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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:03 am Post subject: PS3 Red Blinking Light of Death. *@#&$!&!%$! |
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Crap. My out of warranty PS3 now does the "Red Blinking light of death". Looks exactly like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVXzN7jCcRA
When you turn it on the power light turns on green and you hear the fan and HDD spin up, but after about 1-2 seconds the power light flashes yellowish for a split second, the unit beeps 3 times, the fan and HDD cut off, and the power light goes into a continuous red blinking.
Googling this comes up with nothing concrete. The suggestions are all over the place. Anyone experience this and actually take theirs apart to really find out what happened? It doesn't seem as common as the Xbox360 RROD but there are enough of these issues out there that it pretty much has to be a issue.
The manual states that it has overheated. Not the case here. It's always been ventilated, and clean. In fact, the variable speed fan has never kicked in past the lowest speed since the day I got it.
The last resort is to call Sony and pay the $150-190 to have it swapped. *sigh*
Kal
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My basement/HT/bar/brewery build 2.0
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Mr. Green
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 1394
Location: Calgary
TV/Projector: Marquee 9501LC / NEC 9PG+
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:46 am Post subject: |
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Supposedly it's an overheating problem.
I wish someone had an extra unit they were willing to take apart and try. There doesn't seem to be any "user end" fixes out there.
I wonder if it is something stupid like a fan failed and it won't start until it's replaced.
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You can be young only once but, you can be immature forever.
Current Projector Marquee9501LC with PS3 (BLu-Ray) at 1080P LOVE IT! Screen is an Elunevision 120" 4:3 (2.4 gain - no hotspots). (also own a NEC 9PG+)
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:52 am Post subject: |
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| Mr. Green wrote: | | Supposedly it's an overheating problem. |
That's the what the manual states but my own observation and what others are saying would lead me to think that yes, an overheated unit will blink like that but it's also some form of 'general hardware failure'. The fan in the unit has many speeds. Mine's never left the lowest setting (other than one time when I purposely blocked up one of the ports to see if it actually got any louder.
I'm pretty anal about cooling so if it's an overheating problem then it's a hardware problem. My temp never goes above 72F in the basement and the unit is well cooled (I even have some NMB fans forcing air over the unit to keep air circulating).
| Quote: | | I wish someone had an extra unit they were willing to take apart and try. There doesn't seem to be any "user end" fixes out there. |
Nope - that's what I'm seeing as well.
| Quote: | | I wonder if it is something stupid like a fan failed and it won't start until it's replaced. |
In my searches I came across one example of that as well. The fan isn't working so the unit shuts down as soon as it starts up to protect itself. My fan kicks in. You can feel the air moving for the 2-3 seconds before it shuts down again.
Annoying.
Kal
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Mr. Green
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 1394
Location: Calgary
TV/Projector: Marquee 9501LC / NEC 9PG+
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:16 am Post subject: |
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Sorry Kal,
I haven't had this issue, but I watched several youtube videos on it.
If your disk is still in the unit, apparently holding the eject for 20 seconds will make it release it.
Another guy used compressed air in every opening and his started working again. Not sure about that though.
_________________
You can be young only once but, you can be immature forever.
Current Projector Marquee9501LC with PS3 (BLu-Ray) at 1080P LOVE IT! Screen is an Elunevision 120" 4:3 (2.4 gain - no hotspots). (also own a NEC 9PG+)
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Mr. Green
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 1394
Location: Calgary
TV/Projector: Marquee 9501LC / NEC 9PG+
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:18 am Post subject: |
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Another thought. Maybe it's like a heatsink fan, not the big air movers?
_________________
You can be young only once but, you can be immature forever.
Current Projector Marquee9501LC with PS3 (BLu-Ray) at 1080P LOVE IT! Screen is an Elunevision 120" 4:3 (2.4 gain - no hotspots). (also own a NEC 9PG+)
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:40 am Post subject: |
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You can try doing a master reset by pressing and holding the power button until it beeps a second time.
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| Mr. Green wrote: | | If your disk is still in the unit, apparently holding the eject for 20 seconds will make it release it. |
Thanks - I tried that but it doesn't work since it would seem the unit shuts down after only 2-3 seconds so it's not 'listening' to keypresses.
Another guy used compressed air in every opening and his started working again. Not sure about that though.[/quote]
| macgyver655 wrote: | | You can try doing a master reset by pressing and holding the power button until it beeps a second time. |
Tried that too. Does nothing for the same reason... after 2-3 seconds the unit's off again.
