It is caused by the internal fan not providing sufficient cooling capacity to the circuitry, and as such, the heat sinks fail causing the solder holding components to the circuit board to melt. As a result, the components fail due to poor connection and the PS3/Xbox is rendered useless.
There are 3 solutions to the problem
1) If the console is still withing the manufacturers 1 year warranty, it can be returned to the place of sale or the manufacturer can be contacted directly for the console to be replaced without question free of charge (obviously after its been inspected etc etc).
2) If the console is out of warranty (like mine), Sony can be contacted directly for a refurbishment/rebuild service where the problem is fixed. However, Sony charge £150 for such a service - i am unaware of any such service offered by Microsoft. They offer a door to door pick-up/delivery too which is a nice touch.
3) If the console is out of warranty, you can go on YouTube and follow a guide on how to fix the problem which will take you all of maybe 2 hours, resulting in (hopefully) a fully working PS3/Xbox. All you need is patience, nimble hands, screwdrivers, a heat gun, and some heat sink compound.
What i find annoying is that Microsoft and Sony can be allowed to manufacture products which have such well known defects. To make a comparison, its similar to the launch of the iPhone 4. Apple released it, and found out very soon that it had defects. They then offered to fix the problems free of charge to all its iPhone 4 customers - everyone was happy.
How on earth can these companies know that there are such problems and then be so bold as to charge such a huge fee - or any fee at all for a process which takes a single person two hours - less for a huge company who could employ the benefits of economies of scale and division of labour to speed up the process hugely.
How many people find their TV's going wrong after 2 years of average use. Well I'v never seen it happen. My old one was 10 before i decided to scrap it, but even then it worked perfectly well!!
For a product that costed me £400 odd when i was 17 (all the money i had in the world), i expect more of such world renown companies.
So anyway, heres my PS3 as of now - in 10 pieces. I just need to wait until tomorrow when i can go to Maplins and get some heat sink compound then i can finish the whole process.
Has anybody elses had this problem or find this whole situation absurd?
