Deep-Cleaning a Viewer's NASTY Game Console! - GCDC S1:E1

I don't know how well the camera's gonna pick  this up but this looks like ants there's one there   and there's one up there and i also found some  goodies that fell outside of the case when we   were taking it apart i'll show you that now this  right here looks like some kind of roach or fly of   some sort you can see how uh how gross that looks  and yeah this was definitely in the ps4 because   it fell out with a lot of the dust initially  so um yeah this thing's worse than i thought   this here is a viewer's very dirty gaming console  and depending on how well or how not well this   video does this might turn into a full-fledged  playlist who knows now for those who are wondering   do not worry PCDC is not going anywhere for those  who saw the last episode of season 2 season three   is coming uh we're just gonna be working on  trying to get ahead of a few things and also   trying to streamline the process a bit and and  change things up because it does become a bit   mundane just repetitive seeing the same things  being cleaned over and over that's kind of how   this video uh started as well again whether or  not it becomes a full-fledged playlist that is   yet to be determined but i figured changing things  up a bit cleaning different components or outright   tech devices like consoles would be a breath  of fresh air so for those who are new to these   playlists the premise here is simple we don't  charge a dime for any of the services in any of   these so the fixer flaw playlist we don't charge  anything neither do we for the PCDC series or what   could be in this case the GCDDC series the gaming  console deep cleaning series i am just asking that   these folks be okay with me taking their systems  for a few days in order to deep clean and film   the process that's all i ask and in return for  that i won't charge you anything i can monetize   these videos and that allows me to put food on  the table i don't like rolling over any of those   costs to viewers who are already gracious enough  to loan me their systems or in this case consoles   for a few days this console here is a ps4 pro and  i'm actually very familiar with these my wife and   i have one we had one for several years actually  it's in the living room and ours has also kind   of been collecting dust maybe we'll clean that  in a future episode uh if we continue this but   this one is definitely in need of a deep cleaning  there is dust caked up in all of the grills along   the sides of the console there's dust caked up in  the ports up front as well as the rear and there's   even plenty of dust in the hard drive bay at the  rear of the console so it's just um it's gross   everywhere there's smudges on the front and on the  bottom i'm not entirely sure we're gonna be able   to get rid of a lot of these surface scratches  without like completely reskinning this putting   like a dbrand skin or something over it um we're  just gonna have to deal with the scratches but in   terms of cleaning it getting rid of all the dust  all the grime all the goo that's the goal of this   one and we're gonna pull it off just like we do  in the PCDC series so without further ado let's   get started the Anker nano pro is a must-have  charging solution for the latest iPhones which   if you recall don't ship with their own bricks in  the box anymore and that's where anchor steps in   because small this thing is but it packs one heck  of a punch charge from zero to 50 percent in just   26 minutes with the nano pro that's three times  faster than the original 5 watt charger you'll   also have the active shield safety system working  in the background for continuous protection while   charging providing temperature monitoring and  output control to protect your connected device   pretty much as peace of mind as it gets you'll  also notice the compact size of the nano pro   50 smaller than a standard 20 watt charger it's  great to carry around while traveling and can   quickly charge your phone if you forget to plug it  in the night before which i seemingly do quite a   bit anker is the number one charging brand in  america and has earned over 65 million users   around the world and for good reason so check  out the anchor nano pro today by the link in this   video's description charge it fast make it last  now bit of housekeeping up front i will not be   playing music in the backgrounds of these deep  cleanings like we have in the pcdc series i want   this to be a differentiating factor between the  two if we do decide to carry on this playlist   i'm going to be commentating talking about how  i'm taking apart these consoles and putting them   all back together because every console is a  bit different and i think that could be another   informative aspect of this series that sets it  apart from the rest now when it comes to cleaning   gear everything's pretty much the same as it was  in the pc dc playlist if i'm watching that one   this is nothing new at least it shouldn't be we've  got plenty of isopropyl alcohol we'll need this   we have some shop towels i like these are a bit a  bit tougher than your standard paper towel nitrile   gloves we've got an electric duster i love this  thing anti-static nylon bristles here at the end   for good scrubbing and then we've got a knock off  ifixit tool kit because i'm a baller on a budget   fine point q-tips will also come in handy and you  may want something like this respirator if the job   is especially dirty i think for