PS3 hardware failure

[Nesh]

I have a 60GB BC model which died on me today.


My game disc got stuck inside which is annoying.



The console turns itself off when I turn it on. It beeps twice and the red light flashes.

I dont want to lose this model since BC models dont exist.


Should I remove my HDD and sent it for repairs?

Also assuming I remove it all account information will remain in the HDD right? No left overs will remain in the console itself

I dont understand why this happened. It might probably be an overheating problem or a power failure, but my console is not enclosed or placed on a carpet.

 

[patsu]

Also assuming I remove it all account information will remain in the HDD right? No left overs will remain in the console itself

Yes, I think so. Our personal info should be on the HDD only. I swapped my HDD and my account info was gone.

I dont understand why this happened. It might probably be an overheating problem or a power failure, but my console is not enclosed or placed on a carpet.

I'd call Sony support to see what they say.

May be the Blu-ray drive conked out ? But in this case, you should be able to boot up. Probably some other reason then.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Sorry to hear, the repair might be quite costly.

Have you tried pressing the eject button for about 10 seconds, I think I read somewhere that it is supposed to some fancier eject procedure when holding the eject button longer.

 

[Nesh]

Sorry to hear, the repair might be quite costly.

Have you tried pressing the eject button for about 10 seconds, I think I read somewhere that it is supposed to some fancier eject procedure when holding the eject button longer.

Nope doesnt seem to eject

 

[phat]

Several of my 60GB launch consoles died. Sony extended my warranty and repaired them for free, so it's likely a known manufacturing issue to them. Call them up and see if they'll do the same for you--insist that it's a known issue with those models and others have had theirs repaired for free. If they refuse, it'll probably be $150. The repaired console probably won't fail again (all my repaired consoles are still humming along folding@home 24/7).

 

[Scott_Arm]

Most likely a dead bga part.

My brothers PS3 (60GB w/ BC) died, and I'm not sure what the indicators were from the lights, but it wouldn't power on. Cost him a few hundred dollars to repair through Sony. They will wipe out your hard drive (don't ask me why, but they'll warn you) so you'll lose all your saves. Maybe there is a way to transfer your saves by putting the hard drive in a PC? I don't know. Anyway, he got his repaired and it died from the same problem, a second time shortly after the repair warranty ran out.

To be honest, I'd buy a PS3 slim. It sucks to lose the BC, but it might give you the opportunity to move the HD to the slim, backup your files to a memory card or USB stick, and then copy it back to the bigger hard drive in the slim.

If someone has a better suggestion, feel free to interject, but that's what I would do. I have the same unit so I'm worried that I'll have to make the same decision at some point in my future. The 60GB unit is starting to die off.

 

[Grall]

Remove the HDD before shipping it off... It's user replaceable anyway, so I doubt it'll affect the warranty in any way.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Ask the price, ask how long they'll warranty the repair (it was less than a year for my bro, maybe six months?) and ask if you can ship it back without the hard drive.

Maybe weighing the price of the repair and the warranty you'll be able to figure out if the slim is a little more expensive, but a more trustworthy option.

My bro ended up in the situation of $350(+tax) for PS3 60GB, $200(approx with taxes in) for repair and $299(+tax) for PS3 slim. He calls it his "Thousand dollar Playstation." All Canadian pricing.

 

[djskribbles]

The PS3 backup/restore works well... if it's the same machine; otherwise, it's pretty much useless. The only things that will be restored are your media files and your save files that aren't copy protected. If Sony can repair your machine, you should be able to save everything.

 

[AntShaw]

Ask the price, ask how long they'll warranty the repair (it was less than a year for my bro, maybe six months?) and ask if you can ship it back without the hard drive.

My BRD drive on my 40gb died. It's out of warranty. I called and $150 to fix and you get an additional 90 days. I politely said no thanks. Although they did say it would be a 4-8 day turnaround time.

This was in the US.

 

[vazel]

Data on your HDD is uniquely tied to your PS3 so you can't just carry over an HDD.

I feel for you man 60GB PS3s with their real PS2 EE and GS hardware in them are gems. I own a 80GB PS3 bc which emulates the EE. I'm disappointed that some games suffer from slowdown on my 80GB PS3. In that beginning room of Jak II it's supposed to be 60fps but on my PS3 it's chuggy.

For ps2 games I'm increasingly using pcsx2. Give it a try. You'll be surprised how good PS2 games look with higher resolution. But it's very demanding of your PC. I use my PS3 when I want better framerates(and sometimes when that isn't enough for games like Jak II I bring the PS2 out of the closet) or when games are just too buggy in pcsx2.

 

[SG79]

If your disc wasn't stuck in there, repairing it is incredibly easy. The BD drive comes off really easily and if it were a yellow light issue, it would cost you even less since all you'll need is a small tube of thermal grease.

 

[SG79]

Several of my 60GB launch consoles died. Sony extended my warranty and repaired them for free, so it's likely a known manufacturing issue to them.

If you're running them 24/7, it's not much of a manufacturing issue as it is a "choice" issue with the thermal compound used. It's incredibly cheap stuff that looks like Elmer's glue mixed with a small piece of gum. MS uses something similar as well that little to transfer heat from the GPU and CPU to the heat sink.

At the advice of an online friend, I recently opened up my launch 20GB core after noticing that the fan goes on almost immediately even if it's not running anything (on high setting too). I replaced the cheap stuff with Arctic Silver and that was the end of it; it goes on medium setting after 2-3 hours of running a game. It's gotten even quieter as the compound cured.

