The yellow light of death. The light is only yellow for a brief moment.
The Yellow Light of Death (often abbreviated as YLoD) Is an error code, presented in the form of a yellow light that indicates a general hardware failure. The typical issue that causes this is a failure of the BGA/Bumps that connect the RSX’s die to it’s interposer and the interposer to the motherboard. The reason this happens is due to a mismatch in the CTE (Coefficient of thermal expansion) between the interposer and the underfill, The underfill having a glass transition temperature (Tg) that is too low and regularly encountered during normal gameplay and all this is compounded by voids created in the BGA/Bumps because of electromigration. These factors lead to extreme stress on the solder which leads to them cracking. it has been recently confirmed that the 65nm GPU does not have a statistically higher failure rate than previously thought despite being made of bumpgate materials due to the lower TDP and as a consequence only the 90nm RSX can really be considered defective while every other RSX revision should “In theory” be considered “reliable” to a certain extent. The YLoD can usually be fixed by replacing the 90nm GPU with the 65 or 40nm one from later consoles. This requires a lot of skills and a rework station, but is usually a permanent fix for YLoDs.
Description[]
For a typical case of a YLoD, which is caused by a motherboard failure, the following happens when the unit is powered on:
- The green and or blue lights come on for around 1.6 seconds, and the fan turns on.
- The fan and blue light turn off and the green light turns yellow for about a half-second.
- The PS3 beeps 3 times and the yellow light turns blinking red.
- The light will remain blinking red until the unit is powered off, returning the console to a steady red standby light (or you can hit the main power switch).
If the problem is related to the power supply, the fan will not turn on and the green light will last only about a half a second.
YLoD's often occur suddenly. Usually what happens is that the console shuts itself off during gameplay, resulting in a blinking red light. Attempts to turn the system back on result in a YLoD, although sometimes the system will come back on.
Warning Signs[]
- Fan blowing louder than normal: Sony designed the PlayStation 3 to prioritize quietness during operation. If you notice that the fans inside of your console run louder than usual, especially when the system isn't playing anything, then your system is most likely running at dangerous temperatures. While the PS3 does automatically turn itself off if ran hot enough, it's worth noting that this does not happen until the operating temperature of the CPU or GPU reaches over 90 degrees Celsius which is not safe at all. If your system has shut itself off in the past, then your system is definitely over heating and the only way to fix this is by replacing the thermal paste both under and over the heat spreaders that sit between the processors and heatsink.
- SYSCON reads error codes such as 1601 or 1701. In reality however it should be nearly impossible to predict when a GPU failure will happen however due to the entropic nature of the BGA/Bump cracking
Causes[]
The YLoD indicates a general hardware failure and could be related to anything on the motherboard, the power supply, or even the Blu-ray drive. It is most commonly caused by an unreliable GPU in early models.