Old Console Upgrades - How to accidentally, your console.

I wish I knew about that PS3 thermal paste stuff. My old fat PS3 died way back in 2013 and if I had to guess it's probably because of the problems listed there.

Does this apply to the Super Slim model by any chance? That's the one I currently have and I don't see anything in the OP about whether that needs fixing up every now and then.
 
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Duncan Hills Coffee said:
I wish I knew about that PS3 thermal paste stuff. My old fat PS3 died way back in 2013 and if I had to guess it's probably because of the problems listed there.

Does this apply to the Super Slim model by any chance? That's the one I currently have and I don't see anything in the OP about whether that needs fixing up every now and then.
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As a general rule all consoles should be maintained like this as they age. Basically everything post-Dreamcast, and especially PS3/360 onward, has to be babied to ward off overheating. There's not much technical difference with the super slim besides how you open it up, as seen in a breakdown. The only thing you can't do with a super slim that a fat or slim can is utilize custom firmware. You still have access to Hekate and whatever homebrew runs on it, but you won't be able to monitor your system or control your fan curve like @Jean Lafitte 1812 recommended.

It's worth mentioning that besides just repasting the heatsinks themselves, the PS3 ships with thermal paste applied to the emotion chip, RAM cores and the GPU as well. You have to take off the heatsinks not unlike delidding a desktop CPU to access them and apply whatever paste or pads you'd like. You can see this process shown off pretty well here. I'd also recommend cutting new vents into the chassis itself to help with airflow if you get the time.

And a note regarding @Dialtone's SSD advice. It's my understanding that the PS3 utilizes SATA-I/SATA150 rather than SATA-III/SATA600, which can neither make use of an SSDs read speed nor of their TRIM feature. Without the garbage collection TRIM offers you'll find your file system bloating with junk data as time goes on, and without more modern SATA support you'll get little increase in performance to show for it. The general advice is to get a 7200RPM HDD or hybrid drive instead, which while hotter (and faster) are capable of being fully utilized by the PS3.
 
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ThinkThankThunk said:
It's worth mentioning that besides just repasting the heatsinks themselves, the PS3 ships with thermal paste applied to the emotion chip, RAM cores and the GPU as well. You have to take off the heatsinks not unlike delidding a desktop CPU to access them and apply whatever paste or pads you'd like.
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I think I bricked an Xbox One X by trying to change out the thermal paste, so I don't try it anymore.

My theory is that the computer store sold me thermal paste that wasn't non conductive.

But it was supposed to come refurbished, which obviously it wasn't, so I returned it to ebay for a refund anyway.
 
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Cable 7 said:
Tell me how to get my Gamecube to output in 1080p and you can be my friend.
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The EON adapters are the best choice for Gamecube itself and most modern TVs handle 480p just fine still. If you want something cheaper, buy a Wii or Wii U and mod it for Nintendont. Having virtual memory cards and access to Wii controllers is nice, plus Nintendont can force 480p for the games that don't natively support it. If your TV has component ports, they look just as good as HDMI with high quality cables.
Duncan Hills Coffee said:
I wish I knew about that PS3 thermal paste stuff. My old fat PS3 died way back in 2013 and if I had to guess it's probably because of the problems listed there.

Does this apply to the Super Slim model by any chance? That's the one I currently have and I don't see anything in the OP about whether that needs fixing up every now and then.
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You should probably clean out the Super Slim and replace the thermal material, but they've proven quite a bit more reliable than older models. Especially that slide top Blu Ray drive compared to the slot loader on older models.
 
ThinkThankThunk said:
As a general rule all consoles should be maintained like this as they age. Basically everything post-Dreamcast, and especially PS3/360 onward, has to be babied to ward off overheating. There's not much technical difference with the super slim besides how you open it up, as seen in a breakdown. The only thing you can't do with a super slim that a fat or slim can is utilize custom firmware. You still have access to Hekate and whatever homebrew runs on it, but you won't be able to monitor your system or control your fan curve like @Jean Lafitte 1812 recommended.