this one it's not  really necessary it's a bit overkill but oh my god   this really comes at a cost it's a lot more  difficult to breathe than this but you're   probably going to want to do this outside i film  indoors and i drive some people crazy but i film   it strictly in my office which i deep clean after  every single one of these episodes and the reason   why i keep it in here is because it's easier  to film in here with proper lighting outdoors   if it gets cloudy or sunny or if it starts raining  or if it's too windy it's just very difficult   there's too many variables to keep up with as a  videographer so keeping it in here where it's more   controlled it just it works and i'd rather do that  and clean after the fact for you guys so that the   video looks better now the first thing we're going  to want to do is connect this console to power   and verify that it functions prior to us taking  it apart and deep cleaning it you won't know if   you were the one to blame when it's all said and  done and put back together if it doesn't power   on right because you didn't check beforehand so  it's important especially if you're a business   to verify this all up front and uh yeah it  looks like we've got let's call it a post   it's essentially what it is it is verifying the  integrity of hardware loading up and we should   get to the home screen here soon and once  we see that yep looks good okay this system   is ready for deconstruction so let's flip this  thing around actually we've got the hard drive   bay right here on the back and we're going to take  this out first i noticed this one doesn't have   the locking screw and there are no feet on the  bottom of this console but it should still work   at the end of the day next we need to remove these  three screws i believe they are t9 torx screws and   this is where our handy dandy tool kit comes into  play one two and a three and now we can pull up   this back cover there we go oh yeah oh yeah this  is a this is pretty dusty i mean just look at   the inside of this under tray it is really gross  so this though we can clean up mostly with just   soap and water because it's plastic so nothing  super fancy there now we need to dive deeper   there we go top cover finally came off  and uh yeah this one is fairly dirty as   well let me get that in the shot you can see  a lot of dust kicked up on the top cover and   i've got quite a lot of dust here in this fan  which i suppose i shouldn't be surprised by   this over time will affect thermals there is  no doubt about it especially in such a small   and close system like this so higher thermals  means the fan has to spin faster to account for   that loss and efficiency and you'll have  a louder console overall interesting it   kind of looks like this ps4 was opened at one  point maybe serviced because this screw is not   setting correctly i don't think that's from the  factory it's definitely locked in at an angle   not totally secured now underneath this portion  here is the power supply which we'll remove next   from the top portion of the console now this  should come up there we go and the power supply should come up as just one solid unit  i'm not mistaken oh yeah there we go   and we can disconnect it from the main board  a few moments later oh gosh okay all right we   we have a problem i'm not sure how well this  is going to show up on camera it's very small   but this connector running to the power supply was  definitely pulled out at one point and you can see   it's all chewed up this isn't how it should look  from the factory and as a result i was really   struggling to get this thing out with my needle  nose pliers so i yeah tried to wing it with my   fingers and that didn't work and uh i ripped the  whole connector out i actually pulled up the pads   as well three of the four pads on the board so  we're gonna have to do a bit of soldering which   i did not expect we'd be doing in episode one gg  i mean look at how chewed up this connector is   there's nowhere to grip i i can't even get this  connector out of the header because it is it's   just grinded down you can see where they were  chipping off bits of it trying to pull it up   whatever tool they used it was a bit too abrasive  so i'm gonna try to get this thing out without   totally jacking up the connection but uh yeah this  this is not good so to get further down into this   thing and ultimately end up repairing what has  been broken you have to disconnect these wires   here we'll take care of these ribbon cables and  things at the rear a lot of these just slide out   this one has a pull tab lift that up this one  slides out and then we'll start moving these   wires out of the way so that we can get this  metal cover off disconnect the fan although   actually that's not really needed at this point  but that might as well we'll be removing it   anyway ah i'm still really frustrated about that  power supply connector that's gonna be a pain to   resolder because it is so small like basic you  know large format soldering is a piece of cake   but the small stuff especially without a  microscope it's just gonna be uh very annoying   all right let's see what else am i missing i'm  sure there's something else i'm not seeing here nope is that it okay there we go so the underside  of the ps4 is main board now we can remove the   smaller shield here and this houses the apu as  well as the memory so a few more phillips screws   let's pull this up there we go and then this  little uh bracket here is what holds