Five Typical Issues That Gamers Encounter on the Sony PlayStation 4 Console

White Light of Death (WLOD)

One day you connect your PS4, or it drops. You then press the power button everything starts. The blue light goes into white light, and everything appears normal until you notice the TV will say no signal or distorted picture feed. Well, the first things to look for are. Do I have my HDMI cable connected properly? If yes, then the second thing is to try another HDMI. But that is simple, duh! Why is my PS4 not working!? If you completed those two simple steps, it could be a more severe issue. Look at the HDMI port behind the PS4 and check to see if the contact pins are lifted or pushed back. Or are the pins bent? Umm… my port appears to be in good shape.

At this point good chance you have a faulty video encoder IC chip or other components on the motherboard that are bad. HDMI port and IC replacement on the motherboard will require dedicated tools such as a hot air station, soldering station, microscope and etc. Also, some sort of basic understanding of how to properly use the tools and how to do the repair the right way to avoid any damage. Sure, they’re some DIY videos or websites out there showing you how to do it with tools you may have lying around the house. However, you increase the chances of damaging your motherboard with excessive heat or surrounding components other than the one you are trying to replace or ripping out contact traces. If you don’t have a decent solder iron that can stay at a high temperature when touching ground pins, that will be an issue, as they need a lot of continuous heat. Among other tools, you’ll need a microscope to help with the repair, as it’s kinda hard to repair something if you can barely see what you’re doing. Also, you’ll want to inspect your work to make sure all pins are soldered correctly, and no pins are bridged. That being said, the good news is your console isn’t completely bricked and is, in most cases, repairable.

Disc Drive Not reading/Feeding

So you insert your game, and nothing happens. You then take it out and try again, but the PS4 doesn’t appear to be loading the game or doesn’t recognize it. The first thing to check is the disc. Are there any deep scratches on either side of the disc? Yup looks brand new still. I just want to play my freaking game! You can try blowing a little bit of canned air into the insert slot to remove the layer of dust blocking the laser sensor from reading the disc. If that doesn’t work, then it looks like you will have to unplug the cables and open up the console. Doing so will void Sony’s warranty. Assuming you’re aware of that and want to move forward. The next thing is to start taking it apart. I recommend you watch some youtube videos on how it’s done to avoid any damage. Once you reach the disc drive, you’ll want to remove the top lid. Now you should see the Laser’s head. Next, take a Q-tip that is lightly damped with 91-99% alcohol on one side and gently rub the lens. Now take the dry side and gently rub it again. Now put everything together and try again. If that doesn’t solve your issue good chance the laser head will have to be replaced.

The PS4 can have disc-feeding problems, such as failure to accept the disc. Like takes a while to completely take the disc or vice versa when ejecting. This issue will require you to open up the PS4 to get to the disc drive. Most of the time, what causes this type of issue is the rollers or roller assembly springs. After a long while, or if in a crazy dusty environment, the rollers will attract a layer of dust and lose their ability to grip the disc and help guide it into the disc tray. You will have to take a piece of paper towel or rag damped with 91-99% alcohol and wipe the rollers clean. Once they’re clean, you should notice a slightly glossy finish. Depending on the environment the console was in. It may not have a gloss shine and is more like a matte finish. This is okay and should still have enough grip to help guide the disc into the disc tray. Now say you tried that, and you’re getting the same result. The next thing to do is add more tension to the roller spring assembly. The Piece the rollers are placed in has a spring on the rear left side of it. You’ll have to take it out with precision needle-nose pliers or tweezers. Of course, wear eye protection to avoid injury in case it jumps out to bite you. So now we need to bring the tension back to the spring by holding one of the arms and pulling back the other arm. I’d say you want to pull it back roughly in the same position as the arm you’re holding. That will be enough tension for it to work anymore may cause it to break or make it really hard to install it back in. That being said, once you bend the spring back into its original state, you can now reinstall it. When it comes to this problem, this fixes it most of the time.

