The BBC is running a piece about “the yellow light of death,” the PS3’s equivalent of the Xbox 360’s “red ring of death.” Well, perhaps the word “equivalent” isn’t the right one to use, since, at least according to Sony, less than one half of one percent of PS3s sold in the UK have turned up bad.
That works out to 12,500 faulty PS3s out of 2.5 million sold. I don’t know if that’s enough to start an angry letter-writing campaign—electronics are still sensitive little angels—but it’s certainly enough to get the message boards all worked up. Wrote one such person:
My “unbreakable” Playstation 3, broke, 18 months after purchase. After contacting Sony, i was told i would have to pay £150 for the repair and would only recieve 3 months extra warrenty. After much complaint, they cut the price to £99 and gave me 12 months new warrenty. Still not good enough, their problem, they pay, warrenty or no warrenty!!!
You’ll note he used three exclamation points, which means he means business.
The yellow light indicates, in layman’s terms, that something has gone wrong, which does make it analogous to the red ring of death, which also merely indicates that something has gone wrong. (I believe the exact phrase is “general hardware failure.”) Sony, naturally, doesn’t like the term, since it implies that there’s something massively wrong with the PS3. Is less than one half of one percent “massive”? I don’t think so, but perhaps my opinion would be different if I ran into the yellow light. And I say this after having run into two red rings of death over the past three years.
Any of you guys run into this problem? This is literally the first time I’ve heard of it, which, I think, goes to show you just how small an issue this is. We’ve all heard of the red ring of death, but this yellow light business? News to me.
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One half of one percent as a failure rate is very low, especially considering that most electronics usually fail within the first 90 days if they’re going to fail at all (moving parts and unusual abuse aside). So I’d say this is a case of one pissed off PS3 owner who doesn’t have enough punctuation options in his vocabulary to understand that this is, in fact, not Sony’s problem.
Tell that to someone who has just doled out £400 quid, Bye the way there’s no need to judge his punctuation; as when the hell do you need to use it these days?.
Given that your comment includes 4 punctuation and 1 spelling mistake, I think you’ve made the previous posters point for him. Correct punctuation assists the reader to understand your meaning.
(Comma instead of full stop, ‘Bye’ instead of ‘By’, misuse of semicolon and extraneous full stop next to ‘?’ — are we learning anything yet?)
…and if we could edit posts, I would have inserted the missing apostrophe :)
I heard of the YLOD before, I’m part of a big Brazilian community about PS3’s, and a couple of members had this issue.
It has about 4 different causes and most of those causes can be fixed.
We have had more problems with dead BD Drives than with the YLOD.
So, it is not a big deal, just some isolated problems.
how do u fix it
I have a full tutorial in Portuguese, but it is based on the one ‘gilksy’ wrote, so here is how to fix the YLOD by ‘gilksy’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70SgRDVcBo
In the electronics industry the accepted failure rate of any hardware is generally 5% so PS3’s could be failing 10 times more often than they are and there would still be absolutely nothing of any note to write about.
This show was a complete and utter joke and Sony should sue the crap out of them quite frankly.
I owna 60GB launch model which I purchased at launch here in north america. My PS3 got the YLOD exactly 2 years after purchase. I didnt have any warranty and I paid $160 to SONY to get a refurb unit sent back to me. I was extremely dissapointed since I lost all of my files. But alas I have invested too much into this unit to just not get it fixed or replaced.
Ok, so luckily I have experience in this. My 40gb PS3 went out on me about 4 months after purchase. Looking back, it was probably my fault, because it kept freezing up on me, and I would switch it off via the power switch in the back, and I’ve since heard that’s a big no, no. (hold down reset button in the front for about 20 seconds). I still had my waranty so I really didn’t have MUCH trouble, they sent a coffin ala Microsoft with instructions to load up EVERYTHING, cables, console, controller, the whole shebang. I shipped it off and 8 days later, (real time, not business days) I had it back, sans controller or cables. It took alot of calls and tantrums, but I got everything back 3 weeks after the console, but I had purchased an hdmi cable and a new controller by then. Overall, not a horrible experience, but then again I have fairly good luck with customer service reps, after 3 rrod’s microsoft shipped me an elite, last rrod happened 12 minutes after UPS dropped off the system.. I was displeased to say the least, and may have said inappropriate things when I called them.