the cooler   to the top of the apu and now the  motherboard should slide out with ease   carefully pull it out from under there alrighty  nice i'm trying very oh there we go i am trying   very hard to get this connector out and i finally  did so uh yeah there it is and i think you can   see just how stripped away it is especially on the  sides so i really want to take care of this wiring   before we deep clean it i just uh yeah it's just  driving me nuts so what i've done here because   i'm not sure i'd rather solder from the other side  of this board because we have test points on this   side of the board i'll show you some b-roll  shots of what this stuff looks like actually   i've got tweets i was asking for help i ended up  kind of solving it on my own but uh yeah it's out   there in case you're interested so we're just  doing a continuity test here and all i'm doing   is lining up the pins on one side or that well i  kind of scraped back some of the exposed copper   near the pads on one side and i'm matching those  with the test points on the other so you hear that   there that means there's continuity which means  that these two are directly connected this is a   closed circuit now if i try the same pad on  one side to a different test point you can see   i'm touching them now there's no continuity  there's no sound coming from the multimeter   so we have continuity in one place and  that tells me everything i need to know   about how i need to rewire this the  5 volt i believe is this one up here   and we can match that with the test point on this  side there we go so we know which pads on one side   of the board line up with the test points on the  other we do have ground to worry about as well we   don't have to connect it but i think i will just  like solder it to one of these ground planes here   um but yeah so i got that straightened out  we know how we need to wire it i've got some   spare insulated wiring and we're going to run  it through one of these uh actually screw holes   that mount the board so we're going to sacrifice  one of these screw holes to run wire through it   and then we'll connect whoops we'll connect the  uh the connector that we ripped out the header   to those new wires running through this hole  and then we connect the power supply to this   it'll just kind of be hanging here so it won't  be mounted directly to the board but we'll   still have contact with the correct pins on the  board sorry for that very drawn out explanation   but this took me a while to figure out and i  was searching online on forums trying to find   the pin out for this actually trying to find like  an entire motherboard schematic this is an nva-01   model ps4 pro motherboard i couldn't  find the schematic so i ended up just uh   finding continuity on my own it's not very hard  it's not rocket science so we've got that taken   care of we'll get the soldering done next and  again we're just gonna use some small insulated   wire i'm actually gonna pull it from an old fan  i'm not using anymore so this is um it's it's   not my best solder job by a long shot i openly  acknowledge that but it works it's functional   and i've tested everything so we've actually  got the connector on the other side here this   is going to plug directly into the power supply  side and i just soldered the wires from this cable   to the underside of the board on these test points  and we're using one of the cutouts for a screw   to route these wires through so we're sacrificing  one screw mount in order to get this clean well   clean-ish cable routing from one side so now  we can turn our attention back to the main   assembly we're going to move this secondary  shield first this is under the cold plate   and then we should be able to shortly remove the  fan assembly and now we're tackling the larger   shield we've got a few phillips screws to take  care of actually i think it was just those two   yep that's all that was okay look at that wow so  we actually have the the heatsink right there and   that is dusty so we'll just take out these  remaining two screws for the fan cover here   actually the entire fan assembly comes out  check that out that is extremely dusty as well   and then the optical drive this is one of the  last things to take care of am i missing what   nope it's just a little latch okay so there's  the optical drive assembly so now we have just   the shell of the ps4 pro remaining we do have  some antennae kind of sprouted around we also   have a few ribbon cables we could take these out  but at the end of the day if these get wet if   we take these outside and hose these down it'd be  the quickest way to get rid of a lot of this dust   it's not going to be a big deal of course  these aren't receiving power at the moment and   so long as everything is sufficiently dry before  reassembly and powering back on um yeah we're not   going to cause any damage to any of these wires  so i think i'm going to leave these in here the   only other thing i want to take apart just a bit  more is this power supply so it's actually kind   of enclosed you can see the circuit uh is in there  the the main board for the power supply but we're   gonna take this uh apart ah-ha i think we got it  we've got one connector up there to worry about   but uh yeah this was just a bunch of stubborn  clips that's all it took and the underside of   this is what we're really going to want to focus  on oh yeah there's some dust quite a bit of it   i'm glad we took this apart a bit further just  so we