My obese PS3 flipped me the YLOD bird way back in April of last year. After the inital shock and awe I decieded to start examining my YLOD repair options. After months of random online research I remained gameless till just before 2012. I initially found it very free-ing, but overall upsetting, that my PS3 bit the dust after two solid years of frequent usage (almost 4 years of light usage). I My wife had no complaints since there was no longer a tug of war for my free time.
By mid May I decied to examine my options. I was not comfortable with sending my system to Sony and losing all my data (which had never been backed-up) in addition to bleeding out $150+ on a brainwashed system. The thought of losing all of my wonderful gaming accomplishments acquired via scholastic procrastination was depressing. Next solution was a "premier" repair service like gophermods or PSR. After very slow responses to multiple inquiries from both companies (nothing against them, both stated they were inundated with request) I never sent my system for repair. After wasting all this three to four months looking for solutions I decided to attempt a reflow; which is a temporary fix that involves removing and re-applying thermal paste on the two processors located on the motherboard. After six hours of work stretched over a period of two days, I had the system fixed with the help of my brother's screwdriver collection, a cheap heat gun, and the almighty gilsky guide.
All this occured in time for Black Friday, where I was able to get my hands on a new system and a nice 300gig HD for about $240. I fired up my handicapped system and backed that Harddrive azz up faster than a teenager at a Juvenile concert (circa 1999). The Gilsky tutorial is awesome (for a fatty). So save yourself a few beans by picking up a proper electronics screwdriver set and becoming very familiar with the Gilsky's youtube channel.