I Want To Cry...

[Areala]

Turned my PS3 on tonight with the intention of jumping on Home for a few minutes, when it suddenly shut itself off without warning. I tried to turn it on again, but to no avail.

Yup, the dreaded Yellow Light of Death has struck again, bricking my system.

*sigh*

Sony will replace my system, but it'll cost me $150 plus tax, and I'll likely lose everything on my hard drive. There goes my 90+ hours on Fallout 3, not to mention game saves totalling thousands of hours logged on the likes of Uncharted, Bioshock, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars, Mirror's Edge, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, Lego Batman, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Farcry 2, Bionic Command: Rearmed, Dead Space, Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2.

I want to cry...

[triverse]

Calm down, no need to cry. Just back your info up to a second hard drive then send in your system. When it comes back, put your stuff back on the system (if it is indeed deleted).

You can use an USB external hard drive for this. If you don't have that, you can get a USB enclosure at most electronics stores for about $30 to $50 (a rip off when a several hundred gigabyte external hard drive is about $80 to $100, but you can use a hard drive you have around the house).

[E-Day]

That's why cartridge based systems will always be awsome. The game is saved on the cartridge, so your machine could die 100 times and you wouldn't lose all that tie you wasted playing

[Thor]

Damn! Yeah happened to me on my 360 only they fixed it for free and this was 3 years after I had bought it. I hope that does not happen to my PS3 because I've got the white Japanes system and I don't know how they would deal wiht that or if they would just do it the same way as they did with yours. I would hope they wouln't dock me or whatever just because I bought a Japanese version.

[E-Day]

They probably would only service systems that are made for use here. Since the Jap console is for Japan, chances are Sony would tell you "tough luck. Go and buy a $500 North American black console like you were supposed to in the first place", since they can't really refurbish and resell the white one here. I know if you have a broken PS2, you send it to them and they send you a brand new one instead of fixing yours and sending it back. Possibly the same for the PS3.

[Thor]

See that's kind of what I thought too. Especially after seeing as though they charged areala $150 to fix it. I hate Sony.

[nickerous]

I've never heard of the yellow ring of death. I didn't think PS3's were prone to dying like the 360....

[meppi]

I've never heard of the yellow ring of death. I didn't think PS3's were prone to dying like the 360....

It did surprise me as well.

Well anything is prone to getting broken, but still, I thought the PS3 had pretty reliable hardware.

Looking at it from the viewpoint of someone who will be picking one up in the next few months sure isn't encouraging.

When there was something wrong with me DS and Wii and all my Nintendo hardware before that, even after the warranty had clearly expired, Nintendo has always fixed or replaced them without having to pay a single cent.

Sony does certainly suck, in more than one sense.

[Gnash]

Calm down, no need to cry. Just back your info up to a second hard drive then send in your system. When it comes back, put your stuff back on the system (if it is indeed deleted).

You can use an USB external hard drive for this. If you don't have that, you can get a USB enclosure at most electronics stores for about $30 to $50 (a rip off when a several hundred gigabyte external hard drive is about $80 to $100, but you can use a hard drive you have around the house).

His system doesn't come on, how can you do it? Opening up the console is out since he would void the warranty.

[triverse]

Forgot that part there Gnash about the system being bricked.

But, doesn't it show you in the manual for the PS3 how to take out and replace the hard drive? If so, how would it be voiding the warranty to take it out and back it up (of course not on a PS3, not sure how you would do it).

[meppi]

His system

Uh-oh

[Gnash]

Uh-oh

Sorry about that. I didn't notice the bright pink princess thing. LOL

[E-Day]

I've never heard of the yellow ring of death. I didn't think PS3's were prone to dying like the 360....

I've heard of the red line of death on a few forums. They aren't as prone to die as the 360s were, but there were still a lot that died. My parents first PS3 died from overheating. Their replacement one has worked fine so far, though it froze on me when I was visiting.

[Areala]

Forgot that part there Gnash about the system being bricked.

But, doesn't it show you in the manual for the PS3 how to take out and replace the hard drive? If so, how would it be voiding the warranty to take it out and back it up (of course not on a PS3, not sure how you would do it).

Yeah, if I could just get the thing to turn on for even 5 minutes, I could copy all my savegame data to my 4gb flash drive and be totally cool with shipping it off to be fixed/replaced. Really, the saves are all I need; anything I downloaded off the PSN can be re-downloaded, trophies are synched to your PSN account so they'll show back up as soon as I sign back on, and game data can be re-downloaded and installed including the relevant patches. I don't store movies, pictures or music on my PS3, so there's none of that to back up. No matter what, I'm up the creek with my Mercenaries 2 saves, since they're copy protected for God only knows what reason (stupid DRM...)

