The Yellow Light of Death. This little warning light is supposed to turn on when the system gets over heated. It will shut down the PS3 in the event that happens to overheat. But that is just what the user manual says, and its not all that true. In fact something more sinister is at work on the inside of that black monolith. One of three things could happen that would cause the Yellow Light of Death to occur to your PS3:
1) Power Supply Failure
2) Your hard drive going bad or becoming unhinged from its connections.
3) The Cell, RSX, or both chips getting so hot, they literally cook themselves off of the motherboard.
Item number three is the most common issue, and what has happened to me on both occasions. This issue is very similar to the infamous Red Ring of Death the Xbox 360 suffers from (It should be noted that I have an Xbox 360 as well, which has only ever Red Ringed once). Sony had somehow garnered the the reputation that their system would not suffer the same overheating issue that its similarly powered rival has. It appears that is not the case, and despite the system being well ventilated, given enough time it just seems like the system will go kaputz.
The first time my PS3 died, it was give or take about 3 years after I bought the system. It took me awhile to get around to deciding what to do with my large black paperweight. I had heard of horror stories of people not getting back their original systems when sent for repair to Sony. I was reluctant to go through them in the event I didn't get my beloved 60gb Playstation 3 back. So I settled on a 3rd party repair, whom shall not be named. I went through the process of placing the repair with them, selecting the "reball" option, which was about $200.
The reball repair should have made the system last another 2-5 years again. The chips would have been replaced, along with the soldering and such. Unfortunately for me, this was not the case. My PS3 died some 6 months after after the supposed "reballing." After complaining with the repair place, I decided against going with them again.
It took me a little bit, but I did eventually find a local place to get the repair done. I dropped off the system, and the following day I picked back up. It appears all is well with the system, but who knows how long its going to last this time.
The question any readers should ask, if they have a PS3 is, will this happen to my system. The answer is probably yes. Does the PS3 Slim suffer from the problem? I have heard and read scattered reports that it too can get a Yellow Light of Death. Though it seems that the chance of it happening on the newer systems is not as high.
The next time my PS3 Yellow Lights on me, I am going to just screw it and perhaps sell it for parts and get a refurbished 60gb. Or maybe I will take my chances with a Slim, though I still like playing my PS2 games. If Sony still included the backwards compatibility in their PS3, then I wouldn't have a problem getting a Slim.
I hope it doesn't happen again, and if it does, Sony you better hope I don't just give up on your friggin' system.
This harrowing tale is brought you by Frustration, serving the greater good since the dawn of man.
