PS4 Pro fails to load games with artifacts - Error CE-34878-0 or CE-36329-3

PS4 Questions PS4 Pro
1

Hi, I have a PS4 Pro with an issue where when I try to run any games it freezes, and then artifacts appear on the top half of the screen. After a few moments, it throws errors CE-34878-0 or CE-36329-3 without any artifacts and goes back to the dashboard as normal.

artifacts
artifacts1920×970 210 KB

I started by checking the hard drive and it turned out to be fine, I also reinstalled the firmware but nothing changed.

Then I desoldered the NOR chip and modified system flags so I could access debugging info through UART. In the logs, this caught my eye:

# GPU Protection fault. vmid: system process3,pid: 0x28, client: TC4, access: Read
# reason: Unmapped page access, Protection fault addr(VA): 0x0000006742a5a000
# Raw fault info: 0x06197001  Timestamp:28504882590

but also sometimes you can catch a GPU protection fault with a different fault address

# GPU Protection fault. vmid: system process3,pid: 0x28, client: TC4, access: Read
# reason: Unmapped page access, Protection fault addr(VA): 0x00000010c8a4b000
# Raw fault info: 0x06097002  Timestamp:28834970633

This message appears when I try to load a game. What’s interesting is that an app like Playroom will work fine and also stuff like the web browser works perfectly. I played some YouTube videos through there too, but when I try to use the YouTube app itself it will fail the same way as games.

I also tried enabling the memory test system flag in the NOR chip, but it appears that it tests only some parts of the RAM, here’s the output anyway:

memtest: 0x000000000 - 0x040000000, size: 0x040000000, pattern: RANDOM
memtest: 0x000000000 - 0x040000000, size: 0x040000000, pattern: RANDOM(invert)
memtest: 0x25f000000 - 0x280000000, size: 0x021000000, pattern: RANDOM
memtest: 0x25f000000 - 0x280000000, size: 0x021000000, pattern: RANDOM(invert)
memtest: done. elapse=4075 msec

I suspect the RAM so I want to replace all of the 8 RAM chips, but I wanted to ask around if anyone had a similar issue before. Could well be the APU itself that’s faulty. Thanks!

2

hi
have you fixed your ps4 with suspected ram i have same problem
thx in advance and sorry for my bad english

3

Sadly, it ended up being an APU issue. I’ve replaced the RAM chips and it didn’t make a difference. Then I reflowed the APU and it made it work, but the console immediately froze mid-game and “broke” again - so this was just an APU reaction to the heating process.

I’d recommend putting pressure on the back of the APU to see if that makes a difference, and running a memory test as I did. You could try heating the die with a hot air gun to simulate the heating process from a BGA machine and see if you get the same result as I did - then it’s probably the same issue. Fingers crossed that’s not the case :crossed_fingers:

As for the console, I reused all the parts and put in a new motherboard that I purchased faulty. It had a pulsing BLOD and I fixed it with the RAM chips from this console.