For the record, it's costing me money to have the PS3 replaced because I'm out of warranty (I got the system in 07, so it's more than a year old). In addition, all those of you contemplating buying a PS3 but are worried because of this, rest assured that this only happens to the 60GB models; the new 160GB systems have a smaller chipset and don't generate nearly as much heat as the ones that were first off the line. If you don't need PS2 compatibility, or don't want it, then just get a new version and don't bother with the 60GB. For me, though, there's no choice: backwards compatibility sold me on the system as I have an ENORMOUS PS2 library and while I still have my PS2, it's a first-gen release and is nearly 10 years old at this point so I'd like to avoid having to use it as much as possible.

In addition, replacing/accessing the hard drive does not void your warranty; the HDD access panel on the the left side of the console can be easily popped open and swapped out for a different size drive if you want. Any 2.5" SATA laptop hard drive will work, though if you get one that runs faster than 5600 RPMs, you'll generate more heat than what the system specs call for so beware. Sony is quite explicit in the owner's manual how easy this is, and they will service a PS3 that has had its hard drive replaced with another one. That's the only mod acceptable to Sony though; if you unscrew the bottom and dig into the guts of the system, they won't service your console period even if all you do is take a look-see at the interior.

I'm feeling a bit more rational tonight, so I'm sure everything will turn out OK in the end. It'll suck to lose all that progress in those games, but I can just chalk that up to being unlucky and view it as a chance to play some really good games over again. After all, Uncharted and Fallout 3 are still amazing games, no two ways about it, to say nothing of Dead Space...

[Gnash]

I'm quite impressed by your technical prowess I would have never considered the heat issue with the HD. Good luck with your backup.

[DPsx7]

Any mass-produced item is bound to have a few units break down. PS3's fail nowhere near the 360's one third failure rate. I have a 60 that's still working fine, but I've been trying to keep the vents clean and I didn't install the latest update after reading about all the problems. (Yes, I can still get online. Hehe.)

If it still somewhat turns on, did you try the recovery console?

I've read reports that say restoring the defaults or whatever options there are helped fix some PS3's. Since the yellow light indicates HDD activity it's possible that simply replacing it will help. You'll have to find a way to get yuor saves off the other drive if possible, but you'll save $150 on repairs. If you had swapped the drive I'd suggest to try with the original drive first and if needed ship the console with that one rather than the drive holding your data.

I wonder if they'll replace it if you open it just to clean it. Like a PC you cannot get everything from the outside. They have to understand that. If you're out of warranty it's going to cost you anyway so ya might as well try, right? That's how I fixed my launch day PS2 when it had a temporary DRE. Just opened it and cleaned the inside.

[Areala]

Any mass-produced item is bound to have a few units break down. PS3's fail nowhere near the 360's one third failure rate. I have a 60 that's still working fine, but I've been trying to keep the vents clean and I didn't install the latest update after reading about all the problems. (Yes, I can still get online. Hehe.)

If it still somewhat turns on, did you try the recovery console?

I've read reports that say restoring the defaults or whatever options there are helped fix some PS3's. Since the yellow light indicates HDD activity it's possible that simply replacing it will help. You'll have to find a way to get yuor saves off the other drive if possible, but you'll save $150 on repairs. If you had swapped the drive I'd suggest to try with the original drive first and if needed ship the console with that one rather than the drive holding your data.

I wonder if they'll replace it if you open it just to clean it. Like a PC you cannot get everything from the outside. They have to understand that. If you're out of warranty it's going to cost you anyway so ya might as well try, right? That's how I fixed my launch day PS2 when it had a temporary DRE. Just opened it and cleaned the inside.

I can't get the machine to turn on at all; the yellow light that blinks isn't the orange one that indicates HD activity or the green one that indicates online connection, it's the power light itself. And, alas, I can't get to the recovery console at all. Nor did I replace my hard drive...it's the same 60GB that it shipped with.

Opening up your PS3 voids the warranty instantly; there's a little strip that you break to get into the unit itself, and if that's broken or tampered with, they won't service the unit even if all you did was open it up to vacuum out some dust, warranty or not.

All good ideas, but ultimately I'm afraid I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and send it off.

[Hidinger]

I am sure you have allready tried this, but it worked when mine did something similar to your problem (Sadly not the exact same thing).

If you hold down the power button it will beep...then it will beep three times. If you do that twice and plug it in with the regular Red White Yellow setup then it will sometimes clear it. For some unknown reason the thing freaks out from time to time and gets confused whether to output to HDMI or Red White Yellow. Switching the cables to Red White Yellow and then doing the double triple beep thing resets all of that in the PS3. That might be enough to fix it long enough to do your backup.

