Oh no, it's DEAD!

:cry My PS3 is dead!!:cry

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA :cry:cry:cry:cry

Life is so cruel!!! :cry

WHAAAAAAAAAAA!! :cry:cry:cry

WHY GOD WHY???? :cry:cry

Dammit. :mad

 

Should have brought something reliable. Like an IBM AT:

http://img.zdnet.com/techDirectory/_ATIBMPC.GIF

Look, it even needs a key to start it, it is so reliable!

 

Aah, those were the days man with dual 5 1/4" floppies and perhaps a 6MHz CPU and 20MB HDD with a 16 colour EGA monitor!:-D

 

HEY!!
This is no time to make jokes, I have suffered a great loss and am currently in the...

"OMG this frickin' sucks and I hate everything and anyone who comes near me is going to get poked in the eye"
Phase, but it's passing and I'm moving into the ..

"It's not really dead, it'll be ok if I leave it alone for a while" phase.

In about half an hour I will be in the...

"Ok, I'm gonna take it apart" phase.

IF TC or Laura read this, this incident makes me wish I had taken biology so I could dissect it and make it better

Oh and BTW, I prefered the Wangwriter :-D

 

The university here (University of portsmouth) actually has a hard drive from the 60's. It is mounted on a moveable trolley about the size of a clothes rack like film componies use. This is becasue it weighs 1/4 of a ton, the platter is 7 feet tall, it spins at a gran 20RPM, and guess how mcuh it holds.




























1MB:-D

 

Gawd, imagine the mechanics needed to hold/move the read/write head?!-D Well, the tech had to start somewhere eh?

@Ned Was that thing overheating ? IIRC that's is/was a common problem.

 

collinsl, pics please. Imagine the antique value :eek
Cheers..

 

@Augie... I never noticed it overheating, I cleaned the vents often.
Ok here's what is happening just in case someone here has had or knows of the prob.

Went to switch it on this morning and noticed the red power light was flashing.
Shut it off, started it, came up with the "unexpected shutdown" so restarted, put in a DVD and it stuttered, at first I thought it was the disc so went to eject it and the PS3 just shut down. Beeped 3 times and then Red light flashing approx once every second until I shut it off at the back.
This is what it now does with no disc or with a disc.
Start up.
Goto my screen name.
Let it just stand and watch.
Wavey wallpaper (standard PS3 wallpaper) freezes.
PS3 shuts down, no warning or error, just powers off.
3 beeps
Red light flashing once per second until I switch off on back.

Note: At no point did a yellow light show.

I can't quite figure this out, it seems like a heat issue but could also be corruption , or power supply. If it was a PC I could figure it out, or at least one of you guys could

Edit: By the way, I'm not here looking for answers, hence me posting in the lounge, this is a PC forum and I do realize that, but if anyone knows, feel free to offer suggestions

 

This is the closest image I could find, but the actual unit here is bigger, as I remember it from my introductory tour.

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/images/new_hard_drive.jpg

I can't get a picture of it as I believe access is restricted.

 

lol and I just removed an 80gb HDD thats the size of a pack of smokes :-D

Speaking of which, it ain't the hard drive and it's not software because I removed the HDD and I got the same result.
Powered on.
1.5-2 minutes
Shut off
3 Beeps
Red light flashing.

 

Lot's of results on googling 'ps3 beeps 3 times' but not many solutions. Lots of kiddie sites on the first page.uke

 

Yeah I know, I've reluctantly found some info on youtube, from what I gather it would seem most likely it's a heat issue. Having now seen the PS3 apart I can see why you wouldn't notice it getting hot. It has a heatsink to end all heatsinks lol the thing is massive.
But aparently it's a similar problem to the xbox RROD where one or both of the chips have displaced due to overheating.
The vid I watched was a guy who seemed to know what he was doing in the electronics area.
Not sure about his reseating method though.
He used a heat gun (the type used for paint stripping) and heated the board fully and then concentrated on the chips. While the theory is sound I can't help thinking that amount of heat directed at the chip would damage it.
The idea is to sofen the solder joints so it reseats.
Not got it that far apart yet but I wonder if the back of the board has the exposed joints and if it would be better to reseat them properly using a solder gun/iron.

