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The PS3's "Yellow Light of Death"
Xest writes "More and more reports are appearing about PlayStation 3 consoles failing in a similar way to the earlier models of the Xbox 360, except for Sony, it's the 'Yellow Light of Death.' The BBC has an interesting article which suggests the problem could be almost identical to that which caused the Red Ring of Death — poor soldering connections. From the article: 'Several of those businesses have told Watchdog that the vast majority of consoles they see with the "yellow light of death" can be repaired by heating up specific parts of the circuit board. This process is called solder re-flow. By heating the connections between the components and the circuit board to temperatures in excess of 200 Celsius, the metal solder joints melt, just like they did when the device was first assembled. Console repairers say that this process method is commonly used to repair fractured connections, or dry joints.' But that's not the only rule from Microsoft's playbook Sony has been following; while they have admitted 12,500 out of 2.5 million systems have failed (a convenient 0.5%), they refuse to release full figures of failure rates, citing them as being 'commercially sensitive.' Unfortunately, Sony does not appear to be following Microsoft's lead with regard to an extended warranty, stating that if a PS3 fails after 12 months, it is not their problem. In the UK at least, the Sale of Goods Act would disagree with that statement."
So it seems that Microsoft has gotten a LOT of press over this... Sony is picking it up now... how have survival rates been for the Wii?
see title.
12 Months doesnt apply in New Zealand either... an item must be of acceptable quality to last for its reasonable expected lifetime... a PS3 would be expected to live longer than 12 months
I worked at an independent repair center that had the highest status you could get from Sony. We could extend any warranty for any reason and fax it to the president of Sony and they would approve it within 24 hours. This was before the console craze when Sony made excellent quality products. It's been a while but I think they were called 'prime' servicers and there were not many of them.
That business is long gone due to the son of the owner embezzling enough money to collapse the business.
I've checked and I don't see any mention of a prime servicer in this area anymore.
I morn the lost of the "One and only" because it's made in a third world country now like everyone else.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Awesome Yellow BSD is the latest OS!
All cows eat grass!
that doesn't sound obviously xbox360 biased in tone...
The problem is mainly thought to affect the 60GB launch model
This doesn't exactly help me much. First thing I did was replaced my hard drive when I bought it. It's now a 160GB PS3. (upgraded because I upgraded my laptop to a 320GB drive, and the 120GB drive was just sitting around)
According to Wikipedia there were two different 60GB models. One for North America and one for Europe.
So which one is it? Europe? North America? Both? (note the article is from the BBC == Europe)
... and I have strong suspicions that this stunt was funded by Microsoft. It's a classic move out of their playbook - tear down the competition if you're getting bad press. Microsoft is getting TONS of bad press for the red ring of death, and they want their competition to be seen as unreliable, too.
The numbers tell the truth, though - depending on which report you read, the XBox 360 has anywhere from 15% to 50% failure rates. The ones for the PS3 are about an order of magnitude less.
...which can be found here.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
...That is when quality may improve. (We might even reverse unemployment.)
I'm still waiting to see when homeowners insurance audits households for how many lithium ion batteries are present.
Ahh, lead-free solder... is there any problem you can't cause. (Aside from lead poisoning, anyway)
I think this is a lesson in buying an extended warranty if the manufacturer warranty isn't long enough. Otherwise you're gambling - those things see a lot of use and get very hot, especially if you're buying the launch model without the refinements of newer ones. I don't know if I can blame Sony when they are offering a fair price repair alternative - repairs aren't free! It's simple economics - what does the consumer want? The risk of having to repair at cost or buying a new (perhaps improved) one, or insurance against paying for repair when they are buying a new and complex technology. When the next generation comes, people will be more likely to get one I'm sure.
So from reading the title and skimming the summary I thought 'ooh, lots of faulty ps3's. Must be the new slim version. Guess I won't touch that then.'. But only 0.5% failure rate? And nothing to do with the slim? It seems to be a subtle slander piece. I wonder why the program producers would make it?
