It seems like you have a pretty good grasp of what is going on inside the machine if you can swap out the power supply so I’m not sure how much help I can offer in regard to repairing it. About the best I can do is try and help localize the problem by offering diagnostic suggestions but that’s probably not going to be much use to you.

Since you seem comfortable working inside the box you might want to hit Ebay and take a look at the PoS3 gallery. I saw quite a few working machines with bad BRDs that were selling for $20 or $30. You could buy one of those and swap out the BRD from the brick and save yourself upwards of $50.

My personal opinion is that sending it to Sony is a waste of money. You’re paying half the price of a new machine and only getting a 90 day warranty. When you add in the fact they are rumored to be salvaging parts from bricked machines it doesn’t make sense to pay a premium price for a repair that’s questionable.

A local repair place isn’t going to be much better. Most will charge around $100 to diagnose and repair just about any PoS3 issue as long as the system isn’t completely trashed. There are two questoins you need to ask before you can decide if it is worth the money. Are they installing new parts and what is the warranty?

In my opinion the best option is taking the bricked machine to Game Stop, getting a $50.00 credit, and buying a new machine. You might get more than $50.00 depending on the type of brick you trade in. My personal opinion is it is better to spend $250 ($300 less trade in) for a new machine with a year warranty than $150 for something that could crap out in 3 months. Some places offer extended warranties which I would definately recommend.

If I can offer any assistance or insight let me know.

don’t take it as expert judgement, but I doubt it’s the problem then, after comparing it to mine. I hear the fan for less than second at startup, then it’s quite, probably cause there isn’t any heavy task it’s doing.

According to Sony the problem has been fixed by the date change and you should ensure that your system date indicates March 4 or later (link).

http://www.t3.com/news/ps3-bug-is-now-fixed-says-sony?=43905

If you want to search for more information it is called the 8001050F error. That will get you more hits than “PSN glitch.”

Since you posted two days after this suppposedly fixed itself, it sounds like the above isn’t going to be much use to you. The problem is Sony has consistently demonstrated that they will not stand behind their product so even if this was caused by their faulty clock issues they won’t admit it much less fix it for free.

When you turn on the machine do you get any response or do you get a blank screen? In other words, does the OS seem to be loading and running or do you have a brick that beeps?

Sorry I haven’t had my PS3 on for few days so I magically survived the glitch

PoS3/40 with a manufacture date of September 2007

Brilliant page! I felt sure that none of the techniques toward the top of this page would work on my PS3 as I’d tried holding the start button down etc a few times before with no luck.

I thought I’d give it one last try using the technique where you hold down both the start and eject buttons and taa-daa! the System Restore Screen appeared. I chose selection 3 and a few minutes later my PS3 was back to life – thanks!

So just to re-cap, here’s what I did:

1) Switched the PS3 on from the back – Red standby light shows.

2) Held “start” and “eject” buttons down – PS3 beeped once… after a few seconds beeped once again… and then after a few more seconds beeped twice, at which point I release my fingers from the buttons.

3) It then asked me to connect the controller with a USB cable (which I already had connected, so just pressed the PS button on the controller to activate it.)

4) The System Restore Screen then came up – I selected option 3.

Good luck to everyone who has this problem – and remember – keep trying – it took me many many attempts before I got the System Restore Screen to show.

So thank you, I’m not bothered at all :). In fact, if you have a separate article with such information, I’d be happy to post it for you with your credit.

If they gave a full year warranty on repairs I would suggest sending it back but they only offer a 90 day warranty and that means you could be exactly where you are now or even worse depending on what you get back.

Since you have ruled out the cables, the test I outlined above should tell you if you have a working BRD, CPU, and Controller connection. Based on what you have written so far I doubt these have anything to do with the problem but I’ve seen stranger things so I always do my best to localize the issue as much as I can.

