How to repair a faulty PS5 with UART

As games consoles become more and more faster, powerful and exciting, their design and construction become more and more complex.

In turn the harder they become to repair even for the most competent repair centres. Given that Sony (or Microsoft) do not release schematics for their consoles, repairs often come down to experience and diagnostic skills at each repair centre.

However, there is an ever growing method to help the diagnostics for a whole range of electronic devices, including PlayStation 5 (PS5) and PlayStation 4 (PS4) – enter the UART interface.

In this guide, we show you how to repair a faulty PS5 with UART the ease and simple way.

What is UART?

UART, or universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter, is a very commonly used device-to-device communication protocol.

It has been around for decades and was first used in computers in the 1980s.

Today, most modern microchips especially microcontrollers and communication ICs, have TTL (Transistor to Transistor Logic) imbedded into their on-chip circuits meaning they use bit level data to communicate what is going on within the IC, and more importantly for us, this includes error data.

UART can read this simple transmit and receive TTL data which can be text, numeric, control and binary, in turn allowing allow us to read and translate the data.

How do we repair a faulty PS5 with UART?

By using a simple UART reader interface, we can read the TTL data from the PlayStation 5 directly on our computer.

The process does include soldering a few wires inside the PS5, so you will need some soldering skills and a soldering iron.

Once we have the UART reader connected we can then read the error log data from the PS5 and translate it into meaningful text to help us diagnose the issue.

What UART reader should I use on my PlayStation 5?

You can pretty much use any UART interface reader that is TTL compatible, just check that you choose a model that has the correct USB A or USB C connector for your computer. UART interfaces are relatively cheap and can be found on Amazon or eBay.

What software do I need to read UART from my PS5?

There are a few different options, all of which are FREE to use. These are:

Console Service Tool – Link

PS5 Wee Tools – Link

PS5 Nor Modifer – Link

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How to connect your UART reader to the PS5?

On the motherboard of the PS5, there are a number of solder points (pads) where you need to connect your UART reader.

You will need a soldering iron to connect the three wires (Receive, Transmit and Ground).

The location of the solder points (pads) if different depending on the version of PlayStation 5 motherboard you have. Please see the diagrams below for more information:

Running the software to repair a faulty PS5 with UART

Once you have installed your choice of software and have soldered the Transmit, Receive and Ground wires to the PlayStation 5 motherboard, follow these steps to read your error codes.

Connect your UART reader to a USB port on your PC
Run your choice of software
Connect the power to your PS5 (do not push the power button)
Follow the instructions for your choice of software
Read your error codes

How to read the UART Error Codes

As you will see, after running the UART software, you will presented with a number of error codes. On the surface, these error codes look like jibberish, but do not worry, we have a regularly updated PlayStation UART Code Database which you can use to translate your error code.

Final Thoughts

It can be quite tricky to get working first of all, so we recently posted a video of us using UART to diagnose a PS5 with the 2 second blue light of death issue – watch the video to see us using UART and PS5 Wee Tools