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Namco system 357 motherboard problems and questions

Franco23444

Franco23444

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Hi all! I recently got my hands on a Namco system 357 A motherboard. It came with no dongle and no hard drive but it was listed as having the YLOD issue that retail fat ps3s have. I got it in the mail today but it has already been tampered with unfortunately. Seems like someone already tried to repair it, the Nec/Tokin Caps were replaced and new thermal paste was applied. Just in case, I decided to reflow the CPU/GPU but I still get the 3 beeps. I have a few questions, will the system still boot without a hard drive installed? Can I replace the motherboard with a retail motherboard? Does anyone have a spare board for sale or does anyone know how to fix these?
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Remove the fans molex connectors then you must put the 5v molrx in the bottom board to power up the system i/o ans you nees a i/o sega or capcom i/o too

When power on the system with then let it run along with the power cable to.the syatem if 3 beeps occur remove the power cord of the system.the plus it again , repeat process until it not gonna die on beep , let it self fry a little , you will.see a boot promt in the screen need or no hdd. Then put one fan in molex again only run 1 fan from the case
 
I’ll go ahead and try that but I might as well replace all the NEC caps with new ones, the person who tried to fix this only replaced one set. Hopefully I can revive this unit.
 
Tonybolony said:
it will still boot boot it will give an error because its the wrong or no HDD
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Just like a regular PlayStation 3 when there’s no HDD installed. It would be interesting to see if a retail motherboard will accept the arcade hardware drive and dongle. I highly doubt it though as it may want to format it to a PlayStation 3 drive and possibly has different code. I bought new caps to replace the old ones.
Edit: I put in a PlayStation 3 HDD and it gives an error code, nothing special.
 
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Well, I replaced another set of the Nec caps and just in case, reflowed the CPU and GPU again. Now it boots. However it gives me the warning that the system gets too hot and shuts off. I’m not sure what to do now. Help?
 

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ArcSys101 said:
Does all fans working? Maybe your heatsink is not been seated hard down
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All the fans are working perfectly fine. At least I get something. I might have to delid both the CPU and GPU to clean and re-apply the thermal glue on them perhaps. I might have to send it to a professional though as I have no idea how to do any of that stuff. I have never serviced a PlayStation 3 before. 🤷‍♂️
 
The overheating error I get
 

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One more question, could the power supply be one issue as well? Especially since it’s pretty old?
 
I’ll check it out again later today, the boards are fairly clean. I will definitely need to change out the old thermal pads as they are disgustingly brown, yuck!
 
Retail PS3s display that same warning about overheating once the problem has occurred. You could fix the issue (ex: reflow, new thermal under/over GPU or CPU lid, new thermal pads, clean fans) and it’ll still say something about it. If you’ve taken all of the steps In parenthesis I wouldn’t worry about the error message too much.

That extra giant fan that Namco put in the 357 really helps keep the system cool. Beefing up the specs on that would be my next step in bulletproofing the hardware.

Wait.. has anyone tried to install CFW on a 357 before? If there’s ever been a unit that needs its fan speed forced it’s probably this guy..
 
Ok, so I went ahead and re-clamped the heat sink again and now it seems to be working perfectly fine. Had it running for 10 minutes and it hasn’t shutdown or shown the error message. All I need now is the Tekken 6 hard drive and dongle. Any one has one or can make me one?
 
Lucky escape there, fat PS3s are a PITA the thermal paste dries out under the IHS.
Not sure if the fan control on the 357 is the same as the original fat, i.e the fan doesn't go high speed until the thing is already cooking. If the setup is the same you can fit a speed controller between the fan and mainboard, something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/190960629276 essentially a pot to adjust the speed. Unfortunately you end up with a fixed speed but better then stock (fat PS3) fan control.
 
tiff_lee said:
Lucky escape there, fat PS3s are a PITA the thermal paste dries out under the IHS.
Not sure if the fan control on the 357 is the same as the original fat, i.e the fan doesn't go high speed until the thing is already cooking. If the setup is the same you can fit a speed controller between the fan and mainboard, something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/190960629276 essentially a pot to adjust the speed. Unfortunately you end up with a fixed speed but better then stock (fat PS3) fan control.
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Thank you! I thought I was toast when I saw that someone already tried to fix it lol! The fan speed is actually already fixed at full blast. And I actually don’t mind the sound as it isn’t crazy loud either. Just for fun, I plugged in a stock PlayStation 3 fan and it ran at full speed.
 
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I’m also surprised that the fat PlayStation 3 I found in the middle of the street also works considering that they suffer from thermal issues.
 
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