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Phat Strip Down


the "phat" ps3



On the left side of the console you will see a few rubber feet. The first screw to be removed is underneath the rubber foot circled in red in the picture below. The foot can be pried out with a small screw driver. Then underneath is a Torx security screw.



Once the screw is removed, slide the top of the case to the left. It may require a bit of force to slide if you’re opening the console for the first time. After the top slides as far as it will go, lift the top and it should come off as seen in the picture below:


After the top is off, there will be another cover.
You will need to remove the 7 long screws circled in red.



After the 7 screws are removed, gently lift up the back corners of the top half of the console. There are 2 small clips near the back you may need to undo with a small screw driver. Now the top of the console should just lift off (with a bit of gentle force) and you will see the guts of the PS3.



First, the power supply (The silver box on the left) has to be removed. Remove the screws circled in red, and take out the plug, the power supply will just lift out.



take out the mains plug in the back of the power supply. The power supply should now be completely disconnected from the PS3.



the Bluetooth board (in the 60GB models, it also has wireless). Unscrew the 4 screws and unplug the ribbon cable and the board will just lift out



Now to remove the Blue-ray drive. This is relatively easy. Lift the drive up about 2” and you will see a really wide ribbon cable connecting the drive to the motherboard. Unplug it.


There will also be a plug near the front of the Blue-ray drive. Unplug it as well. The drive will then just lift out.


Now you will (hopefully) see this


Next, we have to remove the small circuit board that has the Reset and Eject buttons. This board is attached to a small metal bracket. Remove the 4 screws holding the board and the metal bracket and unplug the small ribbon cable. The board should now easily lift out.





Now remove the screws circled in red in the picture below.


After the screws are removed, gently lift out the whole motherboard along with the back panel like the pictures below: Make sure you have taken out the plastic cover with the HDD sticker on it! Otherwise the clips on it will get bent!


After the bottom of the PS3 case is out of the way, you can see the cooling system on the bottom of the motherboard. Now remove the plastic back panel. There are 4 small plastic clips (2 on either side of the motherboard) that you need to lift to take off the back panel.


Flip the motherboard back over. Unscrew the 4 screws (circled in red) holding 2 metal brackets down. Once these screws are undone, take off the 2 metal brackets.



It will now look like this:



After that, flip the motherboard over again. Now gently pull up on the heat sink. Be gentle here. The cooling system will lift up off the CPU and GPU and come off completely. A bit of force will be required here as the heat sink will be stuck down to the CPU and GPU with white thermal paste.
This picture shows the fan removed. Don’t remove it as the fan and heat sink need to be re-attached during the downgrade.



On the bottom of the heat sink and on the CPU and GPU will be white thermal paste. This is used to help transfer heat from the chip to the heat sink. This needs cleaning off as you should put fresh thermal paste on again when you reassemble the PS3. If you don’t and the paste is dry or doesn’t re-sit properly then there is a high risk of the system over heating and you will get a ylod error later on.



After you get the heat sink off, you can lift up the metal shielding. Be gentle with this as the shielding is very thin and if it bends it could possibly cause the shielding to short out something on the motherboard when the PS3 is reassembled.

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Now flip the motherboard over again, and remove the metal shielding on the other side and you will now see the naked motherboard:


Bottom side:

Strip down guide taken from here: http://www.llamma.com/PS3/repair/PS3...y_tutorial.htm