Having a problem with my PS3. I left it on for a few hours to charge my controller. When I came back to it, it was flashing the red light and wouldn't turn on. Whenever I try to turn it on, it turns green for a second, then starts flashing red and won't turn on. I've tried the fan test twice, but it hasn't helped. Has anyone run into this problem before? Did it overheat?

I just had the same thing happen to me today while playing Persona 3 FES. If the red light and green light are on at the same time when you try to start It's the Yellow Light of Death. If so both our PS3s are dead. Mine was a launch unit.

Ive had this happen to a fatty PS3. Its dead.

I had tried to do a self repair however after opening it, just looking at the parts, I knew it was probably overheated beyond repair but I tried anyways.

If its still under warranty I would send it in and if not well you can try a self repair, though chances are slim you will be able to get it working again.

Best of Luck.

I had this happen once to an older PS3. 
Took the HDD out and back in and there hasn't been a problem since. 
Not sure if that actually fixed anything but it's still going strong. 

Mine was the original 80GB launch unit and one day I turned it on and it just went to a yellow light and would not turn on at all or eject the disk. As said above, if it turns yellow then it's the yellow light of death and you are now out a PS3 and whatever game is inside it. I had to send mine off to Sony to get fixed and it was a little over $300. The only reason I paid it instead of buying a new one is because mine is one of the rare ones with full backwards compatibility. Unless yours is as well I would just suggest buying a new one for what it will cost to fix it. Luckily Black Friday is just around the corner so you should be able to pick one up a little cheaper then normal.

Oh and as an added kick to the testicles any of your save data on the system is now gone and they will not attempt to recover it for you if you send it in to Sony. When mine decided to die on me I was about 5-6 hours from the end of Persona 3 FES and I was turning it on to get through the last bit of the game. Was not a happy fellow that day.

That is what happens when it overheats, but it is more likely the YLOD. The soldering probably broke, and the only way to fix it is with a heat gun or sending it into Sony.

@ZeForgotten said:

I had this happen once to an older PS3. Took the HDD out and back in and there hasn't been a problem since. Not sure if that actually fixed anything but it's still going strong.

I'll try this as my last attempt. If this doesn't work, I'll lay it to rest.

Thanks for the help, folks.

@crusader8463 said:

Mine was the original 80GB launch unit and one day I turned it on and it just went to a yellow light and would not turn on at all or eject the disk. As said above, if it turns yellow then it's the yellow light of death and you are now out a PS3 and whatever game is inside it. I had to send mine off to Sony to get fixed and it was a little over $300. The only reason I paid it instead of buying a new one is because mine is one of the rare ones with full backwards compatibility. Unless yours is as well I would just suggest buying a new one for what it will cost to fix it. Luckily Black Friday is just around the corner so you should be able to pick one up a little cheaper then normal.

Oh and as an added kick to the testicles any of your save data on the system is now gone and they will not attempt to recover it for you if you send it in to Sony. When mine decided to die on me I was about 5-6 hours from the end of Persona 3 FES and I was turning it on to get through the last bit of the game. Was not a happy fellow that day.

I got mine when MGS 4 came out. Can't remember how big the drive is though, I changed it for a 320 gig laptop drive anyway. And I'm in Canada, so I don't get any sweet Black Friday deals. So I'm stuck with the $250 models unless I can get some shipped here from an online black friday deal.

@crusader8463 said:

Mine was the original 80GB launch unit and one day I turned it on and it just went to a yellow light and would not turn on at all or eject the disk. As said above, if it turns yellow then it's the yellow light of death and you are now out a PS3 and whatever game is inside it. I had to send mine off to Sony to get fixed and it was a little over $300. The only reason I paid it instead of buying a new one is because mine is one of the rare ones with full backwards compatibility. Unless yours is as well I would just suggest buying a new one for what it will cost to fix it. Luckily Black Friday is just around the corner so you should be able to pick one up a little cheaper then normal.

Oh and as an added kick to the testicles any of your save data on the system is now gone and they will not attempt to recover it for you if you send it in to Sony. When mine decided to die on me I was about 5-6 hours from the end of Persona 3 FES and I was turning it on to get through the last bit of the game. Was not a happy fellow that day.

Did they send you back a full backwards compatible system? From what I read it sounds like they usually just send you back whatever refurbished systems they have. If your lucky with your trapped game with it. But you never get your data back. I would consider sending it to them without my hard drive. I'm going to look into if any local repair shops can reball my system which will fix it.

Flashing red light means one of two things :

Your hard drive is not seated properly, or your graphics processor is not seated properly. One of these is easily fixed, while the other means that you, sir, are fucked. Happened to me, and I had to buy a new slim.

Suck city. Let us know how it turns out.

@Lukeweizer: I'm Canadian too and we have started getting Black Friday stuff the last couple years. Not as crazy as the US, but still worth keeping an eye on. I found in years past that Cyber Monday is when the best deals are though.

@Ryuku_Ryosake: Ya it came back as full backwards and a new case. It's possible its a different system, no way to know now really, but when I sent it in the top of it was all scratched to hell but when I got it back the whole case looked new and scratch free. They also got my game out.

had same thing happen almost a year ago, and yep it's dead. hopefully you didn't have a disc in it, cause I know it was a pain trying to get out when mine started doing it.

@Lukeweizer: It most likely overheated. I had a PS3 that did that. Sorry. =(

@ZeForgotten said:

I had this happen once to an older PS3. Took the HDD out and back in and there hasn't been a problem since. Not sure if that actually fixed anything but it's still going strong.

When you took out the hard drive, did you have to reformat it when yu put it back in? Or was it just back to normal?

@Ryuku_Ryosake said:

@crusader8463 said:

Mine was the original 80GB launch unit and one day I turned it on and it just went to a yellow light and would not turn on at all or eject the disk. As said above, if it turns yellow then it's the yellow light of death and you are now out a PS3 and whatever game is inside it. I had to send mine off to Sony to get fixed and it was a little over $300. The only reason I paid it instead of buying a new one is because mine is one of the rare ones with full backwards compatibility. Unless yours is as well I would just suggest buying a new one for what it will cost to fix it. Luckily Black Friday is just around the corner so you should be able to pick one up a little cheaper then normal.

Oh and as an added kick to the testicles any of your save data on the system is now gone and they will not attempt to recover it for you if you send it in to Sony. When mine decided to die on me I was about 5-6 hours from the end of Persona 3 FES and I was turning it on to get through the last bit of the game. Was not a happy fellow that day.

Did they send you back a full backwards compatible system? From what I read it sounds like they usually just send you back whatever refurbished systems they have. If your lucky with your trapped game with it. But you never get your data back. I would consider sending it to them without my hard drive. I'm going to look into if any local repair shops can reball my system which will fix it.

There is no point in sending it without the HDD when a PS3 system formats a drive it makes it unique to that system, popping it in a refurb will format the drive. I had the same fault and in the end did the hairdryer trick to get my PS3 working long enough to get everything backed up onto a usb drive. In the end it lasted for a week of using it as a dvd player/netflix machine before it packed in.

Also on reballing I looked into that avenue and the store I spoke to guaranteed their work for 1 year however when I asked them about after that they did admit to me that they had had repeat customers. They basically said it's a problem that's inherent to the system. Now it depends where you go as apparently some reballing is stronger than others.

<p>So this just happened to me and after reading about what was wrong with it, i just shook my ps3 around a bit and turned it on and im playing black ops right now. This may just be a temporary fix though

Most likely dead. My condolences.