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An example of the PS3's Yellow Light of Death.A few months ago my 60GB PlayStation 3 died on me, and I ended up having to conduct an assload of research to figure out the best way to get back up and running. Since I didn’t find any truly comprehensive PS3 reparation report, I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned with all of you in an effort to create one.

The solution in my particular case was just to get another PS3 – a 250GB Slim, and re-download everything I’d bought from the PlayStation Store. I didn’t lose any trophies.

However, I still have my broken 60GB – and all my old save data is trapped inside it.  I’m gonna keep it around until I can find the time, money, and people to get it working just long enough for me to backup everything on it.

Various PS3 forums and blogs I visited painted a picture of backwards compatible PS3’s that’s starting to look like the old Xbox 360 chipsets – most eerily right after the Slims with fewer features start rolling out. I found more than a few reports from people who were on their third or fourth 60GB model.  The old PS3s seem to be dying.  If you own a phat PS3, back up your save data, regularly. 

The following is what I found out about what goes wrong inside PS3s and the different options present when they do go wrong:

BACKING UP YOUR DATA

First of all, if your PS3 needs repairs or something but will still power on, back up your stuff – at least your save files.  You can of course do this with memory cards or thumb drives.  Some PS3 games copy-protect their save games however, here’s the most complete list I could find of the ones that do.  Notice that most of the PS3’s fighting games are on that list.

For those, you need to use the backup utility in the settings part of the Xross Media Bar.  That will back up everything that’s on your PS3.  You’ll likely need an external hard drive to do that. 

Unfortunately, the PS3 will only read an external HDD that’s formatted to FAT32 (most drives are NFTS).  There’s software all over the place that can help you do this.  I’m pretty sure there’s no way to tell the Backup Utility to only backup some things, but I heard in one place that if the drive you backup to is too small, the utility will then let you choose.  Please confirm.

IF YOUR PS3 WON’T POWER ON…

…then man, I hope you backed your stuff up.

After researching issues like the yellow light thoroughly, I can say with confidence that the only way to get save data off of a broken PS3 is to repair the PS3 the data was created on.

Connecting the PS3 hard drive to anything else will prompt a format.  The PS3 uses file encryption that only it can read.  Furthermore, no two PS3s use the same encryption.  If you take the hard drive out and put it inside another PS3, it will prompt a format.  If you take that drive, put it inside an enclosure, and then connect it to a PC, the PC will detect the drive, and then prompt a format.

A replacement PS3 Slim.

For repair you’ve got three main options with some sub options:

  • Call Sony.  They give you two choices. Both choices are free if you are still under warranty. Sony even offers extended warranties now. For around the price of a game you can end up with a three-year warranty on your Sony hardware.
    • Pay $120 (if out of warranty) to get a refurbished 120GB Slim.  They do the process through mail-in (UPS I believe).
    • Pay $150 to repair or refurbish your PS3.  Whichever one they do is completely up to Sony.  I imagine they do this through mail-in as well, but I heard reports of Sony vans coming straight to your house.  That might be Europe-only though.

Sony makes NO guarantee on your save files.  If you get lucky and Sony only needs to do a small repair on your PS3, you might get your data back.  If they have to refurbish it though, you lose everything.  Also, if you have an upgraded PS3 drive, don’t send it to Sony, because you likely won’t be getting it back.  Put the HDD that it came with back in there.

Furthermore, and this might be the most important part of the whole daggum issue, from what I’ve seen, the only permanent solution for a broken phat PS3 is to buy a Slim.  As I stated above, my research indicated to me that the 60GB models are on their way out.

The solutions below are strictly temporary.  Most reports I read stated that a “fixed” PS3 will malfunction again after a month or two, some lucky people got a couple more years out of them.  Not even phats that Sony refurbished are immune to this.  Sony, where the hell is that software backwards compatibility?

Going through any of the below options however will force you to break the PS3’s warranty seal. If you’re still under warranty, it’s void. Don’t feel totally free to break the seal if you’re out of warranty though – Sony support may refuse to work on any PS3 with a broken seal. So, if you go through with the below options, you better be sure about it.

A PS3 motherboard under a heat gun.

If you really don’t wanna call Sony, your next step is to actually diagnose your PS3.  The yellow light of death actually has several causes.  This is because when a PS3 first turns on, it checks each component of the hardware, and if any one isn’t working properly, you get the yellow light.

So, a yellow light can mean anything from the motherboard to a bad power supply to the fan. Opening up your PS3 to check might save you some money. Personally, I would do this through the second main option:

  • Contact a third party repair service.  It’s very unlikely you’ll actually find one near you.  Many do it over mail like Sony, but unlike Sony, many of them carry the added guarantee that they’ll get your save files out of there.  Many of them from what I’ve seen will do diagnoses at little or no charge.  90-day warranties are also common among these services.  Googling “PS3 repair” generally does the trick. I would like to hear your experience with these services if you’ve dealt with them.

If the problem with the PS3 is with the power supply or fan, then you can just buy a replacement at eBay or somewhere.  Most of the time though the yellow light is due to a motherboard failure.  The most common cause is Sony’s apparently poor choice of solder between the CPU and GPU.  After a couple of years of use it tends to either crack or liquefy.

  • Repair the PS3 yourself.  If you think you’re trusty with a heat gun or hair dryer, then by all means go ahead.
    • The most popular D.I.Y method of PS3 repair is “reflowing”.  Basically, you’re re-soldering the motherboard back together.  This is the most popular guide on how to do so. You will have to take your PS3 apart completely in order to do this.
    • Another trick I’ve heard of involves a hair dryer.  You blow a hot hair dryer into the back of your PS3 for about 20 minutes, and then let it cool.  Here are more detailed instructions. You can probably do this without breaking the warranty seal.

You can say all you want about Nintendo and their casual gamer approach or their slow nature with technology advancement, but you can’t argue the fact that they make sturdy-ass machines.

Sony, Microsoft, at this point I don’t even really care all that much what kinds of graphics your next gen console end up having.  Just let me be confident that the machines will have a defect rate somewhere within the hemisphere of reason.

As a bonus, here’s a pretty comprehensive list of PS3 games with offline multiplayer.  Highlight all the text to see it.  For four-player splitscreen shooters you basically have two choices – the Call of Duty and Resistance games.  After seeing this I might get Modern Warfare 2 on a console just for the offline multiplayer.  Also note Virtua Tennis.