I'm not a fanboy for the Xbox360 or the PS3 but the simple fact is that a high failure rate is so-far a feature exclusive to the Xbox360.
P.S. There's a long 18 point reply in the comments from the Sony Computer Entertainment's UK Managing Director Ray Maguire.
[This statement is currently in the public domain - 18 September 2009]
Further to your recent correspondence with our PR agency and parent company, I am writing to respond to your queries in connection with the edition of Watchdog that is scheduled for broadcast on Thursday 17 September 2009. I should state at the outset that we are, of course, disappointed if a small number of our consumers appear to have experienced problems with their PlayStation 3 units outside the manufacturer's warranty period and we take our customer care obligations very seriously. It is for this reason that SCEUK operates a service of out of warranty repair or replacement (replacement with a refurbished unit within 48 hours at the consumer's convenience by courier). To be clear, this service is subsidised by SCEUK, there is no profit made by SCEUK on this service.
You have informed us that this broadcast will include a report concerning faults alleged to affect PlayStation®3 consoles, and SCEUK's policy on out-of-warranty (OOW) repairs. Most importantly, we entirely refute the suggestion that PS3 consoles have an inherent defect or other design issue which is akin to any warranty issue experienced by another console manufacturer. SCEUK has sold 2.5 million consoles in the UK since March 2007 and stands by the quality of its products. Clearly the allegations you propose to air in your program might have the potential to adversely effect Sony Computer Entertainment's reputation for supplying high quality products and customer service and we take very seriously any issues that can impact the public's or our customers' confidence in those products.
From the correspondence to date, I have serious concerns as to the accuracy of these allegations and the likely tone of the Watchdog report. The information that you have provided suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the technical issues and a mis-characterisation of SCEUK's OOW repairs policy. It is in all parties' interests that your reporting does not contain inaccurate or distorted information and the facts are presented in a manner which is not misleading or exaggerated. I trust the detailed information in this letter will enable the BBC to adopt a more balanced and sober approach to this issue than we have experienced to date.
1. You have indicated that a number of viewers had contacted you to complain about a fault affecting their PS3 systems, whereby "a yellow light appears and their console then stops working - anecdotally called the 'yellow light of death'" (your email of 18 August 2009).
2. You clarified in your letter of 25 August 2009 that the majority of those viewers had experienced problems with the 60GB launch model of the PS3. In that letter, you went on to say that, after examining three PS3 systems that had "displayed symptoms" of this fault, the consultancy Electronics Yorkshire noted the presence of higher levels of voids in soldering than would have been expected, in the case of two of those units. Your letter continued: "These voids can be problematic in some cases, but by no means in all cases. In some instances,... these voids can fracture at the inter-metallic interface... If this fracture was to occur on a vital connection, it would stop the console from working. [Electronics Yorkshire] is of the opinion that this problem [presumably: excessive voiding] has occurred during the manufacturing process and not as a result of consumer use or a thermal effect during use."
3. Your letter went on to say that, in the opinion of three commercial repairers of PS3 systems, the supposed "'yellow light of death' fault is caused by a soldering issue".
4. With respect, neither your letter of 25 August nor any other information you have provided (including the Electronics Yorkshire report) establishes that there is such a thing as a "'yellow light of death' fault". In this regard:
The phrase "yellow light of death" has been adopted by certain members of the online community to describe the s
I did encounter an issue with my 60GB "launch" PS3 a while back, where the HDMI port seemed to die, no longer outputting any video. I did a Google search on it, and found a fair number of other people reporting the same issue. Some of them seemed to have success "reviving" their port by simply following the procedure to hard reset their PS3 (holding down the front power button for 10 seconds or so after turning the system off with the switch in back first, and then switching that back on) - but multiple attempts at that did me no good. I get nothing but a quiet-ish "pop" on my TV speakers when I boot the PS3, and one quick flash of light on my plasma TV's screen, followed by it going totally black.