It's worth mentioning that besides just repasting the heatsinks themselves, the PS3 ships with thermal paste applied to the emotion chip, RAM cores and the GPU as well. You have to take off the heatsinks not unlike delidding a desktop CPU to access them and apply whatever paste or pads you'd like. You can see this process shown off pretty well here. I'd also recommend cutting new vents into the chassis itself to help with airflow if you get the time.

And a note regarding @Dialtone's SSD advice. It's my understanding that the PS3 utilizes SATA-I/SATA150 rather than SATA-III/SATA600, which can neither make use of an SSDs read speed nor of their TRIM feature. Without the garbage collection TRIM offers you'll find your file system bloating with junk data as time goes on, and without more modern SATA support you'll get little increase in performance to show for it. The general advice is to get a 7200RPM HDD or hybrid drive instead, which while hotter (and faster) are capable of being fully utilized by the PS3.
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You're absolutely right about the SSD thing, and I would not have thrown an SSD in it back when a 500GB SSD was over $300, but since they've been much cheaper for a while I figured I'd toss one in since it's more reliable than HDDs especially on something that physically moves around a lot like a console also it's a bit quieter (doesn't matter much since the fan sounds like a jet turbine) and also it's what I had on hand, although I'm sure any modern HDD is much faster than the rinky-dink Toshiba 80GB model from 2007 mine came with and will hit close to the performance limit of 150MB/s, so you'd probably be fine with any quality made HDD.

I'd also like to append that Arctic MX-4 and/or Noctua NH-2 are much better compounds that will last longer than Arctic Silver 5, and should absolutely be used in its place, again, that's just what I had on hand at the time.

Jean Lafitte 1812 said:
Regarding PS3s: After you tear it down, clean it, replace the thermal material, and install a nice big HDD or SSD you also might want to softmod it. Even if piracy or homebrew holds no interest for you it still had 2 big advantages. First you can load your legitimately ripped ISOs to reduce the wear on your Blu-Ray drive. The drive is paired to the system so you have to do a board swap if it needs replacing. Second is that the custom firmware is much more aggressive about running the fans and you can customize the fan curves and manage temperatures better.

Use PSNPatch and there's very little risk of being banned from the PSN, although I still use a throwaway account myself.

Here is the /r/ps3homebrew hack guide. Early slims are the best for hacking, model number 20XX or 21XX. More reliable than the fats but still fully hackable like them.

Using my PS3 I can play games like Scott Pilgrim and Shovel Knight on a CRT, but it unfortunately has the 480i shimmer compared to real retro consoles' chad 240p.
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Very useful tips, I wasn't aware that the BD player was tied to the board, definitely going to try this patch this weekend.
 
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Does anybody know a good service to get an NESRGB board installed? I purchase one for my Frontloading NES and I was hoping to get it installed but unfortunately, I lack the proper electrical know-how to install it myself. I am aware of Voultar and his installation services but I sent him an inquiry around 2 months ago and he has not responded to it since then.

Does anybody know any other installation services for NESRGB that have favorable reviews? I would really like to get it installed as soon as possible.

Thanks!
 
Jimmy Durante's Ballsack said:
These are cool. Look into the guy I mentioned earlier (Ben Heck) if you are into this kind of thing. He's got a ton of experience fabricating portable systems from existing consoles. It is very impressive work.

I've always wanted to build a portable SNES that I could plug my own cartridges into. It doesn't seem too difficult, just time consuming.
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ShortBusDriver said:
Hyperkin_Supaboy.png
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dat aspect ratio tho

Also I've seen design documents for portable SNES systems that allow the cartridge to recess much further into the device. All I see when I look at the Supaboy is my cartridge getting broken. Also I don't trust Hyperkin's products. The Retron system that Hyperkin sells is questionable at best. I used to sell them and had multiple instances/complaints about removing the cartridge and also ripping the pin connector out of the system along with it.
 
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Jimmy Durante's Ballsack said:
dat aspect ratio tho

Also I've seen design documents for portable SNES systems that allow the cartridge to recess much further into the device. All I see when I look at the Supaboy is my cartridge getting broken. Also I don't trust Hyperkin's products. The Retron system that Hyperkin sells is questionable at best. I used to sell them and had multiple instances/complaints about removing the cartridge and also ripping the pin connector out of the system along with it.
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I have one of their NES controllers. It's pretty good.