Okay, that is great to know, but my PS4 is not accepting discs at all. Why!? There is a number of factors that will cause this issue, but I can list a few possible causes. Did you or do you know if anyone has to open the console before? If so, I would check the ribbon cables on the disc drive for any damage. The ribbon cables transfer power and signals to different parts of the disc drive unit. If any part of those ribbon cables is torn or corrosion on the contacts, this will block signal/power to the motors, laser head and etc. Once you confirm those are good. Then you have to take the disc drive apart and check for any broken pieces of plastic or foreign objects. Once you confirm everything is clear and appears to be in good shape, then you may have a bigger problem. If you have the original launch model PS4 (CUH-1000/1100), the disc drive has its own daughterboard. The other models, such as (CUH-1200), (Slim CUH-2000/2100/2200), and ( Pro CUH-7100/7100/7200) all have the daughterboard’s components integrated into the motherboard. In most of my repairs, I find one of the fuses that send power to the disc drive blows and will need to be replaced. But we need to know for sure since other factors could cause the failure to accept a disc. Start with a multimeter and set your meter to continuity mode. It beeps when you touch both probes together. Now, these, in most cases, are pretty small and may need some sort of magnifying glass or microscope. Put each probe on both sides of the fuses, and you should hear a beep. If one doesn’t beep, then there goes your problem, and that will need to be replaced. Although, in many cases, it’s one of the fuses. Other components could go bad as well, such as the RAM chip or, in my worst nightmare, the Renesas chip. The Renesas chip is “married” to the APU on the motherboard, and your PS4 will not work if you replace that chip. Both of those chips will have to be replaced with married chips in order for the PS4 to be functional.

Overheating

You come home from a long day of work or school and sit down. Then you turn on your PlayStation 4. Everything is working great, and you start playing a game. After a few mins or so, you notice the fan in the PS4 becomes louder and louder. Then the PS4 stops you from playing your game. A blue screen comes up with the message “The PS4 is too hot.” and forces you to shut down the console. Well, that can mean, in most cases, three things.

The first possible issue is a lot of dust build-up in the PS4 console. Playstation 4 consoles have a flaw in their cooling design. Where the dust gets pulled from the fan as it’s intaking air to cool off the console. Some of the dust remains in the outtake channel and slowly builds up over time, and things clog up with dust, like the fan, heat sink, and the outtake channel.

The second possible issue is that the thermal compound dried up or was just at the end of its lifespan. A thermal compound is used to help fill in any imperfections on the heatsink block. Also, fills in the gap between the heatsink and the APU’s die (the shiny part on top of the APU chip), which allows the heat coming from the APU to transfer to the heatsink block effectively. The fan forces air to pass through the fins to cool off the heatsink, which keeps the APU cool and at a steady optimal temperature. Once it dries or the bond is broken, meaning once you remove the heat sink, you will have to reapply the thermal compound.

The third possible issue is the cooling fan. Over time the fan bearings go bad and cause the fan to not spin smoothly. Losing its ability to cool the heatsink effectively. I believe the friction from the bad bearings is also adding to the heating problem but not sure. Just a guess. If your fan is working properly, then you’ll most likely have to clean out the dust and reapply the thermal compound. These two will have to be done because of the way the PS4’s cooling system is designed. You’ll have to remove the motherboard in order to get to the cooling channel and the heatsink. Meaning you will have to reapply the thermal compound anyways. In my experience, it’s usually dust build-up that will cause the overheating. Cleaning the dust and reapplying a fresh layer of the thermal compound will make the PS4 happy.

Hard Disk Driver Failure

There are many symptoms that could be caused by a bad HDD. Over the few days of playing your PlayStation 4, you start to notice your home screen is lagging or has a slow response when navigating through the options, or the screen will just freeze. After restarting the PS4, it may work for a bit, then start to do it again. Other symptoms could be loud ticking noises coming from the HDD, which means the platter head is not working properly. Another problem, for example, you turn on your PS4, and it fails to boot up, or an error message comes up (CE-34335-8). This error code, according to playstation.com, means the PS4 can’t detect your HDD. These are, in most cases, a result of a faulty hard drive and will have to be replaced. Luckily for you, Sony made it easy for you to replace the HDD on all PlayStation 4 models. If you have a 500GB HDD best time to upgrade to 1TB or a bigger HDD.

*NOTE* Sony has instructions on how to back up data.

Once you get your new hard drive, you simply just take off the HDD cover and remove the HDD tray screw. Next, remove the old HDD and put the new one in. Wait, is it that easy? Well yeah, however, if you’re buying an HDD on eBay that states “for PS4,” the seller may have formatted it where you just have to install the new HDD and install the PS4 software. Now say you bought a brand new HDD or where ever you bought one. Even if the seller said it’s for PS4, it might not be formatted; thus, your PS4 won’t recognize the drive. In these instances, you’ll need a PC, HDD PSU, SATA -USB, and an empty Flash drive for the PS4 software. This tool will be required to format the drive. Once you have this tool, you can plug in the drive to your PC and get started by moving your mouse pointer to the Windows icon on the taskbar and right-clicking to bring up the troubleshooting menu. Next, click on “Disk Management” to open up a window showing all your drives that are connected to your PC.

