Ben-DutkaAs we look forward to another generation, we like to take a look back and reflect.
In this case, we want to know- How was your PlayStation 3 experience over the past six or seven years? In terms of reliability, how did you fare?
During the first part of the generation, we often heard reports of the "YLoD" (Yellow Light of Death) that crippled some of the original 60GB "fatty" systems. Supposedly, the issue was even more prevalent in the 20GB models. However, according to retail statistics, this malfunction was nowhere near as widespread or prevalent as the Xbox 360's "RRoD" (Red Ring of Death). At one point, major retailers were reporting 360 failure rates of around 30%, which is catastrophic.
But that doesn't mean the YLoD didn't exist; did it happen to you? Did it happen more than once? Did a firmware update nail your system at one point? How about disc read errors? Games freezing and crashing? I really can't complain about my experience, as I've had two PS3s and I only got the 120GB Slim because I wanted to upgrade; my launch machine (the 60GB one) was fine. The Slim has been fine ever since as well, and I've never had a firmware update do anything bad to either machine. As for game crashes and freezing, that's exceedingly rare and of course, that has something to do with game developers, too.
But I tend to be lucky with my consoles, anyway. I don't think I've ever had one die, dating all the way back to the NES. Well, something in the original PlayStation broke – had something to do with the CD reading mechanism – but my father actually fixed it and it always worked after that. I never had an issue with any PS2 I ever had, either. Then again, I take very good care of my machines, so that might have something to do with it…I still think it's amazing that my 360, which I got back in 2006, lasted the whole way. 😉
I've had five, 2 overheats, 1 rented and returned, one ylod and last one still kicking.
two ylod on two separate fatties for me.
Last edited by pillz81 on 7/6/2013 11:15:25 AM
I've had two 🙁 almost 3. YLOD
I had one YLOD, and got a new PS3, but now whenever I turn on the YLOD PS3 it works. I've played some games on it, but not for too long, it gets really hot, but it can work in a pinch if necessary.
My slim PS3 has worked fine for over two years, never had any issues with it.
It has treated me well in my estimation, my original 80gb lasted 5 years and then YLODed. While I was careful not to have super crazy long gaming sessions the fact that the hairdryer trick resurrected it long enough to get the info I needed that tells me that it was a strain on the solder that killed it.
A friend of mine's original slim died pretty soon after he got it, and then the replacement stopped playing DVDs.
I wonder if the PS4 will be more or less prone to dying based on these new components. I mean I've never had a PC up and die on me from a hardware failure.
A 'power on self test' is preformed on virtually every computer device. This is a means of testing the functionality of the hardware before booting. Depending on how serious the problem is for PC's, like something Motherboard related, or not being able to load the kernal, it wouldn't boot either if it detected a hardware failure. I think the difference here between the PS3 and a standard PC is that there's like a sensor of sorts that gets a bit flipped to flag the PS3 from booting up in an effort to prevent further hardware failure. Something like a killswitch to prevent anything from fires or components melting. Chances are most who had YloD could have inexpensively repaired their PS3 and it would've worked for years more.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 7/5/2013 10:33:16 PM
Probably so, though I can't think of any way to do it inexpensively. Shipping costs alone would be a third of a new PS3.
it's always nice getting a new Dual Shock with your new PS3 anyway =)
I have 3 controllers and I only bought one additional one. I still have my semi-transparent black SIXAXIS.
It's also worth noting that getting the new HDD that comes with a new PS3 is of value. Really, between HDD's and PSU's, hardware failure usually strikes first between them.
I think I still have a PS3 HDD layin around here somewhere lol
So far I've had one YloD. I'm getting concerned for my PS3 SLim. It's louder these days. A sign my fat PS3 had before croaking.
I'm less concerned about the overheating issues with the next-gen, not that nothing else can go wrong, as they're designed with lower voltage processing in mind. They are medium grade laptop CPU's after all so heat dispersion will be naturally lower this next time around. Where as something like the power hungry Power PC processors in the PS3 and 360 ate electricity for fun =p
So is mine but it may be because of the summer weather. It's especially loud when playing Naughty Dog games.