I bit the bullet and Sony's sending me a box to ship it for repair. (about $150 USD). Timing's not very good given that the wife leaves tomorrow for the weekend and I have a bunch of guys coming over!  So I'm probably just going to pick up a replacement 80 Gig unit tomorrow (mine's the original 60 gig) and then sell the refurb once it comes back in ~2 weeks (they are sending me an exact replacement).
It seems that the need is high for the older 60 gig units like mine because they have the following features which newer models do not have:
- PS2 compatibility (this is now completely dropped on newer units as of Aug 2008)
- SACD support
- 4 USB ports instead of only 2
- flash card readers
I don't care about these features myself and it seems that people are willing to pay top dollar for these older 60 Gig units!
Kal
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WTS
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 1276
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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Kal,
I wish you had brought this up earlier, I have a new spare drive unit for the PS3 (I had Kim get it for me off ebay), 99% of the time it seems it the drive units in the PS3 thats causing the problems. I had to send mine in for a new one too, that's why I bought a spare drive.
Damn $150USD, I'll sell you this drive for what I paid for it ($USD) if you're interested. I was planning on selling my PS3 anyway.
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Thanks
Walter
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:07 pm Post subject: |
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Video game console manufacturers will always cater to chassis appearance over system performance. I'd much rather have a 'box' with proper heat controls and reliable old school manufacturing then trying to make something portable when pushing the envelope.
How many adults out there are still demanding high-portability out of the HD gaming consoles that drive these idiot designs?
BTW, I live in a dust-heavy home. No way around it (unless I burn the house down), and the PS3 fan has kicked into high-speed even when playing a regular DVD. Not in a cabinet and open to the AC register 20" away, but heat is the #1 problem with both the PS3 and the original 360.
Surprisingly, the 360 (after the repair) has done a much better job and is much more quiet than the PS3. And I doubt Sony and Microsoft will decide the next device needs to be anymore reliable, any less portable, etc. as they are large corporations that are extremely slow at changing their basic [flawed] corporate philosophies.
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kal
Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 18114
Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| WTS wrote: | Kal,
I wish you had brought this up earlier, I have a new spare drive unit for the PS3 (I had Kim get it for me off ebay), 99% of the time it seems it the drive units in the PS3 thats causing the problems. I had to send mine in for a new one too, that's why I bought a spare drive.
Damn $150USD, I'll sell you this drive for what I paid for it ($USD) if you're interested. I was planning on selling my PS3 anyway. |
By drive unit do you mean hard drive or the Blu-ray drive? I replaced the hard drive and it didn't do anything. The hard drive socket is known to have solder connection problems with the main board so I re-soldered those too. Still no go.
You can use any hard drive as long as it's 2.5", preferrably 5400 RPM (less heat than 7200RPM), and Serial ATA. I tried a 160Gig drive that sells for $60 CAD.
If it's the Blu-ray drive it should still start up (just not be able to read anything).
I bought a replacement 80 gig unit yesterday. Sony's sending me a box to ship the defective unit in to get fixed. Once I get it back I'll be able to sell it for about the same price as the 80 gig units go for new (the older units are in high demand). So in the end I get a brand new machine with 1 year warranty instead of only 90 days (which the refurb'ed unit has).
Kal
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WTS
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 1276
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Kal,
Yes I meant the BR drive unit. I don't know what the cause is but I've heard many things being blamed on a bad BR drive.
Oh well it sounds like you'll be a head in the end, good deal.
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Walter
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RobertMfromLI
Joined: 29 Jun 2009
Posts: 114
Location: West Islip, NY
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| Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Mr. Green wrote: | | Another thought. Maybe it's like a heatsink fan, not the big air movers? |
From too many days (years?) of working on computers, it sounds like this is a possibility. Even if the fans are fine, the thermal paste/compound/pad for the CPU may not be working as it should. ie: the thermal paste/compound has burned off, or the thermal pad has burned through.
If that's the case, considering you (kai) seem pretty handy with electronics, it should be as simple as removing the heat sink assembly/assemblies, cleaning them off (removing the thermal pad if it utilizes one), and coating the CPU (and GPU?) with something like Arctic Silver or a new thermal pad and replacing.
It is quite possible, like on some better designed laptops, that the CPU's thermal sensors is registering an overheat due to failed thermal compound, and thus causing the error. So, if nothing else seems to be the cause, I'd check that out.
Also, on some laptops (sorry not familiar with the diag checks the PS3 does), if the fans are failing, similar things happen (ie: if the fans cannot be spun up to their normal run speeds for instance... so if they should be spinning at 4,000rpm+, and the PS3 only gets them to 3,800rpm, the machine will throw an error and shut down or not finish initializing - as I said theoretically, if they behave the same way as a decent quality laptop.
Best,
Rob
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