I switched to the component cables and everything works fine through them (or through composite, which I tried too just for curiosity's sake).
The other people describing the exact behavior I got with mine said they wound up having to send their PS3 back to Sony for repair (actually received a different refurbished system). I've just been living with it since I don't really need it to connect via HDMI anyway.....
With a failure rate considerably lower than Microsoft you are seriously going to harp on Sony? Really?
Who wrote this, Microsoft?
The comparison is a little unwarranted... Xbox's failure rate was around 16.5%~33%. Having systems fail isn't a problem.... infact .5% is nicely below the industry standards. It is when you can get 5broken ones in a row that it becomes a problem...
Everything wears out - shoes, clothes, cars .... and consoles.
Similarly these rings of death ... is it really supposed to last for years if you give the power connector a hard pull three or four times a day or pile so much junk on top of it that it overheats?
No sig today...
What I have to go by is the fact that I personally know 5 people who had the XBox issue. I've never met anyone who said their PS3 bombed out. Maybe more people own the XBox. But my impression is that the 360 is not very reliable. That's the major why I bought a PS3 recently instead of an XBox. I could be wrong, but I went with my gut on it.
I suspect this is just another case of RoHS coming back to bite the electronics industry on the butt. I've used a number of the various lead-free solders, and it's bloody difficult to get a decent solder connection with them -- and even if you do, they still seem to get brittle/cold after some period of time. Too, there's the likelihood that the Chinese manufacturers cut a few corners to increase their profit margins, exacerbating the problem.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
ROOTKIT! ROOTKIT!!
Oh, wait a minute... that hasn't got shit to do with shit, does it? My bad, carry on.
Now no one else has to bring it up in this discussion!
My yellow light of death was caused by fan failure rather than solder issues. Considering how hard that fan has to run (as if it's cooling the LHC, I have a launch console) I'm surprised the failure rate is only 0.5%.
Iian Lee is the person behind these lies:
http://tech.uk.msn.com/gaming/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7838134
He is a paid consultant for Microsoft.
You know...the company with a 33, 55, 75 percent(take your pick) failure rate on their Xbox 360 console...
"So which one is it?"
None. There are no 'affected models'.
This is a slanderous lie from a person who works for Microsoft as an attempt to do damage control over the RRoD hardware failure fiasco.
There is no problem.
This is a concerted smear campaign by Microsoft to try to neutralize their broken console hardware. The scumbag behind these lies is Iian Lee. He is Microsoft contractor using the BBC program as part of a Microsoft PR effort to smear Sony and the PS3.
Fucking pieces of shit Microsoft employees. Can't get a decent product out the door so they try to trash a competitors.
Part of a wider campaign where suddenly when the RRoD fiasco started becoming public claimed to have had '5 PS2s die on them' and that their 'launch 360 is still running'.
And Xbox fans are constantly crying why the gaming world hates Microsoft, the Xbox, and its fans.
Just take a quick look at this thread:
http://n4g.com/gaming/NewsCom-395946.aspx?CT=1
Basically a former Microsoft employee is behind these lies about the PS3's reliability.
So you want me to put my PS3 in the oven at 400 degrees?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I bet it's the lead free solder. That's the big deal in electronics circles right now. It has a different melting point and has different characteristics. Gimme rosin core any day!
And let us not talk about the experts on YouTube's Make channel who cold solder like crazy.
The scuttlebutt I've heard is that the new Batman game is especially hard on old PS3s. It's a bigger problem than it would have been because the game is popular and good so a lot of people have been playing it heavily, ultimately to the demise of their PS3.
I read the internet for the articles.
never forget, never forgive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit
don't buy shit from sony!
No kidding. I seem to recall that Microsoft claimed there was nothing wrong with the Xbox 360 until, well, they couldn't cover it up any more.
