Hey, after reading the extensive ylod thread i was wondering if anyone had come across my problem before. I purchased a 60 gbps3 that didn't power on at all from ebay a bit ago. I replaced the power supply in it and when I turned it on it went from red to green and back to red again after a second or two. i noticed then that there wasn't a hard drive or caddy in it so i took the hard drive from my working ps3 and put it in there. this time it turned on went from red to green to yellow and back to red. even after removing the hard drive it now always goes to yellow before turning off. anyone seen this before or have any idea's? the fans seem to work fine, and i cleaned all the dust out of it without seeing any visable burn marks. thanks for the input.
Basically YLOD is a solder problem with the CPU and or GPU caused by heat. The solder loses connection to the main board. Despite what some may think, this is true 99% of the time, and any other 'fix' that does not involve restoring that connection, is not a fix, and is just luck.
YLOD is fairly common with these models. The only real way to fix it is to resolder the CPU and GPU, or you can look up a reflow video on Youtube. ONLY do this if you are confident though as you are going to damage your machine if not. Also, reflowing without resoldering is just a temporary fix. It should and probably will last only a couple months at absolute best.
Your best bet here is to send it to Sony. You are out of warranty, but $150 is worth it for a system of this rarity. You can also look up a reapir service on eBay. My user name there is console_folk. I perform the latter with a heat gun for about $40 with shipping both ways, and am working on being able to do the resolder and reball bit.
You bought it from eBay so the warranty sticker was likely already removed when you got it I presume, so trying the heat gun won't hurt before you send it to Sony. Just make sure you follow the directions PRECISELY, and do NOT move the board for at least 15 minutes after doing it.