PlayStation 3 Motherboard Assembly Replacement

Written By: Walter Galan
  • Comments: 10
PlayStation 3 Motherboard Assembly Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

6

Time Required

No estimate

Introduction

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    • Pull the control board ribbon cable straight up and out of its socket on the motherboard.

    Some PS3 versions do not have a separate control board, since the buttons and LEDS are located on the motherboard (for example, in my PS3 model CECHG04). In this case steps 10, 11 and 13 are not applicable.

    markp -

    This is also true for my CECHH01. ?‍♂️

    Philippe Morin -

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    • Remove the two 12 mm Phillips screws securing the control board to the lower case.

    • Remove the control board and its attached cable from the PS3.

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    • Remove the following eight screws securing the motherboard assembly to the lower case:

    • Seven 12 mm Phillips screws (ph2)

    • One 30 mm Phillips screw

    On my machine (fat PS3 with no card reader and 2 USB ports), there is no upper right screw to remove.

    alansliu -

    That 30mm screw is the one lower down under the power cable, not the higher up one with the embossed arrow pointing at it.

    James Beegle -

    Hey guys, that red and orange you are using are not at all identifiable as separate colors to some of us with colorblindness. I had to get my buddy to tell me which one was orange and which was red. In the future, it would be most helpful if you stuck to contrasting colors. Great guide, thanks for making it!

    Aksel Barnes -

    Step 17 helps with the 30 mm upper left screw

    joshuavivelavida -

    For any further vision impaired people trying to follow along, the single 30mm screw is in the top left of the image.

    James Beegle -

    Voting up the comments about the orange v red colors on the images, I'm surprised that such a simple edit has not been done over the past three+ years.

    Palfrus Wyrmrest -

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    • Remove the control board bracket.

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    • Use the flat end of a spudger to pry the hard drive bay cover away from the lower case.

    • Remove the hard drive bay cover.

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    • Lift the motherboard assembly out of the lower case.

    My Ps3 was a little different..

    The rear backing plate is connected to the fan shroud beneath the unit that is screwed into the bottom of the case.. And these large chrome pieces attatched to the fan were stuck to the tray that the board is on. Came a part pretty rough, guessing the ps3 got so hot it turned the grease into glue lol

    intotec239 -

    If you already suspect you may have a slightly different PS3 model to the one pictured here STOP RIGHT NOW! Do not try and lift the motherboard off the lower casing if it is not coming easily. On mine, the cooling fan and heat sinks have extra screws directly into the lower plastic case and you will not be able to lift the motherboard out until after you have done Step 27. So skip this step, continue through the guide, skip 18-23 (you probably don't have a memory card reader). After unscrewing the 4 screws in Step 27, pull hard to separate the motherboard from the heat sinks (they will be attached with thermal paste like a glue). Only then will you be able to access the screws to separate the large fan and heat sinks from the plastic lower case.

    Incidentally I totally smashed mine trying to get the lower case off here at step 15 - I broke the screws off, warped the metal on the heat sink and snapped pieces of plastic. But I continued and did the heat gun stuff and it still actually worked!!

    Fat Albert -

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Author

Walter Galan

694047 Reputation

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