Sony saying there's nothing wrong is meaningless. Let's see, who is the trustworthy entity in breaking news here: Sony, or the BBC. Gee, that's a tough one.
Of course Sony is saying nothing is wrong. Companies always say nothing is wrong as long as they can get away with it. Wait until someone threatens a class-action lawsuit against Sony, then we'll see how fast they admit problems and extend their warranty.
I can't believe how many people have bought Sony's weak whitewash attempt hook, line, and sinker. Company says product is fine despite mountains of evidence of issues, news at eleven. Sheesh.
Got my launch model (60gb) in August 2007, it failed Oct 2007 with the yellow light code.
What?
"No kidding. I seem to recall that Microsoft claimed there was nothing wrong with the Xbox 360 until, well, they couldn't cover it up any more."
Golly! Could that possibly be because:
* Xbox 360s were dying in store demo units all over the world before launch?
* Xbox 360s were dying at gaming media offices all over the world before launch?
* Xbox 360s were dying in huge numbers when Xbox fans got their hands on the console
* Xbox 360s were dying in such huge numbers that some stores had to stop offering warranties for them because they were losing so much money on the massive number of returns?
"I can't believe how many people have bought Sony's weak whitewash attempt hook, line, and sinker."
That's right you miserable little fuck, you're gonna cry because this disgusting PR smear by a former Microsoft employee didn't turn out like you wanted.
Here's a clue dipshit. You actually have to have console dying in huge numbers for there to be a 'fiasco' for a company to deal with...
Microsoft has a fiasco on their hands with the RRoD.
Sony doesn't.
Deal with and shut the fuck up.
Fucking losers like you are so angry this attempt by Microsoft to claim the PS3 has hardware failures like their own RRoDbox went nowhere.
Poor babies!
Maybe you assclowns will finally get a clue and realize why the gaming world hates you and your piece of shit console.
My 60GB PS3 (purchased in Jan 2007) recently folded its 1500th work unit. Unlike my Linux SMP folding box, which needs to be babysat constantly, the PS3 always uploads and downloads new work units without me having to do anything and has probably run F@H without a shutdown for a full month more than once. At an average of 6-8 hours per work unit, my PS3 has spent an awful lot of time at 100% CPU load. In contrast, I probably don't have more than 500 hours or so of disc usage time on it.
If solder being overheated was the issue, I would figure heavy folders would be the first to run into the problem. I have heard that Stanford has had some PS3s folding 24-7 since the introduction of the PS3 folding client... I'd be curious to know if they've had any YLODs.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
First, what's needed is a site that collates failure reports and includes unit serial numbers. Then you can get a handle on the problem. If you're seeing soldering failures, it's probably a process problem at the assembly plant. If the serial numbers cluster, there's a process variation failure. If they're randomly distributed, there may be a design problem. Process variation problems are usually easy to fix if you have the data. Well-run plants log all that data (far easier now than in the manual era) and can go back in the logs to find the problem.
Japanese companies used to have a good handle on this; it's what Deming was all about. Consumer electronics plants in China, not so much.
You'd be amazed at what you can fix with a kitchen oven. I've never baked a PS3. But recently I recovered the PCB from an NES using an oven. It's not as precise as hot air rework, but when you've given up all other hope, it can be an effective last resort.
Hmm. Maybe the problem is that hardcore gamers break consoles? It just took them seven generations to get strong enough? ;^)
--
Toro
The summary is a tad inaccurate here.
There may be a 12 month 'warranty' on those items in the UK, but there is also a 6 year 'duty of care' which few people seem to know about or understand.
This means that, outside of the 12 months, Sony have to 'look after you' for at least another 5 years.
This doesn't mean free repairs or replacements, but it does mean you can keep going back to Sony for repairs or refurbished units. And they will have to help you in some way (repair, replace, pro rata refund -- it's up to Sony), even if they charge you.
