Redid thermal paste and cleaned PS4 Pro, now it shuts down mid-boot

Hey sounds like you aren’t achieving contact, or maybe have uneven contact between the apu and the heat sink. Did you replace the thermal pads too? If so what thickness were the pads? If you did replace them, they need to be 1mm thick. I’ve read people claim they’ve used thinner than that but I don’t know. There was one guy that used 2mm, of course no contact, wouldn’t boot. I haven’t done a pro yet. But when I did my near to launch white base model I discovered the apu only had paste on half the chip. After repaste it was much quieter and has been for years now. But a wobbly clamp sure sounds like something is uneven. Best of luck.

Edit:

I just finished looking at the tear down. Thermal pads shouldn’t matter because they’re all on the clamp side and have nothing to do with clearance between apu and heatsink. Unlike the launch ps4’s which had ram chips on both sides of the board.

However it says there’s a metal+plastic plate between the mobo and the x-clamp. Maybe try inspecting it for damage, or turning that 180 degrees (I know it shouldn’t matter, but who knows).

Something is crooked or off just enough. But the only things it seems that it could be

are: the heat sink, or the mobo wasn’t seated properly, or the metal+plastic plate between the mobo and x-clamp, or last but not least the x-clamp itself.

That’s about all I can figure without seeing it with my own eyes. Hope you get it sorted.