PS3 Shenanigans pt 3

This is it. Frankenstation MK. 3.




It runs quite well for about two hours. Since there is no cooling mechanism, it overheats eventually and shuts down. I have to wait for the oil to cool and it runs again, so at this point I just need a pump and radiator and I'll be in full working business.

PS3 Shenanigans Pt2

Nope, this project has NOT died a slow and painful death. It has survived!

So, that's the motherboard.

And that's the old heatsink that was super-faulty.

And that's the super-big hole I cut to make room for the new--

super-better metal heatsink. Don't mind the little marks, that's just thermal grease that I cleaned off later.

I hit a pretty big snag here though. See, I drilled two holes in the heatsink to use some screws to connect the heatsink to the processor.

Then one of them sheared off. Inside the heatsink.

One screw held though, so I didn't give up hope. I set it up, put a fan on it, and turned it on for just a second to eject my brand new copy of Final Fantasy 13.

Voila! Success!

Right now I'm in the process of waiting for the local farm store to resupply it's stock of mineral oil (I bought them out last night) and then I'll post the exciting conclusion!

PS3 Shenanigans Pt. 1

So, the Playstation 3, bane of my time spent best elsewhere, and home theater champion, has crapped out on me, again. This is actually the third time THIS system has died on me (I got a replacement about six months ago when my first one died.).

Since Sony refuses to replace it for free, I am left with little choice but to fix it on me own. And I have done so twice now. The yellow light of death is a symptom of a cracked solder on the Cell processor. It's a microscopic crack due to either over heating, or uneven heating. To fix it, you heat up the processor to about 700 degrees F and it melts and reforms, then solidifies as it cools, allowing the proper connections to be made and maintained.

That is, unless your heatsink has two gouges in it from faulty manufacturing. Like mine.

The original heatsink will repeatedly cause this problem for me no matter how much thermal grease I put on there, and no matter how cool I keep the system. It's going to heat unevenly and cause differing rates of expansion along the surface. The constant uneven (oxymoron?) shrinkage and expansion will only serve to ruin my goodies.

Solution? New heatsink. Added awesomeness? Playstation 3 submerged in a bath of mineral oil.

Heck. Yes.

Check out this video for an idea of what I'm doing:


Except with a Playstation instead. I have most of the materials assembled: Fish tank, heatsink, fan, plan... Once I decide how to mount the generic PC heatsink to the proprietary Cell processor, and then buy five gallons of mineral oil, I'll get started for realzies.

Pics included.

I have a lot of thanks for Rachel, who has been absolutely fantastic in supporting this ridiculous endeavor. She drove me to Wichita twice now to get parts, and also gave me a pep talk when I felt like it wasn't going to work.

I guess I have a lot to cover

Two holidays gone by and nothing to write about? No, that's not it. Just no desire to sit down and make my fingers wiggle. Been in a mild funk the past couple days. I tend to come out of it while I'm at work, but when I get home it's time for bed, so I have no period to just sit down and let my good mood affect my day.

So, to recap I guess: Christmas wasn't quite my usual fare. No tree, no caroling, no church. Just me, Curtis, Laurie, and her son Josh. And tacos. We ate tacos and nachos on Christmas day and watched Step Brothers and I almost choked on some green tea when I laughed at the movie. And then later that day we saw Seven Pounds which took me in the totally opposite direction emotionally.

Then a whole lot of nothing happened for the next few days until New Years. Watched the ball drop with Laurie and Josh, then stayed up late playing Metal Gear Online with Josh. It was pretty fun, and I haven't played video games for such an extended period of time in probably over a year now.

Then the next day I stayed up all night played Call of Duty with Curtis (We beat it.) so I felt like I wasted another day on video games. This made me feel a little blah as well. My weekend, completely gone to gaming. I guess I wouldn't have such an aversion to it if my old roomate wasn't currently wasting his life on World of Warcraft. Shoot, some of the people Curtis works with don't do anything but play WoW. They even have kids and still devote 6 to 8 hours a day on WoW.

I texted my ex girlfriend today, to tell her Happy New Year. Then I realized why I don't like to talk to her anymore. She only has one adjective to describe everything that she experiences. Shitty. That's all everything is. It's just Shitty and there is no other way to describe anything.

Lame. I'm gonna go hit on a Walmart cashier now.