PS3 error (Red light of death?!)

[robert1]

hey

well, I still have an original fat 60GB release day PS3! its had the thermal paste applied a few times in its life, and kept clean. But on Wednesday I was playing GTA V, was only maybe 20 mins, half hour most, and it shut its self off, with a flashing red light, I thought maybe it just over heated, and later turned it back on, and it came up to say it wasn't shut down properly and it wanted to scan for errors, and I let it, and during this it turned off again, I turn it on and it boots to the XMB fine, I just left it there and after a few mins, off again. and it just keeps doing this, it can be on for a few seconds or turn off straight away, I cant get into recovery mode, it turns its self off before I get there.

could this be anything other than needing a reball? as in, power supply, hard drive issue, or something else? any ways to test for these?

I know its old but (as some may know, I had my car written off this year) so im slightly tight on money so just buying another isn't an option, I have a PC and Vita so it isn't the end of the world, but be nice to try some things to get it running, I still have some artic silver so that can be re done yet again.

P.S. I would like to say...NO yellow light!

 

[Darren.]

I have had this. PS3 has basically had it. There are temporary fixes, but nothing permanent as far as I am aware.

 

[Harsk100]

I have the same problem too! I also have the Red Light of Death! 👎

 

[optiongamers]

If I am correct then the red light of death means your PS3 is overheating. There is ways to repair it but they are not a perment fix.

 

[robert1]

well, if everything goes well in my MOT might be able to pick up a 12GB shortly after

 

[Harsk100]

If I am correct then the red light of death means your PS3 is overheating. There is ways to repair it but they are not a perment fix.

And what about the redball fix?

 

[Robin]

I would say open it up again and apply new thermal paste, then turn it on a leave it on the XMB for a while and watch to see what happens, also listen to the fan. It might not overheat again with new paste.

The 60GB has a heat sink defect, you need to make the layer of paste slightly thicker.

 

[robert1]

I did try new paste, it didn't make much difference, the very first boot I did manage to get into recovery mode but...it soon shut down in less than 5 mins

 

[Robin]

I did try new paste, it didn't make much difference, the very first boot I did manage to get into recovery mode but...it soon shut down in less than 5 mins

Might sound silly but have to tried running it with the top off and like a desk fan blowing at it? It might stay on long enough then to do a backup. It could also be another issue like loose connections so check all those.

If it keep's shutting down the only options are doing the quick 'baking' thing or re-balling on new chips which will cost as much as a new system.

 

[sesselpupser]

I had a flashing red light once and it turned out to be a hard drive fault (it stopped happening after I swapped the hard drive), but I've heard it can also be a PSU fault, which is quite unlikely in this case if it happens while idling, and it could also be the BGAs in need of reballing, so that's not particularly helpful. Are you sure there isn't an extremely brief yellow flash before the shutdown and blinking red light? I missed it quite a few times when my 60GB YLOD'd...

If you've already tried swapping the hard drive @Robin. is right but fortunately baking the BGAs isn't too hard, just make sure you keep the board perfectly flat and heat it with either a heat gun or hairdryer for a while. Since it seems pretty much buggered either way you might as well look up a Youtube guide and give it a shot, I've managed to get two YLOD PS3s working for long enough to copy some saves off before now.

 

[robert1]

not sure if everyone can see this or not, but I did record one video, just to show there is no yellow light!....and this is the first time ive seen it, and most times since, there is a yellow flash, BUT not every time

 

[GBalao888]

Had this before, but once every two hours. I had an 80GB fat PS3 before, first got it in 2006. This issue happened four years later. This is likely due to overheating. Then only then I knew that my GPU was severely damaged, which is why I had this issue. It literally baked the PS3's GPU because of overnight downloads and GT5 endurance racing. I now have a 320GB slim PS3.

 

[SVT Cobra GT]

I'm sure mine did that when it died. It switched on, yellow light came up and then flashed red. Sony fixed it for free but that was back in 2009.