Either way I have nothing to lose, the PS3 is nothing more than a nice looking beeping doorstop right now.

BTW, I have to say even though I already knew this but after taking it apart, the PS3 is a phenomenal piece of hardware.

 

Tell me about it lol, oh well, no point in moaning about it.
I just posted for a laugh.

Just get on and try to fix it

BTW, I think I've given up with the DVD drive, I'm heavily leaning toward it being an issue with my mobo. Thanks for your help though, always appreciated

 

Never dug into one of those but I would check the voltages from the power supply. Not hard to replace, can even use an external supply, bulky but might work.
Any capacitors, any leakage, odor?
But again, I don't even know what's inside one of those or how serviceable they may be. More and more, the gadgets we buy are made to toss when broke, many times not serviceable at all.

 

have you heard about using a hair dryer?im not sure if its the same problem but if it has over heated then i would try the trick ..just heat the thing up on full power and some how it fixes,but not permenent hope it helps or works ..

 

I checked for odor and nothing. It could be the PSU and will check that too when I get my hands on a multimeter.

I figure if I can get a few more months out of it then I done ok.

See, in about 6-8 weeks I have an operation (hernia) and am going to be confined in movement for a week or more depending on how the op goes and I can't live on the sofa for a week without my PS#, so even if it gets me through that I'll be happy

Edit: @Rob... thanks for the tip but if the prob is as I suspect a hairdryer wont penetrate the heatsink, same as the towel fix for the xbox, dangerous and very short term at best.

 

Ned,

Seems like you're having a couple of bad days here.
May want to get together with my friend Jack Daniels afterall!:-D:-D

 

lol Yeah I think I might get together with a few of the guys.

Jack Daniels
Ron Bacardi
Johnny Walker
Harvey Wallbanger

Etc etc lol

Nah, 5 years ago maybe but I don't drink anymore, the occasional beer.

I just keep trudging through, life throws up these brick walls, I just keep knockin em down :-D

 

collinsl are those the new portable harddisk i keep hearing the new model right 2010 !!!

 

Have you tried to return it to SONY?

 

lol No Rikky, I am not giving Sony $150 + tax and shipping when I can get another PS3 for $250 with a warrenty.

Although when it was still under warrenty it went wrong and I contacted them and they were awesome, 10 minutes on the phone and the guy said "Leave it with me"
The following day an empty box arrived for me to send it back. So I did.
2 days later it came back all fixed up. Didn't cost me a penny and all I had to do was drop it off at post office.

But like I said, it's out of warrenty now......especially now I've taken it apart lol

 

Well yeah now you've taken it apart you've kind of blocked that avenue.:-D

But yeah I would have phoned them anyway and cried or something,its SONY they will usually help you out,try it you might be pleasantly surprised at what they can do if you kick up a fuss.

EDIT Say your never buying Sony again and mention Microsoft's Xbox :-D

 

RIKKY!! How could I say that even if I didn't mean it. Thats blasphemy.

I might give them a bell tomorrow and just se whats up, they are pretty good unlike certain other companies ahem.

I can't complain really, it's done a huge amount of work, it's been not only my primary gaming system but also my primary DVD player for over a year.
So it's pretty much been on for at least 4 hours per day every day.

Typical, Valentines day and my true love dies........just don't tell the missus I said that :-D

 

Do you know what date you bought it?You live in Canada right?

 

Yes I live in Canada and I bought it in July 07.
Don't ask me to find the paperwork lol

Why?

 

Under the Canadian Sale of Goods act your covered,the goods have to last a reasonable amount of time which is 3-6 years,under 3 years you definitely covered under law after three it depends on the specific use of the product so you have until july before you'd have to argue the case in court or get legal help to determine the reasonable amount of time.

You don't have to return it to the manufacturer either 'Sony' this is myth,you can return it to the seller 'retailer'

Its almost the same as our law,if you haven't bought it from a store you can use a bank statement as proof of purchase,same goes if you paid with a credit or debit card and have lost the receipt.