 **Warning**

At this point, you’ll have to be very careful to select the right drive, as you can lose all your data if you select the wrong drive that has your OS or any important data on it during this process. If not certain, disconnect the HDD for the PS4 and take note of what current drives you have. You’ll most likely have one drive, but some people will have multiple drives. Once you plug in the PS4 HDD and go back to the disk management window, now you should know at this point which one it is. Some drives come already wiped by the seller if used. At this point, you should see unallocated on the drive. If not, then it may have partitions on it. You’ll just have to click on the partitions and right-click to get to the options menu. Next, click on “Delete Volume.” Once you delete everything on that drive, it should say unallocated. This step can be skipped if you have a brand new HDD, as they already come unallocated.

Now next, we have to partition it with a new volume in order for the PS4 to format it. Right-click on the box with the black bar labeled as unallocated and select “New Simple Volume.” This will prompt you to the “New Simple Volume Wizard.” Click “Next” to be prompted to the next menu. By default, the simple volume size will be set to maximum size. This is what we want, so just click “Next.” It will ask to assign a drive letter or path. In this case, it’s not important. Just make sure the bubble with “assign the following drive letter” is selected, then click next. Now, this option, “Format Partition,” is important. The default selection is “Format this volume with the following settings.” As long as it has NTFS, Default, and New Volume shown on those settings, then click next. Click “Finish” to exit the wizard. Now you have a newly partitioned drive, and it’s ready to be installed into the PS4.

Once installed and you turn on your PS4, it will bring you to a safe mode menu. Great, we made it this far. Now we have to install the PS4 software. Grab an empty Flash drive and make sure it’s formatted to FAT 32 if not or unsure. I’m sure if you Google how to format flash drives. You’ll find some information on how to do it. Assuming you do have the properly formatted drive. Download the PS4 console reinstallation file. Make sure you click that one and not the “PS4 update file”. Since that is only needed if your having trouble updating. We need the actual software to do anything with our PS4. While that is downloading, create a folder on your flash drive and name it “PS4”. Next, click on the PS4 folder, and inside that, create another folder and name it “UPDATE.” Yes, the names on these folders do have to be capitalized if you’re talking to yourself, wondering if it needs to be capitalized. Once the file download is completed, then drag the file to the “UPDATE” folder. Okay, we’re almost to the finish line, finally. Insert the flash drive into one of the PS4 USB ports. Now click on the option “7. Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software)”. The PS4 will start to install the PS4 software just let it run. After that, you’ll be prompted to the setup menu and enjoy your new drive.

Blue Light of Death (BLOD)

The all mighty blue light that blinks into infinity and stares into your soul. Ugh… If you get the BLOD, it sucks. You turn on your PS4, and everything appears normal blue comes on as it should, but then you notice it will just stay with the blue light and never turn white or would blink. According to playstation.com, they say its means “Console Error.” However, many factors could cause a BLOD. Most of the time, the problem leads to the APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) on the motherboard. Some sources say that it happens in the early models of the original PS4 consoles, but this is not true, as this problem appears on the PS4 Slim/PRO as well. Sometimes the solder joints from the motherboard to the APU are lifted or oxidized, according to some sources in the repair community. Unfortunately, AMD will not sell you new PlayStation 4 APU chips. So you’re stuck with using the current one on your motherboard, which may or may not be good. The process of this repair is called reballing. In order to approach this repair, you must own a very expensive BGA rework station machine. To add to that, you must have the necessary skills to know how to repair and operate the machine. Using a heat gun will not help you with this repair, and you will most likely botch the repair attempt as well as destroy the APU. However, there is a simple solution that may get your PS4 working temporarily by using metal or nylon washers on the APU heatsink clamp screws. This will only work on the original PlayStation 4 consoles. This solution doesn’t work on the Slim or Pro.

These are just the common problems I run into when working on PS4 consoles. They’re many issues that may occur that aren’t listed. Solutions mention in this post may or may not fix your issue.