I'm guessing they wised up with the slim model since those things are incredibly quiet (aside from the fact that they use 45nm chips VS the 90nm one in the launch models)

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Data on your HDD is uniquely tied to your PS3 so you can't just carry over an HDD.

I feel for you man 60GB PS3s with their real PS2 EE and GS hardware in them are gems. I own a 80GB PS3 bc which emulates the EE. I'm disappointed that some games suffer from slowdown on my 80GB PS3. In that beginning room of Jak II it's supposed to be 60fps but on my PS3 it's chuggy.

The Euro 60GB model is basically the same as the 80GB US model, so it doesn't have EE in it.
Nesh do you play lot's of PS2 games? It might be a safer bet to just buy the new slim with new warranty and maybe get a cheap and small PS2 slim as well, it's easy enough to hide somewhere, when you'r not using it. At least in Finland the repair costs about the same as a new unit and we have two year warranty for new units.

 

[BoardBonobo]

I have an original 60Gb launch model sitting in a box at home. I replaced it with a Slim when they came out simply because of the lower power consumption. If you can't find a replacement and you really need to have the BC then I'm up for selling mine.

 

[Nesh]

Just out of curiosity how much did it cost to any of you in EU to have one repaired?

I called my local store and they told me its 169 Euros. OUCH.


I was wondering also if I can get some of my saved games from the HDD.

Question:
If I take out the HDD and plug it on an external case to browse through it with my PC will I be able to find the save directory and copy the save files like we do on the PSP?


One of the most painful loses is the Wipeout Fury/HD progress. I got Golds in every tournament/challenge on Elite with an exception of 5 Novice golds.

The Euro 60GB model is basically the same as the 80GB US model, so it doesn't have EE in it.
Nesh do you play lot's of PS2 games? It might be a safer bet to just buy the new slim with new warranty and maybe get a cheap and small PS2 slim as well, it's easy enough to hide somewhere, when you'r not using it. At least in Finland the repair costs about the same as a new unit and we have two year warranty for new units.

I sometimes play my PS2 games. I still have my FF12 unfinished and I progressed a lot. It is a shame that I might loose my progress.

I want my BC PS3 but I might also get a Slim.

I have an original 60Gb launch model sitting in a box at home. I replaced it with a Slim when they came out simply because of the lower power consumption. If you can't find a replacement and you really need to have the BC then I'm up for selling mine.

How much are you selling it?

 

[BoardBonobo]

Just out of curiosity how much did it cost to any of you in EU to have one repaired?

I called my local store and they told me its 169 Euros. OUCH.

I can't remember how much I paid first time. I think it was about £140ish. I now have a continuous play account so I get instant free replacements.

I was wondering also if I can get some of my saved games from the HDD.

Question:
If I take out the HDD and plug it on an external case to browse through it with my PC will I be able to find the save directory and copy the save files like we do on the PSP?


One of the most painful loses is the Wipeout Fury/HD progress. I got Golds in every tournament/challenge on Elite with an exception of 5 Novice golds.

Unless you did a backup before it died then no. I have started all my games again, gave me a reason to start playing HS again!

I sometimes play my PS2 games. I still have my FF12 unfinished and I progressed a lot. It is a shame that I might loose my progress.

I want my BC PS3 but I might also get a Slim.



How much are you selling it?

Haven't thought about that yet!

 

[novcze]

I have a 60GB BC model which died on me today.

My 2,5 years old EU PS3 with BC died recently (6.11.). I did YLOD fix as is described here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Ic1_TY-GU and part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr1zyAGwnuU
My PS3 is now fully functional but as electronics engineer I`m not fully convinced that heating did the job. Crack in solder joint can by very tiny, therefore slight change in pressure when screwing heatsink (or change in thermal grease thickness) can do the job as well.
Anyway, I bought PS3 Slim, because this kind of repair cannot be trusted and then copied over save files and other files from repaired PS3. I will keep my old PS3 because it`s nice piece of hardware (even inside) only next time they need to use some kind of socket for CPU/GPU to avoid problems with cracks in soldering under BGA (and that isn`t manufacturing failure, that is physic in action)

 

[SG79]

(or change in thermal grease thickness) can do the job as well.

That alone did the trick on a few of the units I tinkered with. Mine was perfectly fine as it was, but with the few hours I game or watch movies being at night, the loud fan got extremely annoying. Besides, it was probably a ticking timebomb if the GPU/CPU weren't cooling properly even though I keep my electronics clean and well ventilated.

One thing that I noticed is the type of HDD matters to an extent with the noise and overall heat. I had a 160GB WD prior, and upon switching to a 500GB Seagate one (Sony uses Seagate too), it runs cooler and it's much quieter.

Just in case, I used the old HDD to do a full system backup in case something worse happens in the future. Took nearly 2.5 hours to backup mere 70GB of data

 

[Grall]

only next time they need to use some kind of socket for CPU/GPU to avoid problems with cracks in soldering under BGA

That's not realistic. Various types of BGAs are the vastly most common type of IC package today, they're used pretty much everywhere in computers today, and replacing every soldered BGA with a socket would vastly complicate things.

Besides, flip-chip devices are soldered to the substrate as well, so even if the BGA is socketed rather than soldered to the mobo there's still solder connection balls that can crack...