Slashdot Mirror


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."

11 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Rambo by tuo42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's that?
    It's blue light.
    What does it do?
    It pulses blue.

  2. Stats by Spad · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We do not have accurate statistics of how widespread the issue is, but according to Amazon reviews and Youtube comments, over 500% of PS4 units sold so far are suffering from this issue"

    1. Re:Stats by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Quite. Note that most of the negative reviews on Amazon state that the package arrived DOA, often poorly packaged or damaged externally. Those things have mechanical hard drives in them, for example.

      To be honest I'd be amazed if any new device shipping tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of units wasn't subject to some rate of failure. I hate Sony as much as the next guy but we basically know nothing at this point.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Stats by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Informative

      The reviewers are almost all VERIFIED purchasers. I.e. they are writing reviews for ps4's they have purchased. If they are shills then they are sure as hell going beyond the call of duty by going and buying a ps4 just to write a bad review.

  3. I much prefer the name... by Anonymous+Cowled · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. Re:I much prefer the name... by captjc · · Score: 5, Funny

      The best part is that after publishing the comic, Tim received his PS4 and it too had the Pulsing Blue Dickpunch of Sadness.

      --
      Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
  4. Re:Sabotaged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're right, they should have written a nice letter to the head(s) of the company. That would have made a forceful statement and gotten widespread attention.

    You know, the funny thing about rights is that they're an abstract, man-made concept that only exists in our mind. Some might say that workers have a right to manage and perform their work as they see fit. Or some might call this an act exercising freedom of speech or expression. Ah, rights.

  5. Re:Sabotaged by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Informative

    First, this hasn't been verified. You're citing a single (deleted) post on an internet forum. It would be like me claiming Microsoft CEO Ballmer visits my cube during late nights coding and molests me. Credibility = Zero.

    Second, quality control is handled externally to FoxConn -- or at least it damn well should have been. I don't think this is a worker revolt. We would have seen more than one post. If you ask me, it's one of two things -- the most likely is a bad batch of capacitors or other commodity parts. It's happened before -- just ask Monkey Man (who isn't molesting me, btw) about the XBox 360's RROD (Red Ring Of Death) -- which was traced to substandard parts and compounded by poor design regarding air circulation within the unit. The other possibility, an outlier, but considering this is Sony... is that their DRM has malfunctioned in a spectacular fashion. There are literally dozens of layers of DRM in this device, and it could be that a conflict has emerged at the hardware level due to authentication, etc. But like I said, it's an outlier; My money is on shit components.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  6. Re: attention kmart shoppers there is a bule light by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    hdmi is a horribly laid out spec that a ton of manufacturers do not conform to correctly or at least are very loose about it. Depending on their bootup sequence and when their drivers are coming up for hdmi and the timing that the tv is using could cause issues, however in the end it would be a driver issue on the ps4 side since its up to them to not crap their pants at the sign of trouble from a tv and at least try to keep going

  7. Re:Sabotaged by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Filing a warranty claim isn't always free to the end user. When my eReader died, I had to pay shipping to get it to the repair depot. That was only about $10, but that is actually significant percentage of a $100 eReader. With something large and heavy like a Playstation, it could be significantly more to actually get your device fixed under the warranty. Also, there's all that time you can't be using the device. If it's just for fun, like a playstation, this may not be a big deal, but what if it's a laptop you bought for work. Going without a computer for 4-6 weeks certainly isn't something I'd want to deal with because some employee wanted to do some form of "protest". Hurting the end-users isn't really the answer.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  8. Re:posted a bunch of magic tricks by Bozzio · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... and the fanboy trolling for this generation begins.
    This will be a long 5 or so years...

    --
    I just pooped your party.