So a new friend of mine happens to have a 40gb fat PS3 and it ran really loud while I was letting them play the Last of Us. So I offered to clean it. I've always wanted to open one of these up and tried at one point with my PS3 Slim, only to find I needed a special screwdriver. I hear the fat's don't need anything special to open up.

My question is, have any of you cleaned one out and what tips do you have for me to get it done?

I need to head to work so I won't be able to respond quickly.

um it would be really cool if somebody told me how to clean my PS3 slim (160GB) too, its starting to make noise and i dont like that one bit!

There are several youtube videos how to take it appart, find one and just follow it through. I completely  disassemble mine when I clean it up, and it's as simple as disassembling a PC.

You need a security screwdriver. You can try a little one and see if you can force it to spin like I did.

I cleaned (dusted inside) a 40gb. The only major parts to the process are removing the case and the blu ray drive. The case is pretty simple to get off, you slide off the top cover then unscrew the top half of the ps3, and the blu ray drive was too..just be careful not to snap the thingy the drive connects to the board with. I actually found screwing the case back on afterwards the trickiest part, as it fits pretty tightly around the lower half of the PS3 and you'll have to force it on a bit. 

You could remove the motherboard if you're confident in taking this sort of tech apart, but it's a  hassle and not worth the slightly extra coverage you'll get for the dusting (and once you've gone to that hassle you might as well replace the thermal paste which will be a lot more effective in delaying the fans kicking in). 

Use compressed air for the cleaning. Don't expect it to fix the fan issue, just delay them going into overdrive for an hour or so.

If the console is running loud it's more likely you need to exchange the thermal compound.

Opening up the fat is easy, but getting to the main fan is quite a bit tricky, because it means you have to extract the mainboard from the case as the fan is at the bottom of it and can't be accessed in any other way.

I only opened my PS3 up to replace the hard drive and a mountain full of dust and a dead fly fell out.

My only tip would be wear a mask.

Washing machine. Then hang it out to dry.

I opened it up to clean it, I don't recall needing any 'advanced' tools to do so, though it's been about a year or so. You can easily do it, everything inside is clickable or screwable, and most stuff fits in only one place so there's little risk of error when you put it back together. Still, I'd suggest to put every part in some logical order on a desk, you wouldn't want to be wrong or worse, lose something. Be sure to use air to clean it though, preferably a vacuum.

It worked wonders for me, it's quiet for a longer time and it doesn't sound like it's going to take off anymore as well when the fan does kick into gear.

Has anybody else's PS3 fan started making a very loud noise after a few hours of play? Could it be caused by dust?