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."

Comments

Re:nothing to do with the slim, it's a paid attack

[fredc97]

The Slim is fine, but then again the YLOD issues seems to be affecting launch consoles after 18-24 months. So maybe the Slim will be affected too in 24 months.

The solder is not the heart of the issue but more the usage of cheap thermal paste that was not applied evenly, in order to get solder issues you first need a heat problem, one that would be caused by improper thermal dissipation through the heatsink and fan.

Most third parties that reflow the console will gladly use artic silver or other quality thermal paste for a better heat transfer and dissipation and thus might fix the problem for good, unfortunately if the console has been damaged by heat before the YLOD there is no way to know when it will fail for good but the clock is ticking.

If only Sony had acknowledged the problem before and offered to reapply quality thermal paste for less than their current repair flat fee of 150$ USD then maybe customers would not cry foul.

Re:This is honestly a non-story...

[kjart]

... 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.

Ooh, I can play too! Sounds like you were paid to make this post by Sony! A classic move on their part.

(that was a close one - I almost had to actually contribute something to the conversation)