Easy PS5 blue light of death BLOD fix: Check disc drive screws before changing liquid metal

Having issues starting your PS5? Is the dreaded blue light of death (BLOD) blinking steadily? Try these quick tips before disassembling your console all the way.

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Like all electronics, consoles will break down eventually. Sometimes, though, it's not an actual hardware fault. If your PS5 is stuck blinking blue, you might be able to salvage it with some quick, easy steps. Note: This only works for the disc-based PS5. If you have a digital-only system, this fix isn't for you.

My disc-based launch PS5 from 2020 has been stuck on the blue light of death boot loop for weeks now, and with the new PS5 price hikes making console ownership prohibitively expensive, I decided to finally break open the box and attempt some repairs. At first, I planned to just swap out/re-apply the PS5's liquid metal, which is the usual culprit for blue light of death errors. Over time, the liquid metal will move and oxidize, leading to dry spots on the PS5's APU, which in turn leads to overheating and triggering the console's safety shut-off. Once the PS5 has gone into this state, it's possible the console will go into the BLOD boot loop, refusing to start in an effort to prevent component damage.

Before I popped open the fasteners and took out all the screws, I saw a Reddit post advising me to do a simple thing: Tighten the disc drive screws. It couldn't hurt, right? So I tried it, and it actually worked. My PS5 is no longer in the BLOD error loop and will boot normally with the PS5's light holding a steady white.

It's really easy, and you can do it too. Just pop off the PS5's outer shell and tighten four screws.

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I used a small 1/16" screwdriver ($2 at Dollar General) to tighten the screws. As you tighten, you may hear the rubber fasteners make noise--that is normal.

After I did this, the PS5 booted up and stayed on with a steady white bar of light for multiple hours at a time. It appears this has fixed my blue light of death issue because my PS5 wasn't passing the disc drive startup diagnostic test.

A little bit of backstory on why this works: Every time you boot your PS5, the console goes through diagnostics to check hardware and software. If there's an error within the OS, for example, this can trigger a soft boot loop, requiring you to manually reset and reinstall the update.

Hardware errors can occur for all kinds of reasons, and sometimes the PS5 will fail the boot-up diagnostics even when there's no faulty components. The disc drive is part of this start-up diagnostic and if the PS5 senses any issues, such as the drive itself being loose for any reason, it will prevent boot-up and go into the dreaded state of blue light of death.

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If you do decide to change liquid metal

I haven't ever changed the liquid metal in this console, so I'm not out of the woods just yet. The system could still eventually fail due to overheating once the factory-supplied liquid metal oxidizes and moves around enough. If that happens, I hope no other component damage occurs.

If you do want to get the swap out of the way, here are two videos I planned to use to help guide me when I finally decided to break the console open and tamper with the T-1000 trapped on top of the SoC.

The first is from TronixFix, and he shows you a breakdown play-by-play on where the screws are, what size bits that you need to undo them, and how to remove sensitive connectors and ribbon cables from the board.

The next one is from TechCommander, who shows you how to actually clean and then apply/move the liquid metal around on the APU. This tech expert does this for a living so watch what he does closely and try to replicate it.

It helps to have some tools, like a torx set (maybe one with an electric screwdriver for zipping the screws out quickly, but not breaking them out) and some compressed air is useful for blasting out smaller spaces.

Even better is a handheld vacuum and a high-powered mini-blower, with some brushes to agitate any dust or debris that may be inside.

Hopefully this quick guide will help someone else that experienced the same issue, and big shout out to Redditor IceKirt for sharing this info.