So you're not stuck with a useless brick if it breaks just outside of warranty. But you will be out of pocket.
...almost continuously for two years. No problems.
In the UK at least, the Sale of Goods Act would disagree with that statement.
As would the fair trading laws in most (all?) Australian states and territories.
I just sent my Sony camera that failed due to a defective CCD image sensor (there was a recall for this issue), and they said they'd fix it free of charge. They even said they'd send me a prepaid shipping label. They said they needed a CC on file in case the issue wasn't CCD related. Then, when I got my camera back working I had an invoice saying they charged $20 to my credit card for a "handling fee". What kind of scam company charges for a recall? Plus, they said it was free of charge. I asked them for it back because they never said they'd charge me...they were asshats, so I told them to fuck off and I'm reversing it from my CC company. Good old AMEX 3 clicks and it's back. I can only imagine dealing with them with my PS3 when it breaks. I hope they get bad publicity for the whole 12 months thing. Hey, my 360 broke 2 times, but who the fuck cares when M$ is nice as fuck and sent out a box and delivered it back to me and gave me 3 months of XBL free and it's warranted for 3 years. You guys bitch about M$ making a crap product, but at least they try to remedy the situation for everyone. Sony blows! All their shit is overpriced and lower quality. However, I haven't had any problems with my PS3 yet. Then again, I haven't even played it because there aren't too many games.
And we thought Microsoft only wanted to eradicate "yellow fever"
I completely agree the comparison is unwarranted. This cannot be compared the the Xbox debacle. But 0.5 is one of every two hundred units. Is that below industry standards? What industry? I'm sincerely curious. What are the failure rates for similar consumer electronics, like Dells, Macs, and other Sony items? What was it for the PS and PS2?
Microsoft surely knows how to crush competition. http://next-world-war.blogspot.com/
The mentioned sale of goods act in the uk is an agreement at the point of sale. If a product violates it you need to take it up with the vendor, not the original manufacturor. I imagine it would then be up to the vendor to recover their costs from the manufacturor.
... at least for the users we can see the rainbow colors:
* blue screen of death
* red ring of death
* yellow light of death
you get it.
to code or not to code, that is the question.
Could this be partly due to the not so recent change to lead free solder in all consumer electronics?
The important part of this article is not the reliability of the hardware, but is the response by Sony in supporting the (apparently rare) customer who has spent a sizeable chunk of change on hardware that has lasted less than two years under normal use. A two hundred dollar 'repair' charge from Sony on top of the high cost of the console just demonstrates how $ony views their 'valuable' customers.
Don't dismiss this parent. Yes, the problem really is RoHS.
Everyone is shifting to lead-free solder because of the European RoHS requirements, and the lead-free solder is crap. It cracks easier when the device is dropped (hand held devices, not your PS3). There are imperfections in all RoHS solder connections that don't occur with the leaded ones.
The melting point of tin/lead (183) solder is about 35 degrees Celcius lower than tin/silver/copper (217) solder, so I don't understand the solder melting issue.
More info: RoHS in military
"Further as regards that slogan, if BBC Watchdog is indeed providing PS3 servicing at its own cost, then this is a questionable use of the licence fee, and one which may breach the BBC's Charter"
Thanks for that, I chuckled.
I had a run in with their warranty department/policy over a defective ilink (firewire/ieee 1394 to the rest of the world) port on a Sony camcorder. By the time I'd tested the camera with multiple interface cards on several computers and determined that the problem was actually with the camera, I'd used the full 90 days of SONY's advertised 12 month warranty so it would have cost me nearly as much to replace the defective POS as to repair it. When it comes time to replace the TV, lcd monitor, dvd player and other SONY products here in the house, there is one brand that will not even be considered....
Sony does tend to have that "sucks to own next year" thing going on (as does Toshiba), but there are manufacturing problems all across the board. And the biggest one?
RoHS
Electronics have been soldered together for close to a hundred years with leaded solder. Then, the Europeans decided that it would be a really good idea to just pull the lead out of everything. Good move.
