after opening and repairing numerous generations of ps3's i have noticed that there is NO consistency of thermal pads placement. sometimes they cover memory chips, sometimes nothing. i notice that there is little pads covering small golden squares on the motherboard and anyone who has removed them to perform a reflow knows what im referring to, i dont know the importance of these pads covering these or what the squares purpose is and why they were originally covered. question is, if any of these pads are missing, does that play any role in recurrence of ylod. i wish i knew of a link with a clear image of a motherboard (both sides) that had the location of all thermal pads in place. if anyone knows of a link displaying the pads in position please let me know. any input relative to the thermal pads on ps3 please chime in. thanks.
All motherboards are different and the main focus of thermal pads are for chips eg: cpu graphics etc, the gold squares are heatsinks and the pad just helps absorb the heat, I have reflown a few ps3's and all their pads were intact, Ylod's biggest problem is the solder doesn't contain enough tin (Sony's cheap productivity costs are shown through this fine example :) ), I am sure that this would not contribute in the slightest way to the Ylod. :)