could see where we're cleaning also if   you're not comfortable with this kind of stuff  i mean the power supply is one of the things i   really don't recommend you take apart to this  extent if you are not familiar with electronics   and you're not familiar with the the safety  precautions regarding draining capacitors and   things uh just standard stuff you should be doing  before you take this apart so yeah do this at your   own risk i don't recommend it again if you're kind  of a novice at this stuff but you can see these   loaded capacitors up top while they shouldn't  be loaded now i've drained them correctly but   these can these can actually kill you so be  careful had to fit the wide angle lens for   this shot so this is the entire ps4 pro fully  disassembled give or take and a few exceptions   but we can access every area of the device that  has gotten dust and collected up grime that's   the point what we're going to do is take water and  soap to a lot of the plastic bits especially it's   one of the best ways to clean plastic you could  use compressed air but you're still not going to   get as much of that stuff up especially if you've  got grime caked up water tends to be a lot more   abrasive it can get rid of that that grime a  lot easier so that's why i like using water   and then for the main board power supply for the  hard drive things like that we're going to use the   nylon brush with the electric duster that i have  and then we'll also be using the isopropyl alcohol   with some q-tips to clean up the more fine  areas we'll of course re-paste his apu clean   up the thermal pads i believe for the memory and  reassemble all of it so we're at the halfway point   thereabouts and it's been a journey especially  with the resoldering process still not totally   happy with this but it is at least working again  and uh yeah we're gonna be we're gonna be getting   deep into some dust here so let's get to  it so we're going to start by hosing down   the plastic bits outside it's also kind of windy  so i apologize if you hear weird things here we go and of course if i miss anything while i'm out  here we can always take the electro duster to   it after the fact we need to let these dry  so i will take a towel to them so that it   won't get water marks and things because my  water at least from the city tends to have   a lot of calcium and stuff so when this dries it  leaves behind a residue doesn't look very pretty just drying everything off we'll also be mixing in the electric duster where needed some things  haven't totally been cleaned up yet you can   see we've still got scuffs on the back of this i'm  not sure if this will come up or not but we'll try   soap and water and manually scrubbing once we get  everything else dry and this enclosure definitely   needs to be dry beforehand because this is for  the power supply moving on to the metal enclosures   then actually let's start from the other side  i've got to get up this thermal paste there's a   shop towel and some isopropyl for that there we go  oh yeah this stuff is um it's a bit chalky so i'd   say it's at least a year or two old probably older  than that depends on if this was re-pasted when it   was open because again it definitely was opened  that was fairly evident from the power supply   screws and header but uh we'll clean this up  here and then i think we're going to whip out   the electric duster take care of a lot of  this loose dust here we go hold your breath and we're going to tackle the  other side next this heatsink   is freaking gross so we're going to blow  in that direction so that it can leave okay looks like it's stuck so probably  gonna need to do some scrubbing maybe   uh run it through the sink to get a lot of  this out because it's not wanting to come up   trying to see if i can just pull it  all back sometimes it'll just peel back   like a piece of tape but it's not  wanting to this is really gross yeah that was nasty i'm gonna  give this one a bit of a scrub   because it does need it i see  some dust is sticking to the fins   and we'll use an old toothbrush to scrape in there  a bit all right and i think we're ready for drying   we'll get it done and would you look at that this  is looking pretty darn good nothing a bit of water   and air can't fix it's not perfect obviously  some scratches along the cold plate and things   some blemishes on the steel that's not coming  up i'm not sure if this is steel or not it feels   like a thin steel but it is much better looking  now i can see the fin stack looks so much cleaner   so this ps4 pro is gonna have a lot more breathing  room should keep temps down and should keep the   console quieter overall we're gonna do the exact  same thing to the other panel as well let's get it we'll give her a little scrub with isopropyl let's  see will it come up oh yes it will look at that it   just chips away i guess the ipa was helping it a  bit i think we can also get this stuff up oh nice   wow a little over half of it came up okay and  we'll take the electric duster to it one more time definitely an improvement take care of this shield   just some isopropyl should do and we'll  give the secondary panel a cleaning there we go not looking too shabby next up we've  the fan and of course this is a very important   part of the cooling system this provides active  cooling to both the apu as well as the memory and   the vrm so we're going to want to make sure this  is deep clean like especially clean since it's the   only fan in the system you