What can you replace the lead with? That's a really tough question, and companies have been trying to figure this out in the aftermath. You can't just throw silver or copper into the mix and expect everything to be the same. It ends up that when you do, the solder has a significantly higher melting point (i.e. ever tried desoldering RoHS process solder?) and is incredibly brittle. Where lead would stretch or distort, RoHS solder snaps. And here is your problem.
With IC package miniaturization, consumer electronics now use chip packages without leads. Cellular phones, portable devices, video cards, and many more now use BGA packages, where there are hundreds of balls of solder on the underside of the chip. Each ball has very little mechanical stability as the balls are so small. When the chip's CTE is not exactly matched to the board's CTE, one expands (or contracts) more quickly than the other, and BAM! you have a cold solder joint.
So in the end, what is worse for the environment? Throwing away a Sony product and buying another every year rather than three? Or dumping/recycling the product after three?
RoHS: Planned Obsolescence
Good point
I have basically the last version of the 80GB PS3 before the slim was introduced; I got it at the end of last year. It failed on me this past summer. I try powering it up after several days of no use and it fails to start. The fan starts up, the LED goes yellow for a moment, it beeps a few times, shuts down and the LED starts blinking red.
It seems like a different fault than is described here, and from what little I was able to learn online the blinking red LED would normally indicate overheating. So I wonder if it was a bad temperature sensor or a bad contact. All I know if that upon describing the problem I was told they'd be replacing the unit. The day they got my old one they sent out a new unit. As for the warranty, I got a 90 day extension. Well, it would have been an extension if I were out of warranty. Otherwise, being only 7 months into my original warranty that was the one still valid.
Details online regarding failures seem to be a bit scarce which implies to me that the problems aren't on the level of those faced by Xbox360 owners. Of course, this may be an issue that only becomes apparent with time. But when you're looking at problems nearly 2 years into the life of the console it's difficult to conclusively say it's solely Sony's fault. I'm not saying it necessarily isn't; Sony is notorious for dodging these kinds of issues.
Yeah, well that's just one person's experience, yours, so take this with a grain of salt.
Here's another person's experience: Mine.
I purchased my first PS3 off of E-bay, back when they were rather spendy and hard to find (right after they first came out). The unit failed after 14 months or so. I called Sony and informed them of the failure, and they asked me how long it had been since I purchased the PS3, where I had purchased it from, and if I had a receipt. And at this point I thought I was screwed.
I told them I bought it "about a year ago" which was not a lie, I wasn't exactly sure at the moment. I told them I got it from E-Bay and that I didn't have an original receipt.
You would think they would have refused me, and offered no help.
Instead, they sent me a free-shipping box for the old unit, and a new unit free of charge, and asked me to retain my receipts in the future.
Lo and behold, the new unit failed immediately upon trying to run System Update. I called Sony, informed them of what happened, and they again sent me a free-shipping box, and sent me a new unit free of charge.
Again, this is just one person's experience. Mine. And as an aside, I've found that it doesn't matter which company I am dealing with, if I am not a jerk to the service rep on the phone, and actually ask them how their day is going and have a genuine conversation with them, instead of just demanding that they fix my problem, I get a LOT further towards a solution. You can talk all the shit you want about a company, you can claim that it shouldn't matter what my attitude is on the phone, but then you can also expect to get a lot lower level of service from people. Despite the fact that you're dealing with a big corporation you are also, at the most basic level, dealing with another human being.
The procedures and policies a company has for customer service are just your baseline. If you are cordial, polite and genuine with them, you'll find that the baseline at times can be far exceeded.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I'm convinced Wii Connect 24 is the culprit. Turn it on, the system heats up while asleep, eventually you get the snow issue and have to call it in. Good thing it was within warranty. It's kind of annoying to not be able to use that feature.
If you've ever dealt with an overheating video card, the symptoms are the same.