References

http://www.cba.org/bc/public_media/credit/257.aspx

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90s01_e.htm#BK54

 

It's also counter-productive, since you know the 360 will die from heat issues in less than 6 months

Yes, the blinking red means the system is over-heating and if it shuts off very close after power-on it has been over-heating for some time and that has probably caused some damage. I could have told you that.

Heartfelt condolences by the way. Poor PS3!

Hair dryers are not nearly as precise as a heat gun. Think shotgun blast vs pistol bullet; hot air from the hair dryer will hit the entire board in there. Apply at own risk... Since you have it apart anyway, stare hard at the thing and see if something just looks out of place. The PS3 is so very similar to a computer from a hardware standpoint that I'm inclined to think the three beeps a a failed POST message.

By the way, I did some searching on Sony's PS3 forums and found a few threads describing the same problem. According to responses to those threads, it's a motherboard issue, and the board needs to be replaced, which means send it to Sony for repairs. This is one of the more detailed threads. Sorry.

Before giving up though, try this fix. Unlikely to work, but you have nothing to lose by trying, right?

 

@ Rikky.. Thats interesting, the only prob there is I paid cold hard cash for it, although from Blockbuster and when I sent it back the first time (Nov 07) different issue, I had to go through BB HQ because some moron put it down as just "Sales" and I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna spend $700 on Movies in one shot aren't I lol so they may have it on record, but I have now broken the seal.

@Mimsy... Well aren't you the surprise of the forum an RPG player knowing about dead PS3's
Thanks for the links, will check out all solutions before I start, I need to get thermal paste anyway. The info I found looks pretty sound too.
I'll check out all avenues and decide the best ourse of action.
Also the 3 beep thing, I've heard it many many times when system has crashed just cos, sometimes it crashed for no reason other times someone leaving a MW match would crash us all out and the 3 beeps just signifies a bad shutdown I think.
It's the flashing red light and constant crashing that alerted me.

I'll get her back, she ain't leaving me yet
We've saved the world together, fought alien races on far away planets together, won races and boxing championships together.......we are a team, never leave a man behind!...even though I'm not American lol

Edit: And yeah, the Xcrap 3crappy is upstairs rotting after little over a year of light use, my PS3 probably caught some desease from it lol

 

Look up its library one of these days...

I prefer RPGs, but will give any video game a fair try if it is actually good and not just another average/generic representative for its genre. I got the old fat PS3 that has full backwards compatibility and all sorts of cool USB ports and media card slots, and I've found it to be far superior to the 360 in several ways. The built-in wifi adapter and HDMI ports were only the beginning. I love my PS3... it has carried me through many a bad day and countless sick days. I feel your pain.

As for teh three beeps, I have yet to hear them from my PS3 since it's only crashed once, and that was so long ago that if it did do the 3-beep thing I don't remember. I was too busy cussing, and then pleading with it not to be dead or injured.

 

lol Superior isn't the word, the PS3 regaudless of what any fanboys say is massivly superior in almost every way to the 360. Fact.
More power, more gadgets, more stable, FREE ONLINE!.
Crytek (makers of Crysis) actally released a statement saying the reason it was not released on consoles is because the PS3 was the only one powerful enough to run it full spec. MGS4 is too high spec for 360 as are several other games.

The 360 is ok but I'd take a PS3 over 100 xbox's

The 3 beep thing, I dunno, like I said it crashed a fair bit on COD4 when online when the host would leave, but my whole party of friends would all crash too, we used to get really angry about that. It used to crash on Fight Night round 3 too but other than that has been sound. I also have the 60 or 80GB model, can't remember lol, the first one out same as you. Don't like the little diddy things you get now. Our Ps3's look like the power Beasts they are :-D

 

That's odd, ours has never crashed on Fight Night 3... :confused

MGS4 would have been a lot better if it hadn't been so full of itself. LOL

Did you get the free PSN game yesterday? I've made a habit of checking PSN daily, since they seem to have a game available for free download twice a month or so. Obviously not massive masterpieces like Drake's Fortune, but usually hilarious and entertaining ones. For example, yesterday it was flOw

 

lol No I havn't taken it online for a week or so but I did buy flow about a year ago for $5 I think, awesome little game eh?

