Yellow Light of Death (PS3)

[JohnnyC]

It's happened to mine

Happened last night, PS3 hadn't been on all that long, maybe an hour - now it doesn't switch on at all. Can't even eject CoD4

If the Watchdog report is anything to go by, it's a poor show by Sony (as was my comment back then)...
http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123943

I certainly ain't paying Sony £120 for them to fix something they didn't build properly. Neither am I happy about re-soldering

Mine is a 60Gb model with 4 USBs, card readers + PS2 compatible so I ain't too chuffed for this to happen. Admittedly, I only ever used 2 USBs and hardly the card readers, and PS2 games were only played when I didn't have many PS3 games.

Now then, any consumer experts out there?
I'm sure I've heard that stuff has to last a reasonable time - and that time is usually longer than the 1yr warranty.
However, I don't hold much hope as I'm sure Watchdog would've picked up on this
I think I've had mine 2yrs.

Laugh it up Xbox owners

[matt_mr2t]

It's happened to mine

Happened last night, PS3 hadn't been on all that long, maybe an hour - now it doesn't switch on at all. Can't even eject CoD4

If the Watchdog report is anything to go by, it's a poor show by Sony (as was my comment back then)...
http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123943

I certainly ain't paying Sony £120 for them to fix something they didn't build properly. Neither am I happy about re-soldering

Mine is a 60Gb model with 4 USBs, card readers + PS2 compatible so I ain't too chuffed for this to happen. Admittedly, I only ever used 2 USBs and hardly the card readers, and PS2 games were only played when I didn't have many PS3 games.

Now then, any consumer experts out there?
I'm sure I've heard that stuff has to last a reasonable time - and that time is usually longer than the 1yr warranty.
However, I don't hold much hope as I'm sure Watchdog would've picked up on this
I think I've had mine 2yrs.

Laugh it up Xbox owners

I'd never laugh at some one who spent over £400 on something for it to fail. Unless you gave 360 owners a hard time over reliabilty

[JohnnyC]

Unless you gave 360 owners a hard time over reliabilty

I've slated Microsoft over the reliability of their console


Worse still, Modern Warfare 2 is out in 6 weeks
Wonder if I should change my pre-order to the 360

[matt_mr2t]

Unless you gave 360 owners a hard time over reliabilty

I've slated Microsoft over the reliability of their console


Worse still, Modern Warfare 2 is out in 6 weeks
Wonder if I should change my pre-order to the 360

Do you have both?

360 is best
And I have both

[JohnnyC]

Unless you gave 360 owners a hard time over reliabilty

I've slated Microsoft over the reliability of their console


Worse still, Modern Warfare 2 is out in 6 weeks
Wonder if I should change my pre-order to the 360

Do you have both?

360 is best
And I have both

I don't have a 360, and I vowed never to get one ever due to the reliability.
Seems a little ironic now

[matt_mr2t]

I've slated Microsoft over the reliability of their console


Worse still, Modern Warfare 2 is out in 6 weeks
Wonder if I should change my pre-order to the 360

Do you have both?

360 is best
And I have both

I don't have a 360, and I vowed never to get one ever due to the reliability.
Seems a little ironic now

I gave my dead one to the guy currently sitting to my right. Said "if you can fix it, you can have it"
He fixed it for about a tenner. Took him less than an hour. He's now fixed 3 more he bought off ebay for under £50 each. Sold them to his family for what he paid. Now he's buying them up and aiming to fix them for a profit.
Said it now takes him around 20 minutes each to fix.

If somethings unreliable but easy and cheap to fix, not a problem. I know now that if my current Xbox fails it'll be fixed asap for next to nothing. Where as if my PS3 fails, what then?

[JohnnyC]

Anyone know if you can drop in the HDD from the big PS3 into the slim version?

I know they're the same, I mean will it work without reformatting? (ie, there isn't any 'big/slim' specifics stored on the HDD in it's system area?)


*just spoke to Sony, they'd want £128 from me to swap mine for a 2nd hand one with 3 month warranty - they are taking the p1ss

Also, the HDD would be reformatted upon putting it into a new PS3
That's my saves for Fallout3 etc gone


Choices now:
1. Pay those robbing buggers Sony and still lose all my stuff on the HDD.
2. Vow never to buy Sony again and get an Xbox + bluray player + £40 per year to play online + downgrade my WPA2 encryption + sell my ps3 games.
3. Buy a PS3 slim, and pray the same doesn't happen in another 1yr 11months

Sony geezer told me it can happen to any/all hardware. Funny that, I've NEVER in my life had hardware/electronics break within 2 years

[Mk1Chris]

Most independent console shops will repair it for £30-£40, usually within an hour or two.

Thats what my best mate did, fortunately mine still seems fine.

[crostheman]

If you do buy a ps3 slim get it from john lewis. its the cheapest I've seen @ £229




Simon

[JohnnyC]

If you do buy a ps3 slim get it from john lewis. its the cheapest I've seen @ £229

Damn, that's cheap.
I did a quick google, and cheapest I saw was Simply Games for £230 but that'd be ordering online only so I'd not see it until end of next week at best

In the end I picked one up from Argos for £245.

