PS3 FAT (CECHL04) freezing when trying to lauch a game / PS Home/ PS Store

Older Consoles PS3
1

I own a fat PS3 VER-001. It had a period of around 3 years when it was unused.

Now as I powered it up, did all the updates and stuff, chugged in a good ‘ol Sacred 2 disc and fired it. The end. Smooth transition to black screen. TV re-reported 1080p (as if the video resolution was reset) and my PS3 is frozen solid. No reaction to controller, black, 1080p screen (reported resolution stays until PS3 is turned off).

No sound at all

No reaction to controller by any means(couldn’t turn the console off/controller off)

When turned off, with a pwr button, it beeps once, starts blinking the power led and then beeps twice (as if it realized it was frozen) and turns off

No error upon the nesxt power-up is shown

No “fix” related to safe mode helped (filesystem or database rebuilding/formatting)

Happens in all the games I have on physical discs, PS Home and PS Store (with PS Store, Playstation logo is shown and we’re back in the freeze afterwards)

I have found no topic related to that particular issue, please, correct me if I’m wrong

Additional information and findings:

The freeze happens on opening PS Home, PS Store, any PS3 game disc

During the freeze, the PS3 draws constant 90W from the wall

It’s a CECHL04 model and all the voltages are spot-on (within 1%) with the specsheet

Updates pass without an issue

Rebuilding a database or other safe mode hacks did not work, an entirely new hard drive did not work either

The controller does not pair when frozen

I’d be more than thankful for any input

2

I don’t repair PS3’s typically and i have previously only worked on them a handful of times. So take all i say with a pinch of salt.

Freezing and/or lights of death typically trackback to the cpu and or gpu, and sometimes bad caps which are present on cpu/gpu crtical rails can cause the stability issues your describing (afaik) as your PS3 is VER-001 it would seem to make it a prime candidate for a recap.given it’s age.

From memory i believe the relevant caps in question are buried inside what would look like a traditional IC package…but actually isn’t.

I have a feeling MyMateVince did a video on this ages ago, so might be worth having a search.

Again, grain of salt etc not my area

3

Somewhat similar issue, but it was due to disk tray was not fully functional. Pressing the eject button would then allow me to enter the play store.
But you mentioned that you can push in/insert disk. So try and take it apart and check there might be a foreign object in there.
That is the only thing that comes to mind…