instead.

In the video he says to flip the PS3 upside down before you apply the heat. I don't see why it would matter at all and didn't bother. Everything still worked fine after.

11. Time to backup

Go plug in your USB 3.0 Flash Drive or Portable Hard Drive(they must be FAT32 formatted for the PS3 to see them) to the PS3. Go to where the game saves area is and select all then copy to the USB. Everything should transfer fine and you will now have all your saves backed up! You can also head to the settings and back up the entire system, but this may take hours. If you do this delete any copyright protected movies etc because they won't be allowed to transfer over anyway, but will add a considerable amount of time to the backup process. I did both and my backup of 40GB took 2 hours. I would also recommend syncing up your trophies. If everything went smoothly you have fixed your system and got your saves off!

Very easy to do as shown here. I would select "copy multiple" to select multiple games to copy over rather than one by one.

Now for the bad news. There is no guarantee your system will last much longer. People have reported as little as a few minutes to as long as a few months. Not a single person still has their PS3 working for multiple years after this. All we did was save our asses to get back game saves and other backups to move to a new system. You can keep using your current system which may last for months and months, but don't be upset when one day it dies again.

I suggest buying a used newer system (slim or super slim) or the Playstation 3 12GB System to use for the future. You can just switch your old hard drive to the new system, format it, and plug in your USB with the back ups on it to be back where you were at. First step for the switch is take the mount off of your old hard drive (if needed), put the new mount on it and slide it in. Simple.

My plan was to switch the drives, but I had major trouble as the next few paragraphs explain. What I ended up doing was putting a new hard drive in my new system (yours will already have one if it's any other model than the 12GB SSD PS3) and connecting a Ethernet cable between the two to do a transfer. It was lucky I did this as my full system backup for some reason didn't work. I had two profiles and it only transferred the one I didn't care about for unknown reasons. The Ethernet cable transfer method is even easier and guaranteed to work perfectly, but it took me at least 6 hours. I started at 4pm and it wasn't done until 11pm. I wasn't watching it the entire time, but checked every once in a while to see how it was going.

I followed this video to back everything up and do the Ethernet transfer. Very easy, but took a while. To get both systems on the TV I switched the HDMI cord from the back of one to the other. Sony recommends plug them both in separately, but it doesn't matter.

If you do buy the cheapest brand new option being the Playstation 3 12GB System it does NOT come with a Hard Drive Mounting Kit . You will have to buy it separately and this is the only way to put a real hard drive into the system. It is very annoying that Sony doesn't include this part and crazy frustrating trying to buy one (no one sells them where I live) but once you buy it everything will be just like before. I had to buy the part from China which is good because it was very inexpensive, but bad because it takes basically a month to ship to me. If you just don't care at all there are ways to get the hard drive to stay in place without the mount. It should work fine, but I wouldn't move the system around too much after and ideally use this as a temporary solution until the real mount arrives in the mail.

I know people who have done this and said it works fine, but it looks sketchy. I didn't want to wait possibly months for my mount to arrive and was using this method with no issues. When my mount finally arrived I switched the hard drive into it. I have had the worst luck ever with every step and this was no different. Switching it was easy, but once I put it back in the PS3 told me my system needed to do a database rebuild. This means something was corrupt and the system is trying to save what it can. Everything was fine once it was done (took about 10min) but I did lose all my music playlist (not songs) and a demo game. I now recommend either sticking to waiting for the mount or leaving it with the sketchy no mount way to avoid anymore problems.

Small story I have to share with all of you. I was sick of waiting for the mount to arrive and figured what was the worst that could happen using the trick above? Well the answer is a lot! I decided to try this on a Friday. Naturally with all my bad luck it happened to be Friday the 13 (I'm dead serious), so I was already cursed from the start.

I took off the hard drive cap from my old PS3 and already removed the hard drive. All I had to do was unscrew the existing old mount from it which is only four screws and put it into the new PS3. Easy enough, but that is when the problems start. I had to take the cover off of the new PS3 Super Slim to get access to the hard drive which is just slide the plastic. It's stuck… It's stuck so bad I had to get this special rubber glove thing that I use to undo stuck jar lids. I tried for at least 10 solid minutes until finally it came off. No idea why mine was so stuck as nothing is even holding it on, but low amounts of friction. Don't try to pop it off if this happens to you too as it slides off. If you pop it up it will break it.

Got the cover off of the new one now taking the old hard drive out of the mount is next then finally putting it in the new PS3 with this sketchy jam stuff in method above. Undo one screw no problem, next one no problem, third one no problem, last screw is a problem. It just wouldn't unscrew. Usually if something doesn't unscrew you press super hard into it and then turn to make sure the screwdriver locks. It seemed pretty locked and was unscrewing a little it seemed, but with my luck it stripped the entire f**king screw head! Now a screwdriver will not fit at all inside because there is no more shape.

