So, this weekend, with the help of my bro and father-in-law, I attempted the daunting Playstation motherboard re-flow — the most successful of all “YLOD” fixes. Two hours, a lot of screws, some compressed air, a 750-degree heat gun and some thermal compound later, my Playstation magically turned back on. The disc, trapped within, ejected. There was hope.
Came home last night and attempted the Data Transfer Utility (which clones one PS3 to another). Crestfallen: my ethernet and/or wi-fi were no longer working on the old one. No ethernet = no way to do the data transfer from the old PS3 to the new PS3. Ooof.
So, tonight I will attempt to open again, checking connections in the hopes that something is just loose. Otherwise, it’s likely that the ethernet got fried when the motherboard died the first time. Then it’s onto option #2, a backup to an external drive. That should save some of my data, but not all of it — and would spell the end to our Rock Band group, the world-renowned Abbey Normals.
But, something is better than nothing. (I hope.)
