It essentially denotes a general hardware failure possibly caused by a dead power supply or a defective hard drive for example, although it's primarily due to soldering degradation following the repeated heating and cooling of the console. The cracks in the solder eventually impede the connections between the CPU, the GPU and the motherboard, and whilst a heat gun offers a short term solution by melting and reforging the cracks, it ultimately dries out the solder rendering the approach progressively redundant. As for the suggestion elsewhere that YLOD is a myth bear in mind that the fraud associated with the continuous play policy could only have worked if a sufficient number of dead consoles were in circulation ......
it isn't a myth - I lost a launch console and virtually everything I buy is sony so I'm not trying to push anything for the sake of it - I think in fairness it's a combination of factors relating to play patterns, room temperature, airflow etc., anything that increases the "range" in temperature causing the solder to crack - I even paid for replacement paste and professional cleaning three months before the end so I don't think the consumers are necessarily at fault here (although a lot of the PS3s brought into the shop for repair were caked in dust to be honest) - I think the issue is was solder degradation inevitable bearing in mind the unleaded solder available at the time - my answer is yes although user patterns/background issues impact on when it actually happens .....
the ClimaxDigital product isn't necessarily the cheapest option by any means, but my brother uses one at university and has no issues, save for the fact that the monitor used was made before the release of the PS3 generally and consequently doesn't support high definition - not sure where 'stupid and pointless' comes in as it's clearly relevant to what 'is' possible, which is what was being asked - those on the fence can read the product description/reviews and decide for themselves if it's what they're looking for ....
buy one of these from amazon - ClimaxDigital HDBox300 Game Box for PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and GameCube /DVD player/Digital TV/Camcorder on LCD/TFT, CRT Monitor, Plasma Display and Projector(supports 4:3/16:9/16:10;VGA output up to 1920X1200, NTSC/PAL compatible) - 34.99 in the UK
@ i_am_the_slime, you should be able to get round the dead blu ray drive via the data transfer facility, a short subscription to PlayStation plus (cloud storage) or via a new laser/drive ;-)
personally I think you should take it back and give them the opportunity to replace it for what you were expecting, although the best you could hope for would be a refurbished interior with a brand new exterior of whatever model ....... with reference to the new slims you're essentially trading the old feature set for reliability, although bear in mind that most of the media ports can be added separately for a very low price, with some even included in third party stands - in practical terms the real trade off tends to be the loss of backwards compatability and a less professional sounding blu ray drive, although the slims do look fantastic in a twistdock, trust me
bear in mind that the save data is copy protected on the PS3, so unless you buy into cloud storage with playstation plus it's a hell of a series to risk console failure with - personally I never wanted Dark Souls to finish although I understand the PC version will carry additional content which will never be ported to the PS3 or 360 - at this stage you may want to wait for E3 to pass just incase anything happens regarding the price of a new console, and then the PC reviews if you're still leaning in that direction - sadly the Demon's Souls servers are being pulled at the end of the month, so the online aspect on that one will fall away entirely - Dark Souls was the better game for me simply because the level design was fully interconnected without standalone areas, and the final boss on Demon's Souls left me a little short changed although I understand what the developer was trying to convey - just make sure you play at least one of the two as both are great games with strong communities behind them .......
And how do you define an "at-risk" one given that solder degradation potentially affects all consoles? Even if they'd simply offered brand new replacement motherboards as opposed to the notoriously unreliable refurbs I would have been happier, notwithstanding the consequential loss of data. Do you really feel the launch purchasers were treated responsibly if they ran into difficulty two to three years down the line ...... seriously? Or are they just part of the expendable minority? The fact that people are clawing for information online is a direct reflection of sony's failure to be open about the issue .....
don't you just need his account details to log in under an exisiting account, regardless of whether it's been removed from that console, and assuming it's not activated twice elsewhere?
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