can see there's a lot  of dust caked up on all of these fins it's going   to be a bit difficult to get toward the inner  parts of each of these fins because of the way   that they're shaped and how close they are to  each other in the center here but we're going   to start first with the electric duster and then  we'll work our way to q-tips and ipa this one i'm   going to turn on the air purifier for because  it's going to get real messy here goes nothing whew that was gross now we can  take on some ipa and q-tips   yeah these are not getting all the way in there  we're going to clean them up as best we can   there are a number of fins here so it's going to  take a while it is nearly impossible to clean all   the way in the inside of each of these fins  so it won't be perfect unfortunately usually   i can nail these fans but the way these are  designed i just i can't get all the way in   there but we've cleaned up the remainder of  each fin and definitely looks much better   now now with this panel here you're probably  thinking well greg this um doesn't look too bad   when you flip it over still doesn't look too bad  right but you gotta you gotta look up close i   don't know how well the camera's gonna pick this  up but this looks like ants there's one there   and there's one up there and i also found some  goodies that fell outside of the case when we   were taking it apart i'll show you that now this  right here looks like some kind of roach or fly of   some sort you can see how uh how gross that looks  and yeah this was definitely in the ps4 because   it fell out with a lot of the dust initially  so um yeah this thing's worse than i thought much better now we can move on to the main  board i want to start first by cleaning up   this thermal paste because i don't want that  getting smeared in my electric duster this won't   be a perfect clean right away we'll take q-tips  to it later we'll just get it off of the die there we go all right now electric duster time clean up a lot of the thermal compound around  these small smds not that it's necessary but   we want this to look as new as possible there we  go and let's see if we can find any dust trapped   anywhere else we'll use some q-tips for this as  well i like to give the board a nice once-over   before setting it aside a lot of dust sometimes  gets trapped in the vrm mosfet area and we'll   check our ports so type a ports here we'll  clean these out especially the insides where   dust likes to gather and around the housings  looking like a much newer board all right   and we'll give the other side a once over  and then we'll move on to the optical drive   and the hard disk drive these drives will  be pretty straightforward i'll remove the   hard disk from this little enclosure here  and then we'll clean both separately we're   sure we're getting dust that could be trapped in  between the two and yep give each a proper dusting ipa should finish off the job too many  stains on this side but there were a few   on this side yep get these up and scrub a  bit weird like dirt stains on this thing and   that's a clean bill of health this optical  drive will be fairly straightforward this by   the way is not dust it's just a little  cushion to protect the ribbon cable and last we've got the power supply now this  i'm not going to clean with isopropyl for   obvious reasons i'm just going  to stick with air and the brush and there we are power supply is ready to go so  i think that's it uh time to reassemble let's get   everything together and here we are the entire ps4  pro disassembled yet fully clean with very minor   exceptions the fan is really the only one that  comes to mind just because we couldn't get all   the way inside these fins but everything else  is it looks pretty good if i do say so myself   and we're going to start reassembling this should  be fairly straightforward so let's start first by   reinserting the optical drive by the way while i'm  doing this your feedback in this episode is pretty   much critical if you don't want to see more of  these kinds of videos let me know i just figured   you know wouldn't really know until i tried  and uh i'm having a good time so far apart from   almost totally trashing the console this is a  learning experience and i expect i'll get better   at this with time and the fact that every  console is slightly different means that i'll   be learning quite a bit so you have a chance  of seeing more of these mistakes in the future   so we've got the optical drive uh cover secured  and now we need to uh lock it into the chassis   with these larger phillips screws we can get the  fan installed next that will just sit right here   now we can get this metal plate back in with the  heat sink should sit kind of like that there watch   these ribbon cables i just realized i'm supposed  to lock these two screws in after the fact   i was wondering why this didn't make sense i'm  trying to watch the tutorial backwards and uh   it's difficult to see that part and we  can get this back in there and try again   this smaller plate is just going to sit like so  now thermal pads are applied we can go ahead and   add some thermal paste to the apu our wiring is  routed through it doesn't look like it's going to   compromise anything we've got the underside cover  on we've got all of the ribbon cables connected   the antenna connected wi-fi bluetooth and i'm not  sure what the f actually i think this is bluetooth   i'm not sure but uh yeah that's connected the  fan is connected and that's