PS3's Yellow Light; Death of A Loved One

Let me start with a tell of sorrow and woe. My PS3 got the Yellow Light of Demise (thats what I call and I am sticking too it). It was the Sunday after MGS4 came out. That Friday I beat MGS4 and that Saturday, I meet the man himself, Hideo Kojima and he signed my collector's edition MGS4 box. So I was on a good vibe that Sunday. That evening I sat down to start my second run of MGS4 so I could get the Altair costume. My ps3 was folding@home with back ground music playing with MGS4 inside the ps3. While I ate, I was watching folding@home. The TV screen flashed black. My PS3 made two quick bleeps with a two flashes of the red light. wtf? So I go over to my ps3 and turned it back on. The fan started up then powered off, a yellow light flashed followed by two quick beeps and two flashes of the red light. I then proceed to flip the power switch on the back of the system to see if that would help. No Dice!! I then press the eject button to get my MGS4 disc out of the system in case I have to send the ps3 in. The ps3 started up then continued the yellow lights followed by two quick beeps and two red flashes. Metal Gear Solid 4 is stuck in the system without any manual ejection feature nor does the system stay powered up long enough to button eject. Having no idea what was going on, I went to the one place where I could get answers, The Internet. I was referred to a youtube.com video from epileptic gamer. They host said the yellow to blinking red light means one of two things: 1. The Hdd in your ps3 has become lose or 2. Your Just f**ked. I was number 2.




The Process

I called SCEA tech support that Wednesday. After going through the mandatory tech questions like "Is your PS3 plugged into a wall socket?", Tech support concluded my ps3 sleeps with the fishes. If this so far was bad, what comes next really sucks. To fix my ps3, it will cost $149!!! The reason being was that my ps3 was out of warranty. Thank god I just got my $300 George Bush reparations check. I agreed to get it "serviced". Three business days later, Monday the following week, the coffin arrived. I immediately filled out the paper work and then put my ps3 in the coffin, taped it up and drove to the UPS store to have it delivered. It had over night mailing. The next two days I didn't go on my email. When I checked my email, I got notice that my ps3 had arrived and I needed to call billing to pay for the service. So I called the billing service to pay for it and get some more questions answered. Well, the first bombshell dropped was that the cost for "servicing" my ps3 had gone up to $163. Why you may ask, well its because I live in California and there is a state tax I got to pay. Why is this tax coming up for just repairs? Bombshell number 2 is I am not getting my old PS3 back, I am getting a refurbished ps3. So my guess, and its only a guess, is that the reason I got tax on my ps3 is because my ps3 is not actually being repaired for me but instead I am buying a used ps3 for a total of $163. WEAK!!!! But there was good news. I would get my MGS4 disc back and the new ps3 is a 60gig. I received my new ps3 with MGS4 on the day of the 2.40 firmware update. When the ps3 got in my house, the firmware update was pulled. Just my luck. And for the last bit of sorrow, I hadn't backed up my ps3 saves since November, So ALL MY SAVES are gone so I will be having to reply about of games again to get them back.

Tips & Tricks

* Back up your PS3 once every month
* Backing up your PS3 using the back up utility only saves your pictures, music, video files, PS3 game saves, and some PSN Id information
* Backing up your PS3 will not save: game installs, PS1/PS2 saves, PSN games, and PS1 downloadable games.
* Swapping your HDD to a known working PS3 to recover information is a no go. If you put a new HDD in to a ps3, It will want to automatically format that HDD first before it will read it.
* Keep your receipt , you will need it for billing info.
* If you notice that your ps3 is acting up, start the habit of taking out the game disc before shutting down your ps3.


Thats all for my tale of sorrow and I hope this will help people out in the future. Any questions? just post in the comments and I will get back to you.