Anything is possible, but the manner in which this has popped up strikes me as likely being a result of either BS ego/pseudo-journalism or MS dirty tricks.
Without more substantiation, I call BS on this.
P.S. I own a PS3 and have a co-worker who owns one too. Neither of us have had any problems.
My PS3 failed... (at first texture glitches, but then it completely died after a FW update) ...but this was after running it pretty much for 6-8 months straight (folding@home) in a light-to-medium dusty environment. i suspect a clean, server room environment might have fared better. this was a launch month (but not launch day) 60GB. my nick can be searched on the f@h page for whatever details can be gleaned...
"P.S. I own a PS3 and have a co-worker who owns one too. Neither of us have had any problems."
This is no proof that the PS3 is failsafe. Oh, by the way, I never had cancer and I have a coworker who never had one either. So I call BS on cancer, it doesn't exist.
Don't miss Mitch Benn's song on the subject, also recorded for the BBC Watchdog programme.
Early PS1 and PS2 models also had a tendency to fail after several years- long enough that they'd be outside the coverage of any warranty, but not long enough that you had moved on to the next gen by that point. Either
A)It's actually something to do with all models and the replacements just aren't used long enough to be worn out
B)They just learn to make them more durable as time goes on
or
C)They deliberately go with flimsier parts for launch models to cut costs, then go for more durable parts later on as the costs of other parts of the console go down.
I would guess that it's a combination of all three.
Regardless, you certainly can't compare it to the failure rate/average lifetime of the 360.
even if sony is fudging the numbers by 100% it becomes a 1% failure rate, standard acceptable failure rates for electronics seems to be anywhere from 1 in 6 to 1 in 8 and the 360 has had reports ranging from 16 to 60 % depending on the source so it seems to me to be a little silly to be freaking out about a .5% reported failure rate-
or am I crazy on this?
What is this 'White Wiimote of Death' to which you wefer?
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
This seems to be a terribly biased article. I'm suprised and disapointed at the slashdot summary that it doesn't make mention of this and just seems to attempt to add more fud to a story that was so full of it that it would have to be called sensational. Sad to see slashdot lurred into the same trap. It would have been good to see the summary make mention of SCEUK's full response (found in the comments of the article) and also the bias, that the report was performed by a Microsoft promotor who openly claimed to be a PS3 hater which should stand to be included in the summary IMHO.
The only worthwhile part of the article is the numerous complaints in the comments about the quality of the program , which is public funded, and the bad service it will actually do to consumers. I can't any way it would help to benefit of the consumer, only the 3rd party repairers who undercut SCEUK and Microsoft. Both parties with a heavy involvement in the production of this article.
I wonder how much of this would have happened if it wasn't for RoHS? Let's face it, lead was in solder for a reason, and it's not like there was a huge lead problem due to solder - but when you get rid of all the top sources, something else is then the "top"
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
" if a PS3 fails after 12 months, it is not their problem. In the UK at least, the Sale of Goods Act would disagree with that statement."
Probably mentioned already, but the sales of goods act means that it is the retailer that deals with the problem, not Sony. So it indeed isn't their problem - until the retailers start complaining.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8253915.stm
I have recently had my 60gb stop working for me. All of they symptoms are that of the "yellow light of death" however, the light simply flashes once on initial start up (about the same time the fan kicks on high for a second) and then you never see it again. If the system is cool enough to start for a bit I find it stays on longer with video in component mode VS. HDMI then eventually the display will either become stuck displaying what ever I am looking at, or turns a hue of green and pixelates. (This happens within five minutes.) Most likely the system will sit with the green light on doing seemingly nothing. My point? I like how SONY has specifically looked at postings mentioning a yellow light and not so much on having issues related to the GP. Thus far I have been only given the option to send it back in for 150$ for repair. I would imagine heating and cooling the connections would cause more wear that keeping the system at a constant temp.