My first PS3 died on a Naughty Dog game: Uncharted 2.
It was a worthy death 😉
My 60gb's laser died playing MGS4 then it YLOD for simply being idle for 20 minutes after turning it on. My slim power source died while it was off. Ha, one day it worked fine then the next day it didn't.
oh man. Talk about coincidence. I was just playing WipeOut HD and my wife got home from the gym and said she could smell like a burnt circuitry smell near where I was playing.
NO! That's exactly what my first PS3 did just before it died.
Oh man, what is going on with these PS3's? I'm not going to be happy if either of mine take a dump again.
I suppose seeing that these things are so complex it sort of comes with the territory. Or maybe SOny's financial woes as of late has caused them to go cheap on everything. That newer Super Slim looks so flimsy and cheap with that slide top lid.
My friend just picked up the God of War one today because the laser on his previous slim took a dump. He did mentio it felt pretty cheap in comparison. I do remember how cheap the final iteration of the PS2 felt.
My PS3 died while playing Fallout 3. A worthy death sure, but man I was into that game.
I've got a fat PS3, had since mar 07 and I've never had a problem.
I had to have my original 60gb's laser replaced then it got YLOD two days before the limited warranty on the first repair expired. So they swapped it with a refurb. That refurb is still kicking though I keep getting "Could not Start, Appropriate storage could not be found" errors. Not sure if its my HDD or the connectors inside the console. My slim had a power supply failure that I got fixed locally for much cheaper than what Sony would have charged. It's been much more reliable than the 360 but I do admit the PS3 was the only Sony hardware I've had this many problems with. My PS1, PS2 and PSP are still working like new. Hell a Sony tube projection TV my dad bought in the 80's lasted nearly 25 years before he fixed the bulb.
The thing with Sony is that they might send you a new Ps3 if they can't fix it or if they are lazy to.
After you pay them $120 if you're out of warranty.
It's $90 including shipping costs and you get 90 days warranty. Like I said, I sent my ps3 once. Had no problems.
Ah, it was still $120 (down from $150) when I called about the power supply. Good to know they lowered the price yet again.
Had a disc gets tuck. also, couldn't read a rented copy of Uncharted. It forced an update, then spent the time with the spinning coin thing on a black screen. After 15 minutes, I gave up on it. Guess it was the disc.
I've had about 5 different Ps3s. Not because they died on me but because I traded in my ps3s before the warranty expired. Of course you can't do that any more. Other reasons are because I kept buying the slimmer models. I currently own a black super slim 1tb ps3 on which I game on. And my white super 500gb slim is still unopened in case anything happens. I've had no problems with any except on one of them that had a defective bluray. It was sent to Sony and fixed. It was an 80gb model that didn't play ps2 games.
They were all overly used and abused and they are tough. I've kept them on for no reason, other times they'd be on 24 hours doing stupid GT5 24hr races and so on… Very durable pieces of machines!
only had on problem so far since i've owned my PS3 slim.. the harddrive crashed, but it was the game's fault not the system. .other wise, no problems at all. I hope it holds out for years to come.
and something else. This whole the next-gen is using nothing but 'off the shelf PC parts' is really misleading, suggesting as if this last gen was so very different than the current gen in this aspect. The reality is there's nothing off the shelf about a DDR5 motherboard configuration. There's not a single PC gamer out there with their $3000 gamer PC who is using anything more than DDR3. Also every single one of those gamers are interfacing their GPU with a slower PCI Express bus, something the PS4 totally bypasses. The PS3 and 360, like the next-gen, were very PC'ish as well. Far more so than any prior gen. Power supplies, HDD's, USB ports, and graphics chips based on PC architectures etc. were part of the mix. Really, the core difference was in the processor itself. That's the difference. So now we're using Jaguar AMD chips and suddenly everything about the next-gen has gone all 'off the shelf' on us. Whatever.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 7/5/2013 10:52:22 PM
I don't understand
oh, well, my avatar's text says, "Who's there? …. "
"Oh, just a girl. Get out of here!!"
hehe man, that kind'a talk today would never fly.
I like that avatar
why is it when people are talking about the ps4s memory they always forget to put the G in front?