I have a fat PS3 for 7 months now. I have 3 co-workers that also have a fat 80 GB PS3. No YLOD yet for either of us, but from time to time, and I mean rarely, my PS3 crashed when playing Killzone 2. At one time it crashed right near the end of a map when I was supposed to get my points for getting promoted and that pissed me off, but other than that it’s been going fine. Also, I haven’t heard of the YLOD up until now, but ever since I got the PS3 I was thinking that a system that gobbles up so much power and does that amount of noise is bound to brake at one point.
So they are complaining about a .5% failure rate? Are they just a bunch of Microsoft fanboys trying to attract attention away from the 360’s failure rates?
Really, if it’s less than 1%, that’s nothing.
i had the yellow light of death after leaving gta4 on for 3 days and i had to send it back. it was £150 and now its fine. and on my 360 i’ve had rrod 6 times. just dont go on ur 360 for 1 week an it’ll be fine.
I’ve had my 40GB PS3 for a few years now, no problems. It was loud when I got it, which annoyed me until I replaced the hard drive (Fujitsu) with a 160GB Western Digital. The system has been completely silent since, which makes me feel better about its longevity. Don’t know anyone who has gotten the Yellow Light problem either.
My launch-day PS3 has never been used in an enclosed or poorly ventilated space. A few weeks ago, and much to the delight of my XBOX buddies, I got the YLOD – which I had never heard of. Sony wanted £150 to offer me a *replacement* *reconditioned* unit.
I got a place in London (I think the same one Watchdog used) to fix it for £85 while I waited (30 minutes). It worked perfectly until the day before the PS3 Slim launch and then it went all YLOD again.
In despair, I decided to get a PS3 Slim. I mentioned my broken PS3 Bloat to the GAME employee who promptly offered me £180 trade-in against the Slim and a copy of LittleBIGPlanet as well.
Hopefully this one will behave itself. My confidence in Sony is somewhat dented however and I shall be cautious of early-adopting such a complex piece of tech again.
i certainly have had the YLOD and i had my ps3 replace with a refurbished model in a matter of days and sony kept claiming it was a ventilation problem and that i should allow my ps3 more air to air,fair point but its in and open back glass cabinet. To make matters worse i had a game caught int the ps3 unit (call of duty world at war) upon returning the unit i was told the game in question would be either returned to me or at the very least replaced, this call was taken on june the 3rd 2009,its now sep 21st and guess what no replacement game, and no manager will take my calls and i always get the same reason,”we have to escalate complaints to a manager”, so please be warned if your ps3 does have the YLOD and you have a game within the unit expect to pay through the nose to ATTEMPT to get that game back, 3 and a half months later and i still havent had any success.
If you get YLOD, turn off power in back. Hold eject button. While still holding the eject button, turn on the power in the back. The disk will eject.
I learned this from youtube (after I had already taken mine apart to get COD4 Modern Warfare 2 out of the BD player.)
I see Microsoft is up to its dirty tactics again, using this smear campaign to put doubts into prospective slim buyers. Silly Microsoft, FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) doesn’t affect systems that aren’t sold to management. When will you morons learn?
To my dissapointment my PS3 showed the yellow light at the weekend. I would like to know how many people have suffered with this and where the 0.5% failure rate came from?
Pete – know how you feel fella. I paid just under £500!!!
I got the YLoD just this morning. It is VERY real. Some people still doubt it exists lol. I wanted a Slim anyway so this is my time to get one. Worst thing is that I have a Gamefly game (Dirt 2) in the drive! So now I have to pay for Gamefly while it rots inside of a PS3 and I may never get the game back so I will have to pay Gamefly for it.
I had a launch 60 GB by the way. It served me good until now.
See my reply to Ian Mcphee, above. You can get your disk back with no effort.
Hi , I also have a ps3 60 gb. And it has the yellow light of death, I called Sony and since I had the system for two years the warrenty has expired, Sony says they will exchange it for 150$ I think this problem is more prevailent then Sony admits and it’s uncool that I am expected to dish out 150, after already spending 500 on the original unit. At least Microsoft admired their defect with the xbox 360 and extended the warrenty. Not so with our ps3s. Shame on you Sony for not taking care of your customers.