[Areala]

I am sure you have allready tried this, but it worked when mine did something similar to your problem (Sadly not the exact same thing).

If you hold down the power button it will beep...then it will beep three times. If you do that twice and plug it in with the regular Red White Yellow setup then it will sometimes clear it. For some unknown reason the thing freaks out from time to time and gets confused whether to output to HDMI or Red White Yellow. Switching the cables to Red White Yellow and then doing the double triple beep thing resets all of that in the PS3. That might be enough to fix it long enough to do your backup.

Another good idea, but alas I can't even get it to do the triple-beep reset. It beeps when it turns on, then beeps again and shuts itself off instantly as though some sort of system hardware test is initiated and failed about a second and a half after it starts. Also, I don't use an HDMI cable (just component video), so I don't know if that would be the problem.

Ah well...it was worth a shot.

[DPsx7]

I can't get the machine to turn on at all; the yellow light that blinks isn't the orange one that indicates HD activity or the green one that indicates online connection, it's the power light itself. And, alas, I can't get to the recovery console at all. Nor did I replace my hard drive...it's the same 60GB that it shipped with.

Opening up your PS3 voids the warranty instantly; there's a little strip that you break to get into the unit itself, and if that's broken or tampered with, they won't service the unit even if all you did was open it up to vacuum out some dust, warranty or not.

All good ideas, but ultimately I'm afraid I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and send it off.

Ah, okie dokey. I don't know much about it honestly and just assumed that was the only yellow light on the system. I also wasn't sure where it was stopping exactly, whether the recovery menu or swapping to an uncorrupted drive would help.

Yeah, but you're already out of warranty. Since you might have to pay anyway why should they care if it was opened? As far as I know they don't even service the units. They just check them in and send out a refurb'ed console. I'm just saying it would be something I would argue about as the fans clearly suck in dust and opening it is the only proper way to clean the fans and heatsinks. If we knew overheating was the main cause of these failures I'd just say forget the warranty and open it. With a good cleaning you might not ever need the warranty service. Once you get a working console that is, I'm aware it's a little late for the current situation...

Oh well, I tried. Wish there were better results.

[Areala]

Ah, okie dokey. I don't know much about it honestly and just assumed that was the only yellow light on the system. I also wasn't sure where it was stopping exactly, whether the recovery menu or swapping to an uncorrupted drive would help.

Yeah, but you're already out of warranty. Since you might have to pay anyway why should they care if it was opened? As far as I know they don't even service the units. They just check them in and send out a refurb'ed console. I'm just saying it would be something I would argue about as the fans clearly suck in dust and opening it is the only proper way to clean the fans and heatsinks. If we knew overheating was the main cause of these failures I'd just say forget the warranty and open it. With a good cleaning you might not ever need the warranty service. Once you get a working console that is, I'm aware it's a little late for the current situation...

Oh well, I tried. Wish there were better results.

They care because if you've opened your console, there's the chance you could have damaged something yourself. Since Sony doesn't want to spend money and time fixing something that a gamer deliberately did to his or her system, they simply won't service a console that has been opened. They were quite clear about this on the phone with me, in fact, before sending me the e-mail with instructions on getting it shipped out: I had to confirm that the damage to the PS3 was not due to abuse, that the unit had not been opened, that the sticker had not been detached or broken, and that the serial number was intact and untampered with. Also, if any of that stuff was found to be true, I essentially waved my right to get it repaired/replaced by them and would get my console shipped back to me in the condition it came to them. Serious business, these repair centers...

[DPsx7]

I could understand if they were paying for it. But if you're the one paying them for repairs then I always questioned why it would matter if it was opened. I don't mean this in a bad way, but fortunately none of my 30 consoles have failed in a way I could not fix so I've no experience with warranty services and tech support lines.

This might be a long shot too, but have you tried booting the PS3 without a HDD installed? I have no idea if it will act like a PC and at least boot up to a point so you can say 'yeah, this isn't what the roadblock was'. Unfortunately that's the only thing you can do, if it were a PC you'd add the other components back in one at a time until you find the problem.

At the least try connecting the drive to your PC and see if anything happens. It would be nice if you could get your data off the drive that way.

[Crazylightsaber]

I don't have a PS3 so I have no idea what this is. What the hell is a Yellow light of death?

[triverse]

It is the PS3 equivelant of the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death (RROD).

[Areala]

I don't have a PS3 so I have no idea what this is. What the hell is a Yellow light of death?

The YLOD is a hardware failure related to heat that affects the PS3. It gets its name from the fact that the power light on the console, which usually is either red when the unit is off, or green when it is on, flashes yellow for a few seconds before turning red and shutting the system down.

It's not cool, but it seemingly only affects the early-run PS3 hardware; newer machines have a smaller chipset and don't generate as much heat.