DDR5 RAM will probably not see in our lifetime, hell DDR4 still aint ready for mass production!
Exactly, Temjin. That's what I've been saying too.
I've never had an issue with any of the five Sony platforms I've owned. They've all treated me very well. I'm sure it will continue.
PS4 needs a smarter way to connect to all routers. Like a "hey, here's whats wrong" when it doesn't work would be appreciated. Giving me a vague error code isn't going to help anyone.
Even if you look up the code in Sony support its vague because one code could stretch across many problems. Like RDR needed certain ports open in the router to work over the PSN but the PS3 also needed certain ports open and it was the same code for game and console and it took me forever to figure that out.
But in the end that wasnt the problem anyways haha. Just terribl wiring in the house.
My 60gb launch day fatty has been a dream. I live in western texas, it's hot and really dusty here, but my PS3 has never overheated. I have used it very heavily and the worst that ever happened eas a few game glitches that froze it (especially Fallout 3). I am 100% satisfied with its performance and am looking forward to a launch day PS4.
My 60GB fatty died on me a couple of years ago. My 160GB slim is working just fine.
Never had any issue with firmware updates.
Now I'm on my 3rd XB360.
I have 2 PS3's, my 60 GB fatty YLOD on me so I bought a 320 GB Slim move bundle. After buying the slim I sent my fatty to Gopher Mods to have them repair it and it went down a few months later. They did not want to honor their warranty so I brought the arctic 5 Silver a heat gun and some tools and plan on fixing it myself. Whenever they did the repair they also cracked the case. Would not recommend them.
Despite the issues I would still recommend the PS3 to friends. Side note I take very good care of the consoles. Never before have I had a broken console before the PS3. Starting from the 2600. I guess might have had one sooner if I bought the Commodore 64.
I've had 6…first one (60GB Original) YLOD after 2 years, then the 3 refurbs i got to replace it died within minutes of turning them on. the 4th replacement worked for a couple months. Then i gave up on having the original PS3 and sold my PS2 games for a PS3 slim which now takes anywhere from 1-20 tries for it to recognize most blu-ray discs I pop in. I've owned almost every major system since NES and have never had a hardware failure until the PS3. Hopefully it was just this generation that was cursed…
My 80GB PS3 (non motorstorm bundle/MGS4 bundle) is still kickin' strong but I do get game freezes, very minor, so I'm a little concerned that my PS3 months/years from now I might run into some serious problems. Fingers crossed that I don't.
I guess dust is more attractive to the phatty's then the slims, a lot of u are having bad luck pretty much in a short amount of time.
I YLOD'd 3 different models. I am still standing with the slim.
Yet I came back.
My 60GB PS3 went YLOD after about two years, from 2007 to 2009. It died as I was playing FFXIII. Thankfully, by 2009, the slim was introduced. I got that and haven't had a problem since.
It's inexcusable really. I don't care if the Xbox had a worst failure rate, but bottom line, you have to be really lucky to have the original LAUNCH unit and not get YLOD. It's pretty evident here so far.
I'm still using my fat launch model. I did take it apart, a few years ago to reapply thermal grease, clean fans out and etc. Still tickin like its new. No warping of any kind. Guess I got lucky. I also don't game for very long. watch a movie or two, play an hour or two of games, then put it aside for a bit then come back when I remember.
It was like breaking into Fort Knox right? Those older PS3's were built like fortified tanks hiding plutonium.
OMG that first screw behind the "void when broken" sticker was such a giant pain in the …. butt… Then you had to slide like 5 different pieces off, then unscrew everything. It was a giant nightmare but well worth it.
Ha, speaking of warping, my buddy and I were talking about how Sony hides their power supply inside the console versus MS using a power brick outside. Sony's machines don't warp. His old 360's vents look like they were melting and that's without an internal power supply.
I have never opened my launch 60gb fatty. The only things ive done are change the HD to 500gb and hit it with compressed air from time to time. It is very dusty here.
Ive gotten the error where it doesnt recognize the hdd, but a restart always fixes that. For some reason it wont recognize an external HD,but thats not a big problem for me. I'm probly doing it wrong anyway.