"YLOD" What is the cause of the Yellow Light of Death?

"To wrap it up in the smallest paragraph, it's a solder bridge underneath one of the BGA processors which 95% of the time it is the RSX chip. The RSX chip is what generates your graphics. BGA processors basically have a bunch of solder beads that are non-lead and due to extensive heat, bridge together causing the Yellow Light of Death or general hardware failure.

Several things could cause the extensive heat.

- Poor ventilation, it needs 6 inches all around the console.

- Severe dust build up, not allowing proper airflow to extract the heat properly from the system.

- Sony uses a cheap base of thermal paste and if the system is one of the original launched versions, the thermal paste is probably evaporated or pushed to the sides and not inbetween the processor and heatsink anymore.

It also can be caused by the power supply failing as well. Probably 1 out of every 10 we do, it's the power supply that causes the issue."

"I turned my console off (original fat ps3 with ps2 compatibility). Unplugged it from the power supply because the lead was too short kept getting in the way. Was gonna get a longer one the next day. Turned the console back on 24hrs later and bang ylod . could not get it to load up again so I thought I might try replacing the hdd and what do you know it works again.

Lesson ... Ylod is not always the end !"