I had the same problem google consumer affairs and write a complaint about how extremely hot the room gets before the system decide to shut down. I think this is a hazard for you or a child to encounter this problem and also this is bad business for Sony. Sony should at least give you some type of refund towards a new unit not a refurbished one.
hey guess what FINALLY GOT MY WORLD AT WAR BACK..4 MONTHS DOWN THE LINE…Sony,,,this is no where near good enough considering this is the most expensive games concel out there.!!!!
There’s something fishy about those PS3 failure rate #’s. It sounds like corporate propaganda and it doesn’t mention anything about time in the failure scheme. Were they DOA, or did they die one, two years after purchase? In my experience, after fishing around for info on dead PS3’s and the amount of them for sale on Ebay shows that a lot more fail, in time, than Sony wants anyone to believe.
I just had my replaced unit get the YLoD. I had the replacement for exactly 6 months when it died. Sony said they wouldn’t do anything about it.
Such a joke!
I’ve had the 120 gb for almost a year, no problems, ventilation is a main problem for them, i bought an intercooler system, no problems, besides a little noise from it. TLOD is a problem, all things eventually will fail, computers, TVs, gaming systems, and become outdated. quit your complaining about all the problems. Man up, get in or get out.
Got the yellow light of death after playing NHL 10 over a long weekend. Have to pay 190 CDN for it to be fixed/replaced. NHL 10 is still stuck in it, seeing as it’s rented from blockbuster and is already overdue I’m going to have a problem. Had the 40g for a year and a half with no problems utill now.
I have had my ps3 for almost 2 years and as of yet I have had no problems, I have a friend who has gone through two 360’s and another who has gone through one also. the ps3 is an amazing console and even if my ps3 broke now(lets hope it doesn’t) I’d pay the €150 for the replacement because its worth it!!
oh and both of those friends were Diehard xbox fans and I have successfully converted them to the ps3 and both now hate Microsoft!!
Experienced the ylod twice myself, on two different units. The first time my playstation was still under warranty and I received a refurbished model. The second yellow light happened on the refurbished model after warranty period. Since the warranty was up and I have an electrical engineering background, I decided to disect this machine to see what the issue was. Once apart, I found the major problem for overheating was due to the fact that the power supply/inverter has absolutely no ventillation. The bottom half and right side of the ps3 have good ventillation(heat sinks, exchanger plates, large fan), however that only cools the bottom side of the circuit board. Coincidentally the power supply/inverter rests on the top side of the cicuit board right over the cell processor( cell processor hangs on bottom side of cicuit board and has power supply on other side of board). Although the chip itself has good cooling, the cicuit board it is attached too is subject to extreme heat from the non ventillated power supply. Enough heat to potentially melt the solder joints within the chip to the board, thus giving the YLOD. To fix issue, the circuit board had to be flipped and reheated to melt solder again in hopes it reconnects the chip to the board. After successfully doing this, I drilled holes in the left hand upper portion of the plastic case to provide ventillation to the power supply/inverter. Have had no more issues for 2 years now. In my opinion, there are 2 ways to avoid the YLOD altogether. 1.Have an external inverter like all other previous playstations did or 2.redesign upper casing to have adequate ventillation on the left side.
I’m an experienced computer builder and what you’ve said makes perfect sense. I haven’t had the opportunity to crack a PS3 open yet but the thing really *is* a mini-computer. With that much hardware and expected demand of use, I’m a little surprised they didn’t consider the ventilation needs more. Sony does make laptop computers. They do understand how heat works inside enclosed containers. They might want to think more about hardware maintenance and less about low profile shells. Thanks for the very helpful info!
dan ive re flowed my ps3 and it works but in order to avoid future yllowed…. do u have exact details on where to drill holes in the casing ???
23rd october 2009 Yellowed ps3
ABSOLUTELY gutted that my ps3 in mint condition still after 19 months to suddenly cut out…..
i have called sony twice they will not help or fix or do anything…. two friends last month yellowed… and in London where i live there are over 15 companies who fix yellowed ps3s .. LAST night my cousins ps3 yellowed… its not a co incidence all our ps3s are dying on us… i cant afford a slim and with modern warfare coming out in 10 days… im stuck .. advice??
