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Fail: Yellow Flashing Light on PlayStation 3 (PS3)
Many owners of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) are reporting that their machines are dead with a flashing yellow light, called “The Yellow Light of Death” by gamers. When the flashing yellow light shows, the machine will no longer work. Sony admits that many tens of thousands of PS3 have failed this way since PS3 came to market in early 2007.
It is believed that the “The Yellow Light of Death” is limited to the 60GB model when PS3 were sold at launch time. Media and user requests to Sony about the failure rate and affected models have been met with repeated refusal by Sony, claiming that it is sensitive information.
Sony states that: “The phrase “yellow light of death” has been adopted by certain members of the online community to describe the situation in which PS3 systems have shut down following the illumination of the yellow light on the PS3’s front panel. The yellow light indicator is simply a non-specific fault indicator that can be triggered in a range of different circumstances.”
What is bad is that this failure typically occurs after about 18 to 24 months after purchase, just after the one year warranty period expires. So the consumer is left with a dead machine that costed a lot of money. If it is out of warranty, in the US, Sony charges $150 to fix it.
BBC’s Watchdog reports that some repair shops have found that heating up specific parts of the circuit board will fix the “The Yellow Light of Death” failure. Heating the circuit board up to allow the solder joints to melt may correct some bad connections from poor solder job when the circuit board was initially made. Sony has countered that the heating procedure is amaturish and is not a recommended pratice to fix the problem.
Have you been hit by the “The phrase “yellow light of death”? How did you resolve it?
This happened to me at 11:00 this morning (September 19th). While playing the machine froze, reset itself and then refused to turn on, showing a yellow light that changed to a flashing, red, stand-by light. The game was stuck inside and admittedly I was at my wits end. Coincidentally this occurred only hours after watching the Watchdog report (on iplayer through my PS3 )!
Just before contacting Sony I turned the machine on and it operated normally, just long enough for me to reclaim the disk before it shut down again and repeated to display that dreaded yellow light.
I’m going to leave it for 24 hours in order to see if I can keep the PS3 on for long enough to back up my HDD then contact Sony to see what’s what. This is the second time the same machine has broke down yet now its longer in warranty. I don’t want to pay the £128 repair fee with no guarantee that I will even get my console back over a dodgy refurb.
I will post again when I have contacted Sony. If this happens to anyone else, all accounts point towards an expected six-week wait for the lost disk so keep trying and it may eject.
I sent it to sony, asked what they offer they said £145. I said i’d ring back then i went surfing for a week on the net. I found a small company in central london who offer a repair for £85 in which they use thermal compound and a heatgun to repair the ps3. They also say that if it fails after that, then they will need another £85; what a waste of money. So off i went, back to sony who i then paid £145 for a refurbished model. Ironically;and quite a kick in the balls… a friend of mine went to the citizens advice bureau and got them to make sony give him a brand new 120gb model free of charge with a complementary game for the hassle. How this happened, i don’t know.
it happened to my brother today with MY GAME IN IT; UNCHARTED 2
hmmm, Tommy, what processes did your friend go through to get a new one for free? thanks.
If your PS3 had suffered with the yellow light flashing problem, please follow this guide : http://bit.ly/4I2fvj
It works !
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