Though, yeah, I've heard so many bad things about the Retrons that I've never picked one up.
 
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Here's another neat device for those that are interested making their own ROMs or backing up old save data from cartridges: http://www.retrode.org/

The Retrode lets you connect your carts to your computer and move data back and forth. The guy at this specific website no longer manufactures the device but you can find links to licensed manufacturers/distributors that still sell the unit and its accessories.
 
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Dialtone said:
although I'm sure any modern HDD is much faster than the rinky-dink Toshiba 80GB model from 2007 mine came with and will hit close to the performance limit of 150MB/s, so you'd probably be fine with any quality made HDD.
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From the ps3 developer wiki they list all the stock PS3 drives:


From what I understand, pretty much any HDD you buy in 2021 is going to be significantly better than those stock drives.
 
Dialtone said:
I'm retarded, I didn't realize I needed to essentially de-lid the PS3's CPU and GPU and replace that compound as well, so I just replaced the compound on top of the heat spreader like a moron, and now I will disassemble it for the fifth time.
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The heatspreaders on the PS3 are absolutely yolo territory when going beyond the fan/heatsink, the electronic cum Sony called "thermal paste" is going to be hard, brittle. and practically act as epoxy keeping both on the chips at this point, aside from the actual thermal epoxy you have to get through. It's not like flipping a coin if you try to delid a Haswell, but some guy on Lue used too hot a heatgun way too unevenly, and spludged the entire RSX onto his face when prying what he thought was just the spreader off

After doing this for a friend while sweating, I settled for just the fan/heatsink with Mastergel on mine, this brought temps down to an acceptable level along with a custom fan profile. Here's what things look like after a while of absolutely heating/stressing the fuck out of the system with Movian playing ultra-compressed Xvid rips, and an hour of Scott Pilgrim for the hell of it, alternatively: GoW Ascension will give your PS3 the workout of it's life with some of the prettiest particle/shader effects the architecture can endure

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Ancient un-repasted PS3's will routinely hit 80 - possibly 90 - sounding like a Geforce FX, so I think this is perfectly fine if you're attached to the first trip dat you copped and don't wanna accidentally fuck it up. You can get the new profile with ultra-basic homebrew called Control Fan Utility, and the default tweaked curves are fine, and not ultra-audible either, but you can also mess with the fans in Webman if you need more power
 
PS3 YOU CAN (NOT) REBALL
AKA Why yes I think I will necro a 3 year old thread.​


If you have a fat PS3 it's joever...
Link in case embed doesn't work
Solder balls on the RSX break over time because of the materials used in production, completely unfixable unless you have a time machine in order to go back to 2005 and tell Sony to use composite solder balls.

Your only option to mod is on a PS3 slim or up, the Blu-Ray drive is hard coded to the motherboard so if it breaks it's also over, so really you'd have to mod it to play on original hardware.
 
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Dialtone said:
PS3 YOU CAN (NOT) REBALL
AKA Why yes I think I will necro a 3 year old thread.​


If you have a fat PS3 it's joever...
Link in case embed doesn't work
Solder balls on the RSX break over time because of the materials used in production, completely unfixable unless you have a time machine in order to go back to 2005 and tell Sony to use composite solder balls.

Your only option to mod is on a PS3 slim or up, the Blu-Ray drive is hard coded to the motherboard so if it breaks it's also over, so really you'd have to mod it to play on original hardware.
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I have an old PS3 Fat that's been dead for over a decade now. I guess I can take out the 60gb HDD and then safely recycle it. And then, uh, pretend like I'll find a use for that drive but never actually will because 64gb flash drives now cost less than a hamburger.
 
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As long as this thread is bumped, how do you guys feel about modding old portables with IPS screens? I did an IPS/USB C Rechargeable Battery mod on an original horizontal GBA just as a quality of life improvement. The wife has her original GBA SP with the frontlit screen and besides the better screen on my Gameboy, we were unable to detect any difference in terms of lag or performance.
 
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