it the front and   back are the top and bottom uh sleeves and  the system has you know would be fully done   after that so i think we're yeah we're on  the right track i'm hoping that this thing   boots up without issue just to drop it on in  and tighten it on down i think there's one   yep one little area where i noticed some lingering  dust and this is for uh where the fan pulls in air   so i'm gonna tackle that real quick so all the  dust from this viewer's room is being pulled in   from this side this is why it's all gathering over  here but okay i think uh this looks pretty good now yeah okay all right i'm gonna stop now and  now for the moment of truth i am kind of nervous   i shouldn't be nervous but i kind of am because of  what happened that's a good sign it's a good start hard drive spoiling up i was i was more nervous about  this than i was hoping to be   least i now know moving forward if we ever work  on another ps4 or ps4 pro that damn power supply   cable that 5 volt cable is a major pain so yeah  lesson learned at least we fixed it here and i   still feel bad about how it happened i know my  solder job was just absolute crap so what i'm   going to do for this viewer is i'm going to get  him a 100 best buy gift card and if he has any   problems in the future with the ps4 pro if for  instance that solder job goes to crap then i'll   just outright buy them another ps4 pro they're not  super expensive which is good uh but uh yeah just   for the trouble and the fact that he knows it was  kind of a jank solution i'm going to give him a   100 gift card for being a good sport and hopefully  being okay with the fact that it is now deep   cleaned and still working so mission accomplished  at the end of the day yes we had a few growing   pains yes the solder job was it's not my best i'll  be completely honest with you and i'm sure anyone   who's done soldering looked at that and said nope  that's not no good at all um it's not very good i   didn't have any flux and i ordered some flux  that'll be here tomorrow but i'm going out of   town tomorrow so it's kind of a yeah i wanted to  get this back to him uh as soon as possible the   console works it has been thoroughly deep cleaned  we've re-pasted it we cleaned up the thermal   pads for the VR and mosfets um yeah it works and  that's that's great um the the takeaway from this   be very careful i i know going forward working  on ps4s and ps4 pros that those power supply   cables are extremely stubborn i looked online and  apparently that's a very common issue for people   to just rip those out completely those headers  and then tear up the pads and whatnot so soldering   to the test points i think was the only viable  solution apart from maybe scraping away from the   sides of each node and trying to create new pads  but it just all of that was very meticulous and   i'm more comfortable just soldering new wires to  test points elsewhere so i think we made it work   considering yes it's a bit jank it's part of  the reason why i want to give the guy 100 best   buy gift card just to kind of make up for that  fact but he knows and i tell us to everyone who   sends in a system or console for me to work on if  you ever have an issue down the line whether it be   a week from now or a month from now i am more than  happy to take a look at it again and of course i'm   not going to charge you for taking a look i didn't  charge you for taking a look at it the first time   i'm not going to charge you the second time and  heck we might even be able to make a follow-up   video if anything happens to this but i think it's  good enough for now um you know apart from the the   cosmetic scuffs and things on the exterior which  you can solve very easily with a wrap of some sort   it's good to go and uh yeah i'm excited to  reach out to the viewer again and let know   that his ps4 pro at least on the inside  looks virtually brand new now if you guys   enjoyed this one maybe you learned a thing  or two or at the very least thought it was   entertaining i would appreciate that feedback  by hitting the like button if you disliked it   you can do that and let me know in the comment  section below how you felt overall about this one   if it's worth starting a full-on playlist and  we just you know do the same thing over and   over where we reach out to viewers in the area and  offer to fix their systems for free you never know   what console is going to walk in the door could  be a very old like the original Nintendo could be   a gamecube a wii could be an original xbox who  knows like this was a more modern console but i   imagine a lot of the inquiries we're going to get  are going to be for older consoles because those   tend to sit the most and collect the most dust  so that could be interesting so all that feedback   would be appreciated thank you so much for  watching this far into the video and stay tuned   for what we've got coming up here soon my name is  greg thanks for deep cleaning a console with me

Channel: Greg Salazar

Views: 963,793

Keywords: how to clean a console, dirty game console, gcdc, playstation, dirty pc, personal computer deep cleaning, pc gaming, computer cleaning, credit, ps4, ps4 pro, how to build a pc, gaming pc, finance, apple, tech, how to clean a ps4, dirty console, nasty pc, nasty game console, asmr, how to clean a playstation, computer, college, viewer console, free cleaning, how to clean a pc

Id: TCw7gzT-iuU

Length: 33min 25sec (2005 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 12 2021