The PS3 and the 'Yellow Light of Death'

[rossatdi]

Oh dear Sony? It seems reliable jugernaught of the the PS3 has its own RROD and unsurprisingly Sony treat their customers like something they've stepped in on the street. £150 for repair after 18 months?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/09/playstation3_and_the_yellow_li.html

 

[The87Italians]

Well, atleast it's not like they explode or anything

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

reckon you can do that in a microwave?

 

[Charlie_Brown]

For balance, here's an article against the BBC's coverage.

http://news.spong.com/article/19238/BBCs-Watchdog-PS3-Show-FAIL

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Wow. I didn't even know the PS3 had an equivalent of the Red Ring Of Death. The way Sony treats their customers in response to this is just sad, though. I'm glad I have a 360.

 

[Nick Bounty]

I wonder how many PS3's break after warranty or just as the warranty expires. I read somewhere that most Sony products seem to meet a demise just after the coveted warranty expires but is that true?.

I also laughed at the PlayStation Repair Action Team (P.R.A.T.). That's some brilliant piece of acronym choosing.

 

[Irishhoodlum]

So if your console breaks outside of Warranty (just like the 360) you don't get a new one for free... Who could have seen that coming? I mean at least you still get money off a second one, I don't see Microsoft doing that. Though I could be wrong there.

Oh, and do you know why the 360 has such a long warranty? Because 12.5k is a very small fraction of 2.5 million, compared to say 54%...

 

[Tron900]

reckon you can do that in a microwave?

sweet jesus no!

unless you like £300 worth of sparks?

I think there is some explaination to this.

Recently, some EU/RoHS mubojumbo said that solder has to be near as damn it "Pb-free".

I've used lead free solder and its crap! utterly usless compared to the older Pb stuff.

The lead free stuff produces more dry solder joints, which if you give it enough heating, will eventually fail thus breaking the circuit it was connected to.

the only way to fix it, is to reheat the solder to its melting point, thus re-setting the joint.

since it could be any of 1000 joints, you may as well reheat the entire PCB and reset all the joints.

So, who's to blame, I don't think it should be sony. The RoHS commity....maybe.....

 

[Eagle Est1986]

I wonder how many PS3's break after warranty or just as the warranty expires. I read somewhere that most Sony products seem to meet a demise just after the coveted warranty expires but is that true?.

Well, I've had my PS3 since launch and I've had no problems. I've got a stereo from them, had that for about 6 years and that's still fine, I've had two TVs from them and both of them are still working without any problems.
It's one of the reasons that I buy from them, because I've found them to be very reliable.


Just out of interest, how much does it cost to get the RROD fixed if you're outisde of Microsoft's warranty?

 

[Nieroshai]

18 months for a PS3 to fail ONCE? I have owned 3 XBOX 360s, and all of them RROD'd within the first month. PS3 has a 1 in 200 malfunction rate while 360s have a 1 in 5 malfunction rate. Wii has the lowest failure rate, but its hardware is much simpler and lower tech. Microsoft redeemed the 360 with the Elite, however, which is equivalent to the PS3 in failure rate.

 

[Hybridwolf]

everything will break eventually, it's just a case of how decent the tech support is.

 

[wootsniper]

here in holland there is a law that no one acutually knows,

but if someone breaks and its not your fault you get your money back you dont need a coupon

 

[omega 616]

Which is why I got an extra year warranty.

 

[ace_of_something]

I snap I've had my ps3 ... 19 months! I will now live in constant fear of it breaking! Oh well if it does I'll get the money off and buy a slim.

 

[Jamash]

It's funny looking at that BBC site at how many comments on that article have been removed (for breaking 'House Rules') or marked for moderation.

The Big British Castle have certainly opened one hell of a can of fanboy rage that I don't think it was prepared for... I've got a feeling that they may have to call in extra moderators from other department (and maybe even a few War Correspondents) to deal with the fallout.

I love it when the world of gaming (with it's ridiculous console war and fanboys) crosses over into other walks of life, often with hilarious consequences.

I've heard that in an act of retaliation, some PS3 fanboys are organising a boycott on the BBC news and the whole of Radio 4.

 

[drakenabarion]

Oh I watched the entire show last night to see what the story about the PS3 was.

It is good in theory. It is likely that most faults in a console are from lose connections, and the oven method works in PS3 because it that. I think the same thing works on the Xbox with the towels.

 

[Pyro Paul]

lets presume even double the number the offically have admitted to have failed.
that 25,000 Consoles have suffered the Amber light failure.

out of 2.5 Million sold.
thats 25,000 out of 2,500,000
that is .01% Of all Sony playstations sold have failed.


that is a nelegable failure rate.

of course to both reports.
They do not run a diognostics on it... so how in the hell can they tell that it is a solder based problem? sure the solder heating softens the connections up and allow it to seat better, however heat also tinkers with a lot of the other components inside a PS3 and it is impossible to say what exactly is fixed, or even if you fixed the correct problem at all.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I've had my 60gig since the European launch. A couple of months ago the blu-ray drive started to stutter and finally froze up after 2 years of flawless functionality. I sent it up to Sony with the coupon and 2 weeks later I received a brand new 60gig.

Nothing but praise for Sony's hardware.

 

[Nick Bounty]

I wonder how many PS3's break after warranty or just as the warranty expires. I read somewhere that most Sony products seem to meet a demise just after the coveted warranty expires but is that true?.

Well, I've had my PS3 since launch and I've had no problems. I've got a stereo from them, had that for about 6 years and that's still fine, I've had two TVs from them and both of them are still working without any problems.
It's one of the reasons that I buy from them, because I've found them to be very reliable.


Just out of interest, how much does it cost to get the RROD fixed if you're outisde of Microsoft's warranty?

My elite hasn't broken nor exploded as of yet so I can't quote a first hand price. Also there is the fact that there is the 3 year warranty which dictates free repairs during that period but if it breaks outside the 3 years then it's about a $100 or 60 pounds according to my friend who had his 360pro red ring.

 

[slipknot4]

The difference between RRod and YLod is that the Yellow light is not a built in function.
If you have a Red ring that shows up every time your console fail it's poor quality.