The prior owner was a teenager, so you can do the math about why it was this bad. But I also have to say that Sony clearly made so many design flaws with the “fat” PS3. The shape of it was clearly meant for aesthetics, and not function. There are so many hidden places for dust to collect, and the airflow pattern isn’t optimal. These things are notorious for overheating.
Even after I cleaned it and replaced the thermal paste, it still runs pretty loud.
Unfortunately, a ton of games are still locked on the PS3 and not even available on PS+ Premium streaming, so having a PS3 is one of the only ways to enjoy those games (besides emulation).
Here is the “after” picture to satisfy your brain.
This is such an improvement! FYI you can get it even cleaner with a Q-tip and 91% alcohol.
As bad as it looks, that PS3 might well have sat in a clean house for years. There’s no way to clean them without taking them apart and many people don’t have the skill to do that.
There should be a user-removable filter that you can slide out and clean every now and then.
It must have still been a fairly dusty house or environment, at least in my experience, every ps3 I’ve opened up has only been moderately dusty at worst and my personal ps3 I got at launch was surprisingly clean inside even after nearly 15 years.
Seriously do people just live in a trash heap? You see this so often. My day one PS2 is still immaculate inside and it’s only ever been cleaned inside once in 23 years. I’m glad you got it all cleaned out. I hope you did it outside.
Oooo, Fuzzy!
Call the police on the previous owner
More like “this is the PS3 that came with the pile of dust I bought.”
So THATS where I left my smegma collection
I’ve been considering getting a ps3 or ps2 lately. Do you regularly purchase these for fun to refurbish? I’d hope to buy one that’s not working and fix it up. Any advice on what to look for or anything?
Hey! So I can’t recomment where to get one, but sure I can recommend you to purchase a ps3 rather than a ps2. I don’t know if we can talk about this here, put “hacking” a ps3 is relatively easy and then you can install all ps3 and ps2 games you want. If you don’t see yourself doing that, you can search for the first ps3 generation, in which you can use ps2 discs on it. It’s rather easy to know, just search a ps3 with 4 usb connectors on the front. Take note that this model is more expensive than the other ones tho.
Of course I’d say buy both, from a collector’s point of view (let’s be real, both the ps2 and ps3 are gorgeous!), but if you just want to game, a ps3 is your go to!
Finally, in my experience, don’t buy a broken ps3 to refubrish. Generally, repairing a ps3 is not definitive, that means that in X time (1 day, 1 month, 1 year…) the ps3 will break again. In my opinion, this doesn’t deserve your time and resources.
Thank you so much for all that advice! I was totally unaware of the ease of backward compatibility with the ps3.
I really like tinkering with electronics. I currently use an rg35xx to play older games like ps1 and gameboy advance but I really miss a lot of those ps2 games!