And MGS4 had reason to be full of itself, the final installment of one of the best storylines in a game ever. One of the best games Ever. But if you didn't play the other it wouldn't have meant much to you.
I've played it through 12 times lol, thats the beauty of it, you wanna go in a blow away anything that moves with a BFG then go for it, wanna sneak around and snap necks.....go for it.....wanna play the whole game and not kill anything?....go for it. The game was one of the most versatile games ever made. People just didn't realize it's replay potential. Online sucked though lol

And yes, Drakes Fortune = Masterpiece.....but Among Thieves topped it, such an awesome story and graphically incredible, the SNOW!! how realistic was THAT!

Oh and my FNR3 was bought used and had a few scratches, FNR4 is sooo much better though and I got that new day of release :-D

 

And the very last thing I always try is with the biggest hammer I can find!
http://bestsmileys.com/violent/18.gif

Condolences Ned.

 

Awwww man, I just had a very sad experience.
Just tigying up a little and picked up my PS3 controller, I acidently pressed the PS button and it started flashing
It was like it's looking for it's mother
It wont stop flashing now until it dies too :cry

 

My Son's PSP had died 2 months after buying it (the AC connector on the PSP stopped working). Requested service online, had the box in 3 days UPS, sent it back the next day and 3 days later had a working PSP. Very nice in the service department.

I'm waiting for this to happen. My Son's is 14 months old and so far all has been good.

 

Re" Ned:- Well, with P.C.'s, three POST beeps usually means a RAM problem. Since the PS3 has a similar guts, this may be the case, especially if anything has been affected by heat. Don't know how serviceable RAM is on the PS3. I suspect it's not very get-at-ible.

P.O.S.T. Codes, etc.[P.C.]

 

From what I have seen with my two xbox's the life span is more like two years. Still not great but hey we get all the exclusive games and all PS3 has is MGS4. Though admitedly I do want to play it, SO TRUCE no firing shots at th guy happy wit his XBOX :cool

 

And the Uncharted 1 and 2. And Demons' Souls. And God of War 3. And Ninja Gaiden Sigma. And inFamous. And Heavy Rain. And Little Big Planet. And Killzone 2. And Heavenly Sword.

I could go on but I think I've made my point? :major

I don't mind you disagreeing with me on which console is the better one. Not at all. I'm not firing any shots at you either. I'm just asking you to keep any statements on any console reasonably factual...

 

Ok your right there are a few now that I was unaware of . I kinda like my Xbox but then I had PS3 when it first came out so there wasnt all those games

 

Pretty much!:-D

 

To be honest, although MGS4 was good, I thought several of the ones I mentioned were far more enjoyable to play.

 

Hey now that you have attracted my attention to this list I'm pretty sure Ninja Gaiden and God of War are on both ill have to check BRB..... ok no only Ninja Gaiden is all the rest are exclusive to PS3

 

Ooooops. :-o My bad. I'd go back and edit it off the list if I could.

And no, God of War is not on both. It was a big reason to buy the PS3 in the first place.

 

Sorry my post was confusing when I read back through it. Your right God of War 3 is exclusive to PS3, But do you have any great RPG exclusives that can step up to Fallout 3 or Elder Scrolls: Oblivion now theres a challenge for you. Those games are epic.

 

And available for PS3. I'm confused now.

 

But Fallout 3 and Oblvion are on PS3 too, they are not exclusive to xbox.

God Of War on Xbox? lmao yeah the box wishes it could run that :-D

BTW, nice post there Mimsy, load it up and fire both barrels :-D

Oh and btw, my 360 died long before my PS3 with a quarter the use, oh and we don't pay for online

 

I don't need barrels. I have a new sword...! http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-violent092.gif :-D

 

lol this is very true , so I guess it would be ... Parry, Parry, thrust..... :-D

 

Hey hey hey keep that needle to yourself lol. And I'm sorry Oblivion was exclusive for so many years I hadnt realised we gave it away to you guys lol. But no really both systems are good I just prefer the XBOX. And Bill Gates gives nothing away and we all know it lol.