I hope this is in an appropriate section:

I had bought a used Phat CECHE-01 Playstation 3 console from eBay several months ago - the console had been returned to Playstation to be fixed by the owner whom was currently selling it. I'm not exactly sure what the issue was for it to be sent in to Sony - obviously something serious enough for it to be sent it. When I had first received the console in the mail, one of the first things that I did was open it up and clean the console out - as most owners don't seem to typically do such a thing. I can't recall if the issue occurred then or how long the issue lasted.

As I have not been using the console in some time, I've recently have been other wise. I had used it maybe once or twice about a week or two ago, & I had noticed the fan had been quite "loud" while I was playing a game - I believe it may have been that way when the game was not being played as well, but I cannot recall for sure.

After noticing this and using the system more often, the "loudness" of the fan no longer existed. But tonight I had decided to open the console up again and clean it out - making sure that it runs properly, etc. I was originally going to put more (new) thermal compound on, but the areas (sorry, not familiar with the general name) to put the thermal compound on were not coming apart. I put the console back together and put the system on. Not playing any game, as soon as the console started the fan was really "loud" again.

I then decided I will try to put thermal compound on. Whether this was the issue or was going to fix the issue, I was unaware. So, I had managed to roughly get the areas apart and apply thermal compound - though, I think there was so much thermal compound on it originally that it didn't come off the way it should have (I'm not too familiar with this console, but nothing broke). I applied the compound (Artic Silver 5) and put the console back together. I put the console on & again, with no game, the fan is still really "loud".

I don't know what to do to "fix" this problem. I hope that my explanation of what I did could help someone to explain to me what could be done - what I could do to fix it & I'm hoping there is something that I can do. I really wouldn't like to buy a new console. I also have the console sitting Vertically (up & down), not typically Horizontally.

I've read somewhere that maybe the temperature gauge is not working properly - that it may be some sort of "battery" in the console that needs to be replaced, or something. I'm not too sure, so if anyone could help me with this - I would greatly appreciate it!


Solved: I found the reason why it was doing so - when I unplugged the fan, I must have some how managed to change the fan speed setting to "high". I just had to take the console apart for the 4th time and change that. Now, I have a normal sounding system!