If you don't know what a stripped screw is, basically, a screw is supposed to have an X shape (for example), but you twist it so much the metal destroys itself and that X becomes a O making any screwdriver just turn without catching anything. It is a huge problem, but even more of a problem on small devices like hard drives since you are not supposed to move them around too much.

I tried every possible method I could think of and some suggestions from The 12 Best Ways to Remove Stripped Screws yet nothing helped. My only option was cut it right off. I left it for the moment to think more about what to do. I came back later and got pliers and grabbed the outside of the screw twisting it until it came undone. There is just enough of the screw head sticking out you should be able to use pliers to grip the outside. Once I got it off immediately put it in the trash so you don't make the mistake of putting it back in. You don't need all four screws just to hold the hard drive in the mount anyway so it shouldn't be a problem. By the time I did this I had already gotten a new 2.5" hard drive for my new PS3 anyway and just decide to use that.

12. Full fix to your system

From what I hear you can fix this for good, but it is a considerable amount of work. More than what I felt I was capable of. I'll list below a video on how to do it if you want to take a look or think you are up to the task. I can not guarantee that it will last forever or at all after you do all the work, but this seems to be the most common problem and common fix.

13. Moving to a new system

Plug in your new system and put the old hard drive in. It will ask you to format it, which will delete everything, but don't worry since you made a back up. Just follow the instructions and wait until it's done. Plug the USB stick in and load back all the saves. You should have everything back to where it was as if nothing even happened. As stated in step 11, I did the Ethernet transfer as my full backup didn't work. I could of loaded back the save game files, but would of had to re-download all the game files again. All those years of game updates will take a while to download again. However, it is a small price to pay if your backup didn't work. That is why I suggest to backup your entire system AND your saves separately just in case the full system backup fails.

14. Bonus! So you broke the ribbon cable connector

As stated earlier I broke the ribbon cable connector flap. If you broke the actual cable look into trying to buy a replacement, but don't use the broken cable. The broken connector however is a totally different problem. The only way to truly fix it is by taking it off, buying a new part, and soldering it onto the motherboard. It is not something you want to do. However there are ways to fix it if the flap is broken. The flap is the little part that you needed to flip up to detach the ribbon cable. If the entire black piece came off the motherboard (flap and piece connected to the system) you are screwed.

Basically the way you get the flap back on (if it wasn't broken) is by pushing it down then in. With the piece broken off this may not seem possible, but it still is. I will list a few ways you can try as each break will be different. If you look at the broken piece really hard you will be able to tell how it is supposed to attach.

The easiest thing to do is place it down where it is supposed to be (with the cable already pushed in) and push down hard and then in. You can push fairly hard as their is a metal plate protecting your PS3 in this area, but you do NOT want to break the ribbon cable itself. It may take a while of trial and error to figure out exactly which side is up and trying to get it to push back, but eventually you can do it. I was lucky and managed to push it back in. If it finally clicks back tug the ribbon cable a little and see if it pulls out. You want it very secure before you put everything back together.

IMPORTANT make sure the ribbon cable is aligned perfectly before you do anything else. It can not be pushed in more on one side than the other. There are connectors on the cable and inside the PS3 that need to be lined up. If it isn't aligned and touching the proper connection the electrical current can jump to the next one causing it to catch fire. You will know you screwed up when you turn it on and smell melting plastic. In the rare chance this happens unplug the system and open it up to see what went wrong. It's easy to align at first, but must stay this way when you are trying to push back in the connector. There is a black line on the cable that should be straight and pretty close to the closed flap. That is how you know it's properly connected. If you get it back on and the line doesn't look right take it off and try again.

If your flap is too damaged or you are just fed up with trying to push it back in there is another option. Take a business card or some cardboard and basically do what the guy in the video below is doing. Remember the only reason for this flap is to push down and in to keep the cable from coming out. Anything can do it's job and cardboard works well. You may want to place some tape over it just to make sure it won't come out. I wouldn't move your PS3 around too much after this ever again just in case.

15. You are done!

I listed a lot of ways to fix your system in this article and hopefully yours is fixed and working fine. Most of these options are temporary fixes and buying a new PS3 should be on your to do list. If it breaks again I would try the heat trick again to bring it back to life once more. I do not know how many times you can do this and still have it work, but nothing to lose at that point. Congratulations on your accomplishment! Please feel free to share this guide with your friends or people on forums who may be having trouble getting their system working again. If you have any problems just let me know in the comments and I will try and give some advice.

Like I said at the start save and share the guide with others as you never know when you may need it again. To update everyone a little my fixed PS3 has been on for at least 14hrs and still working so far. I did a 7hr transfer to the new system, 4hr backup, 1hr playing around with settings, and 2hrs of watching a Blu Ray movie. It is now in a small space under the TV which doesn't allow good air flow and the fans were screaming when watching the movie. The entire area was warm from all the heat. However it's still working fine at the moment and I will update this guide if there are any changes in the future.