Craigslist repair or Sony?

davo1224

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I think my topic got deleted (?) but I'm wondering how to best go about repairing a 60GB PS3 I bought for $60. The OS loads fine and the hard drive isn't messed up. It just gets really hot and will freeze when loading a game.

I don't want to pay the $180 for Sony to repair it as I can just buy a working one on CL for that much (the person selling this one to me said it was a new 80GB that needed repairs thinking he was screwing me). I also don't want Sony to give me a slim or an 80GB if they can't fix it. There's also no guarantee that they would fix it as it's been opened before.

There are two repair people who post on here all the time on Craigslist. One seems seedy (you have to buy all your own parts first and then leave the PS3 with him) while the other knows how to JTAG an XBox which is pretty damn complicated so you know he's definitely legit in terms of skill. He more or less charges $80 per fix though. I think if anything I could end up just getting a full fix through Sony at that point for cheaper.

Advice?
 
Buy another broken one and mash parts together till it works? Then you even have some spare parts. Find one that perhaps the DVD drive doesn't work or something.

Also depends on what's truly wrong with it. I mean the fans could be shot, is it just plugged up with dust and shit, or is it a problem with the board itself.

All in all a little work and you can throw together a working PS3 on the cheap. You could also piece together one with broken parts and sell it as-is and get the majority if not all of your money back on the 2nd one you would buy.
 
If heat is the only thing wrong then open it and clean it yourself. Doesn't sound like anything is physically broken.
 
Yea, u gotta take the whole thing apart and clean the dust out. Like mine, yours is probably caked with dust especially under the hard drive. Also take your fan out (3 screws) vacuum dust from cooling fins where fan was. Mines quiet as a mouse now.
 
I wouldn't trust anybody on craigslist with my stuff period. Leave your system behind? How do you know he won't switch your system with a busted one? That happened over here to someone.
 
I opened it and it's BEYOND clean on the inside. I even put some new thermal paste and nada. The power supply gets third degree hot though. It's kinda some BS.
 
[quote name='Ye0ldmario']I wouldn't trust anybody on craigslist with my stuff period. Leave your system behind? How do you know he won't switch your system with a busted one? That happened over here to someone.[/QUOTE]

...It's already broken, what does he have to lose? (Well, besides the $60 he paid for it)

I say try your luck with the $80 guy, what's the worst that can happen?
 
I got my ps3 fix on craigslist. The person fix it did absolutely awesome job and I have warranty. Went into his office and saw over thousands of systems. He sure does have a lot of customers
 
I see some notes in red marker inside the unit about the fixes that have been done such as the fan and PSU being replaced. I'd hate to think what they were like before considering the PSU is actually painful to touch after the PS3 is on for a couple of minutes. From what people have told me, the graphics chip is fried. Of course from getting too hot. I'm going to try out what that guy from CL suggested for $70. If it doesn't work, I won't get charged. So lost time at this point doesn't mean much.
 
If you opened it up and it's clean inside, that's good. Besides changing the thermal paste, a reflow was probably in order. Use a heat gun and follow one of the youtube videos and you'll be good. I fixed a 60gb I got from someone using the same method (only I replaced the thermal paste with IC Diamond instead of AS5). If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, as I have experiencing reparing PS3s & 360s. I can answer 360 jtag questions for you, too.
 
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