One of the menus (think it was when I was setting up the wireless settings) crashed on me

Now I'm going through the kerfuffle of putting my 500Gb HDD into it - only this time my online user ID etc will need setting up again (when I did the HDD swap a while back I was surprised this wasn't stored on the HDD, so I didn't have to re-do it )

Couple of things about the slim (as I'm waiting for it to format the drive!):
It looks cheap
Serious lack of ventilation compared to the older model (but I guess Sony know what their doing )
The HDD screws aren't stupidly tight this time

[DannyN]

I'm sure I've heard that stuff has to last a reasonable time - and that time is usually longer than the 1yr warranty.

I think it was on here somewhere but I dont know where.
It was 6 years (which is a strange number) and was along the lines of "reasonable life" or something

[JohnnyC]

I'm sure I've heard that stuff has to last a reasonable time - and that time is usually longer than the 1yr warranty.

I think it was on here somewhere but I dont know where.
It was 6 years (which is a strange number) and was along the lines of "reasonable life" or something

It was probably my post that you're thinking of
http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123943
I'd done a quick google and came up with...

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/you ... rights.htm

If you have had your goods for more than six months when they go wrong, you can still ask the trader to repair or replace them, but you may have to prove that they were faulty when you bought them if the trader doesn't agree. You can ask for a repair or replacement at any time up to six years after you bought the goods (five years in Scotland), as long as it is reasonable for them to have lasted this long. If the goods go wrong after six years (or five in Scotland), you no longer have the right to ask for a repair or replacement.

But as I mentioned previously above, I'd have expected Watchdog to pick up on this but they didn't

[JohnnyC]

Just as an update, I think it's actually the Yellow Light of Death that I've got. Not sure, cos the Yellow light is only visible for a fraction of a second before it beeps and flashes red.

Think I'll chuck it through the window of the nearest Sony Centre window. It's not big or clever, but it'll make me feel better after forking out £350 for it to last under 2 years

[matt_mr2t]

Should have got an Xbox. If it goes wrong you can fix it yourself for a fiver in under an hour

[JohnnyC]

Should have got an Xbox. If it goes wrong you can fix it yourself for a fiver in under an hour

As I was stood in Argos looking at the catalogue I priced them both up - very similar priced: ps3 = £245 (+headset = £265), 360 elite + wireless = £260.

Except ps3 has bluray
But the biggest deciding factor was £40 every year to play xbox online


But, I don't see why I should have to fix them. Build em properly in the first place

[matt_mr2t]

Should have got an Xbox. If it goes wrong you can fix it yourself for a fiver in under an hour

As I was stood in Argos looking at the catalogue I priced them both up - very similar priced: ps3 = £245 (+headset = £265), 360 elite + wireless = £260.

Except ps3 has bluray
But the biggest deciding factor was £40 every year to play xbox online


But, I don't see why I should have to fix them. Build em properly in the first place

No need to get the elite. Get a 60gb one and they're about £150 IIRC.
Or as my colleague has been doing, buy a dead one off ebay for £30 + fiver repair kit and tadah!
Do you really play online that much?
My online use is only to download demo's, tunes for GH and the odd chat. I havent played a game online for at least a year.

[Andy Jones]

Did you loose all your saves etc?

I've read the HDD is locked to the particular machine it's set-up in but never actually tried putting my o/e one in a mates machine to see what it says.

[H3RB]

yeah as far as i know its locked, the only way to do it is to back it up to a usb drive. im suprised there is no tool on the pc to get your data from it like there is with the 360

[Andy Jones]

It's a pisspoor service though from Sony though as i'm sure 99.9% of the world don't back-up their HDD on a weekly basis for when the unavoidable finally happens.

[JohnnyC]

Did you loose all your saves etc?

I've read the HDD is locked to the particular machine it's set-up in but never actually tried putting my o/e one in a mates machine to see what it says.

Yep, lost the lot
At least my online rank for CoD4 is stored on a server somewhere

Yes, the PS3 hdd's are encrypted, specifically to each PS3, so no swapping drives

Even if you send your knackered PS3 to them, the one they send you back is blank


Another thing I noticed:
When putting in a new hdd in my fat PS3 months ago, all my tinternet settings and user accounts were still there - surprised really, they must not be stored on the hdd, but in some internal flash memory.

But when I set up the PS3 slim, then shortly after put the new (& re-formatted) hdd in, all my settings were gone Even had to reinstall the firmware looks like everything is stored on the hdd this time.

Couldn't find any info on this missing flash memory, but it does explain why the PS3 slim is slower to boot up than the fat one.

Personally I like the ability to be able to do a backup/restore as easy as you can on the PS3 as opposed to how it is (so I've read) on the Xbox.
There's just 2 flaws with it though...
1. You're proper f'd if your PS3 don't boot up to be able to do the backup (and you shouldn't really have to regularly back it up )
2. PS3's will only recognise external drives that are FAT32 FFS