Is there any way to save the data I have on my ps3 HDD had tons of saved games and map pcks
I really need help to get any solution to recover my files, some one can help please I almost got the platinum on infamous when this happened this to me that drove me crazy.
Wow this seems like a bad problem, ive had my 360 since launch and it only got rrod once last month and that was only cos i was playing ALOT in summer here in australia and it can get up to 40 degrees Celsius and still microsoft were friendly and fixed it for free. This YLOD sounds bad that firstly u will lose a game and secondly u have to pay them money for a refurb. Sony tried to convince everyone the ps3 was perfect but they cant even design their model. atleast microsoft admitted to their problem and stopped the production line to make new models that will not get rrod. also no im not a fanboy i have a ps3 and a 360.
Yes but the ps3 has such a low failure rate compared to the Xbox, I’ve had a launch 60gb ps3 and it’s not given me any trouble and ALL!!! my friends and I mean all of them have had at least one rrod one friend had two rrod’s, and he’s had an original xbox since release and it still works. Why can’t microsoft make a console like the original.
I think any models that are made from 2008 + are the new good models and will not get the rrod unless its the players fault, but because they made so many 360s before that store were still selling old models up until this year or so. Im really ashamed at microsoft cos they rushed the console and as a result they released a faulty system but after all these years they still gave me a really awesome console so im sticking with them.
Well as long as your happy with your console, I’m happy supporting Sony over Microsoft. btw I pwn an Xbox 360 but I prefer y PS3 WAY!!!! more hahaha
this is crazy!!! i just read about the ylod and i had never heard of it before… i think my ps3 has it (ylod) and i just bout the slim ps3 like 3 weeks ago!!! how do i get it fixed?
I have successfully fixed my ps3 80gb fuck sony
they are a con just putting shit thermal paste and shit fan making us dish out countless cash
YLoD here yesterday. well ventilated, random issue. OP is deluded.
got my 40 gig ps3 on 4/6/08 on 11/14/09 my ps3 got the dreaded ylod ……..the ps3 is sure not built like my ps2 (7 years going strng) not sure what im gonna do next
All the YLOD is, is a cpu and possibly a gpu failure. That means the little 1″ X 1″ square of expensive metal that Sony won so many awards for, is simply not doing what it should be doing, which is processing information. Yes, it is a “general hardware failure,” because it is actually VERY easy to fix, IF you have the right tools and time. I don’t even know why people are still posting on this thread, as the solutions have already been made and come on, don’t you think you at least got your money’s worth for the two years you played it before it broke? hell even a car cant compare to 400 bucks for two years of entertainment. Gas alone costs more than that a year. So everyone stop complaining on this thread. If you wanna fix it yourself, go for it, just google how to and best of luck to you. I’ve fixed three different ones all by myself and they all work flawlessly now. Once again, if you have any questions, GOOGLE IT. It is a top quality videogame system with hardly any ram and semi-permanent formatting, that’s all it is. You cannot expect it to be running at full capacity with a disk in it every day and not break at some point. That’s why they are only 300 bucks now, because that’s all they are, a toy worth 300 bucks. If you want a top of the line computer that plays bluray disks and runs its hard drive at full rpm all day every day, then go buy one from Alienware for $2000 STARTING. God damn. Okay my rant is over. Peace.
Just got the YLOD as I was changing out the laundry. I came back and saw my TV was displaying the no signal box and saw the red light flashing on my ps3. I touched the power pad and it went solid red. I pushed it again and it went green, then yellow while issuing three quick beeps then a loud *CLICK* then off and flashing red again. This isn’t a rare thing at all. One of my friends on the PSN got it this spring, and about a week later, another one of our PSN buddies got it as well. then about a week ago, ANOTHER one of our buddies got it, and now I have it. I think its quite annoying. This mandatory firmware update crap is suspicious seeing how a LOT of people got YLOD after 3.0!
Got the YLOD of death today on my two year old machine. Did not even know it existed till I started researching how to fix it.
I think people should get together and file a class action suit against sony. I can’t believe they didnt know there was a problem from the beginning. I got the YLOD of death two days ago. I am going to try and fix it. Screw Sony for selling defective merchandise.
Just Got the YLOD yesterday..Don’t know what to Do i need some suggestions on what to do