Opened up my PS3 and reapplied heatsink paste

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Grand Master

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Just a friendly topic to say I finally cracked open my PS3 Slim tonight, cleaned out the dust, and then put new paste on my heatsinks. I have to say the default application from Sony in the factory is weak - I redone mine with IC Diamond 7.

Seems to be running a little quieter, but that will probably be mostly to do with dust clean out.

Wasn't a hard job at all, simply a little time consuming to take it at a slow pace.

Grand Master

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yeah it's really simple. how old is your slim? it takes a few years for that stuff to dry up.

About 2 years (maybe 2.5-3 years actually?). It wasn't half dried up, crumbling and looked like a pretty uneven application to start with.

edit: The PS3 Slim was bought about 2 months after the US launch, whenever that was - It's a US console imported to UK.

Veteran

Fish

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I've noticed recently my slim has started to make a slightly different noise from the fan, which I'm sure is dust build-up causing a slight imbalance. Been meaning to give at a clean, might crack it open this weekend. Any idea what size the fan is? I might consider replacing it entirely for a quieter PC fan if it's not too incompatible.

  • 2 weeks later...
Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Hmmm, after reading this thread, think I might just clean my PS3's just to clean them.

However the other part of me is thinking just leave well enough alone, as they both seem fine. I do also usually blow compressed air on them at least once a month, if not more frequently.

Grand Master

compl3x

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I've had my PS3 for a long time, 3 years perhaps, and there was very little dust in mine. It was a bit of fun to take it apart and have a look around inside, but it was entirely unnecessary for the amount of dust I removed. My fan also looked as if it was brand new. I must take better care of my electronics than I thought I did :laugh:

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Boxster17

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I have a near launch PS3 (roughly March '07) and the first time I had cleaned it out was maybe a year ago and it was surprisingly clean in there. There's a decent amount of spacing between the fins on the heatsink that it doesn't clog with dust really at all. If you used compressed air that will clean it out just fine, and going any further would likely not be worth the time/effort. I also keep my apartment a lot cleaner than most, if not everyone I know, so maybe that plays some sort of role as well.

I had taken mine apart because the fan was starting to ramp up quicker than it used to, so figured that I'd give it a good cleaning as it had been a while. Turns out it wasn't really dirty at all inside but the thermal paste was pretty dried up (and I ended up sanding down the heatsink further as it wasn't as flat as I would've liked, but that's me being a bit OCD). Definitely noticed a difference afterwards but I'm quite sure it's because of the better thermal contact with the CPU/GPU as the previous paste was kind of crappy.

  • 4 weeks later...
Grand Master

DPyro

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I've read there's no real point replacing the heatsink paste because the chips don't even touch the heat plate. Sure cleaning the dust out is fine but unless you pull the heat plate off the processor and GPU (which is really dangerous) there's no benefit to replacing the paste cause there is even more paste underneath the heat plate.

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