Replacing a PS3 laser unit

[Funkstar]

My young lad's PS3 has been having some problems recently, games, DVDs and BluRays have all been skipping and freezing. My better half got on the phone to a support line (or something, I wasn't there) and they said it sounds like the laser unit is going bad, which apparently isn't an uncommon problem with them. Anyone come across this issue?

They quoted £120 to fix it and about a week or so turn around. For various reasons, we decided to get a replacement PS3 slim instead, so I now have a classic PS3 at my disposal. Looking about, it seems you can get new laser units fairly easily on eBay. Anyone ever replaced one? Online guides seem to be all over the place, which again makes me think this is a fairly common problem with PS3s. Seems pretty straight forward too.

[jimbouk]

There's a fairly good video out there of the disassembly of a fat. We had ours apart after a YLOD (didn't fix it sadly). Not difficult and we had the drive out in the process.

[gtech]

I've fixed abot 10 ps3's with YLOD and started fixing ps3's that have trouble reading disks, I would recommend, that you watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSYYmYXgVl0

Rather than replacing the drive straight away, get some lens cleaner from maplins...and with a few cotton buds open up the blu-ray drive and clean the lens.

I have done this to around 4 ps3's and it's worked everytime. Some of the ps3's didnt read disc's others it would read 1in10 and the fix worked.

Although a couple of these were from friends who generally have a fair bit of smoke going on in their room

[Funkstar]

It's never been in a smoky environment, not even close, but I shall give this a go.

Thanks for the video link, I'll take a look later.