Blue Light of Death Plagues PlayStation 4

jones_supa writes "A classic game console freezing problem seems to affect the newest generation too. It has been found out that a bunch of Sony PlayStation 4s suffer of a problem which has been christened 'Blue Light of Death'. When a PS4 is turned on with a press of the power button, the light that runs along the side of the console should first pulse blue and then switch to white. At this point the console turns on the picture signal to the display device. Those who have a unit with the glitch are instead finding that their PS4 pulses blue, never goes to white and never outputs an image. We do not have accurate statistics of how widespread the issue is, but reports are popping up in Amazon reviews, Twitter, YouTube and other websites. PlayStation support is still in midst of investigating the issue, but has already posted a bunch of magic tricks you can try to get the console past the initial startup stage."

Comments

Sabotaged

[mrspoonsi]

See this article: http://www.neowin.net/news/foxconn-intern-claims-ps4-was-sabotaged-during-manufacturing
Seems the workers were not happy.

Re:Sabotaged

[BringsApples]

We have no idea what the conditions actually were.

I used to work at a place that created software for a certain part of the car manufacturing business. The product of the company was the software, however they acted as a middle-man for the hardware, simply making profit for being the middle-man. The owners of the company had no idea about hardware, and didn't care to learn. They just wanted to "git-r-dun", if you know what I mean. So they hired a few folks to run that dept, but never really had any respect for these people, I was one of them. Management's point of view was that hardware was stuff that came in boxes, and if things broke, then you just get another one and replace, they didn't know or care about configuring devices, or what it meant, but their system depended upon it being done correctly always. Despite countless occasions where failure was warned about, where problems were pointed out prior to actually manifesting, and despite indisputable facts being pointed out, management didn't want to listen, and never gained respect for "the hardware guys". They would require us to do things that would depend on us breaking other rules that were established.

The result was that prior to quitting the job, we simply stopped trying to make things better, and stopped "pestering" management about future problems, and we just played by their rules - which sometimes meant sending out servers with faulty fans that would fail after 3 weeks, sensors that didn't seem to work, and chips that melted - servers generally lasted no more than 7 weeks, when sent out in this condition. This was, in our way of thinking, a protest. And as you point out, "destruction of property", but what to do?

minimum wage = minimum effort

[Joe_Dragon]

even more so if you have a boss like bill lumbergh so you work just hard enough not to get fired

HDCP?

[DigiShaman]

Could be an issue with HDCP over HDMI. I would not surprise me if this is DRM failing thus holding up the boot process.

Re: attention kmart shoppers there is a bule light

[glavenoid]

You're right. I turned on a "+5 Informative" bonus setting for this very post I'm making right now but it'll probably get modded back down..

Back on topic: WTF would TV compatibility have to do with this? That sounds totally bogus since any HDMI capable tv should work, no? Does it have to be a recent Sorny TV to work with the PS4 or what?

HDCP issues some hdmi switches / DD sound amp's ca

[Joe_Dragon]

HDCP issues some hdmi switches / DD sound amp's can make it fail / flicker with mode changes.

* of Death meme

[Hadlock]

Where did this start? On Windows it was obviously the "Blue Screen of Death", Zip Drives had the "Click of Death". Did this phrase have any widespread use before Microsoft/IBM? Wikipedia points to OS/2 as the original BSoD monkier, but I'm wondering if it has roots that go back further than the late 1980s/early 90s.

Look on the bright side

[Opportunist]

At least it happens now instead of the usual 2 days past warranty.

Re:PS4 NEEDS A UPS !! DAMAGE ON POWER OUTAGE !!

[CronoCloud]

Never had it happen after a power outage, it'll do the PS4 equivalent of fsck (which is an actual BSD fsck) on reboot (just like the PS3 does)

Re:posted a bunch of magic tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the psychology of zealously defending something you spend a lot of time and money on (consoles, phones, many things in fact), but this is a sign of weakness and it should be something that we see as a failing, not a virtue, and work to rid ourselves of such behavior.

Aggressively defending and proselytizing a games console has material benefit though. The more choices there are in console, the less choice there is in games on each console. If you own a PS4 then any game that comes out on the Xbox One or Wii-U exclusively is a game you can't play yourself.[*] Marginalizing competing consoles maximizes your own choice selection so it is an obvious response that follows from free-market capitalism.

Companies love this stuff, it's part of "Word of Mouth advertising" which is both "viral" and free.

[*] There's depth here in that it is implicitly assumed that your time spent arguing is less valuable than your money which you could spend to buy a second console. There's also the sunk-cost fallacy which causes you to value the investment you already made highly and not be willing to let it go. Then there's also Confirmation Bias / Buyer's Remorse that makes you want to rationalize your own actions as morally right, objectively correct, and justified (being wrong/failure, or at least admitting it, is selected against by evolution) which means that other people must be objectively wrong for choosing differently (see "Stop Having Fun Guy" and "Someone is Wrong on the Internet Guy"). Finally, there's social pressure; people like to associate with others who have similar ideas and interests to themselves which activates latent tribalism, it provides a shared cultural idol/symbol to rally around and form an us-vs-them ideological foundation.