Based on what I’ve read the only thing I can think that might be fixable without popping the box is a corrupt video driver and that might be replaced if you can reset the system but you are going to have to navigate the menu blind. To be honest I doubt this will work but it is worth a try.

The artifacts on the screen prior to it not working would suggest a GPU issue especially if the fragmenting started after using the system for a moderate to extended period of time. In addition to the famous YLOD where the CPU gets hot and seperates from the MoBo, the GPU can do the same thing.

This sounds like a hardware problem somewhere between the CPU sending data to the GPU and the video output. It could be anything from dust on the MoBo causing a short to the output slot being loose on the MoBo but the usual suspect when this happens is the GPU heating up and loosing contact with the MoBo.

If I’m correct the question is how advanced are you when it comes to computer repair and do you want to do it yourself or have someone else fix it? Unless you have some sort of MoBo issue all the tech has to do is use a heat gun and push the GPU back into position. That will probably cost around $100 to fix.

If you want to try it on your own you can look for YLOD solutions using a heat gun on the CPU to reset it. If you screw up you have a pretty good chance of brinking the machine so I wouldn’t do it unless you are confident you have the necessary skills.

Jon: Glad it helped :). I wouldn’t miss up with the OS as I’d hate to lose my Bluray player for it.

There was no obvious warning or build-up to it going other then the screen becoming fragmented during a game. I’m actually using the cables and TV on the other PS3 console in my house and it works fine so I know for a fact that it is definitely the console.

After several tries, I got the ‘Safe Mode’ screen to appear, and as I had backed up the HD I just hit factory reset, all appeared to be well until the screen went fragmented again and returned to the previous state.

The problem is that if this is an overheating issue and the fan is broken you probably wouldn’t know it. I had my PoS3 in the open and it almost never hit the fan. I tried moving it to a book case but it started hitting the fan constantly so I pulled it back out. That solved the problem. You system may not be getting hot enough to make the call to the fan in an hour or two, especially if you have it in an open area but the longer you play the hotter it will get and if the fan isn’t working it will make the call, fail, and continue to heat up. Symptoms of this could range from eratic game play to artifacts on the screen to the entire system shutting down until the chips and board are cool enough for restart.

What happened leading up to the problem? New firmware? New TV? Sister used the cable as a jump rope? Left it on all night?

You mention that the controller was able to turn on a different unit. I’m assuming this means you have 2 PoS3’s? If so, did you swap the working unit and the broken unit (cables, controller, etc.)? Assuming that you have access to a second PoS3 test all the controllers and cables on the working unit so you can be sure this isn’t a cable problem.

You might want to pull the HD from the broken machine and install it in the working machine so you can back up the data before you dink with it. Be careful though, I doubt this is an HD issue but sometimes strange things happen inside computers.

Assuming that you do a complete swap and the broken unit still doesn’t work you should try the game test I outlined above in my post to Al.

You might want to load the game in the working PoS3 and watch the blue BRD light so you know what the broken PoS3 should do. Make sure it gets through all the intro material and the main menu defaults to “play game.” Most games do but there are some odd fish out there so pick a game that does. Hit X to select the play game option and keep an eye on what the BRD does.

If the broken machine doesn’t hit the BRD at all then video isn’t your only problem. That’s not good news but at least it gives you some idea what sort of problem you’re facing.

If it hits the BRD like it is loading the game give it enough time to get to the main menu like it did on the working machine. According to theory all it should take to start playing the game is hitting the X button. If the broken machine starts hitting the BRD like it did on the working machine then you know the controller is active. This may not be the most useful information but at least you know that the problem is exculsively a video issue.

If you backed up your HD you can try the reset procedure blind. The reset process should reset most settings to factory defaults but I do not believe this applies to firmware updates so keep that in mind. I am fairly sure factory default is the standard PS3 video not the HDMI port so you should keep that in mind too.

You mentioned that “the controller won’t connect.” Are you doing this with the controller plugged into the console with a USB cable?

Stephen