Various sites have started squawking about a new error thrown by fussy PS3's, an error somewhat obliquely referred to as 80010514.
It turns out the error's been around for awhile, and that when it happens, it manifests with some pretty broad causal latitude.
Customers posting last year on the Official PlayStation Community
(currently closed, but you can read the cached pages) report that the error occurs when inserting game or Blu-ray discs, but not DVDs.
The complete syntax of the error message:
An error occurred during the start operation.
80010514
One customer on the cached page reported that
"Ratchet
& Clank froze
(several times) and now when I try to load a game it gives me this error.
" Another on a different forum suggests the problem occurs when running a firmware update on a system from a non-matching region.
Still another user on Sony's official PlayStation message boards speculates wildly that it's
"the blue-ray diode.
.
.
it burns out in that model of the system.
" Don't you love how anonymity turns everyone into an armchair electrical engineer?
After confirming with Sony support that the error is in essence a catch-all for a system reset and noting that a factory default reset doesn't solve the problem, GameRevolver speculates
(without confirmation) that it's
"one of two things":
- A faulty sector on the internal hard drive.
- A bad firmware install.
Their recommendations to avoid the error are a little too general to take much stock in.
Dust your PS3, make sure you have a stable internet connection, update your firmware properly, etc.
Common sense, in other words, though it's not going to help any of you already getting the error
-- the other allegation is that once the error occurs, you'll need a replacement PS3 from Sony.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
Speaking anecdotally
-- anecdotally, mind you!
-- I've never seen the error
(or any other) after over a year of frequent use.
I've had three Xbox 360s go to pot
(and had all three replaced, thank you very much for the first class customer service Microsoft) but I'm still on PS3 numero uno, and just in case it matters, I run both systems side-by-side inside a large wooden cabinet without proper ventilation, and yes, they both get quite warm and fan-blade-whiny in the summer after extended play time.
If you do get the error, the best thing you can do is probably ignore most of the above, stay away from the junk speculation on most of the boards
(unless you're into wrapping systems in towels and doing rain dances and lighting votive candles to resurrect the mechanically dead), and give Sony a call.
Unlike Microsoft's Xbox 360
"red ring of death" error, which several retailers were claiming was causing failures in the 30 to 33 percentile range, the 80010514 reset issue appears to be rare and occurring within the acceptable failure range for any piece of electronic equipment.
If that changes, I'll be right back on top of it here.
Also, it's worth noting that the PS3 can
(and does) throw a slew of error messages, some of which you'll find referenced in this thread.
80010514 probably occurs more often because, as noted, it's a
"catch-all" general reset.
Whatever the case, it would behoove Sony to get out in front of the
"issue" in one form or another, before the rain dancers and candle burners start threatening ye obligatory class action lawsuits.
