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The Decline And Fall Of My PlayStation 3
Wed, 2009-05-27 19:00 — PMunn
At just a couple of months past two years old, my PlayStation 3 has died. It wasn't wholly unexpected – there were strong warning signs over the past week and replies to a forum post describing the problem clued me in that the end was near – but it still has me gazing sadly at the poor black behemoth under my TV that now refuses to boot longer than it takes to flash a yellow light and then shut back down right away, leaving a blinking red LED telling all who can see that it can serve me no longer.
My Target replacement warranty experience has been great so far. The people on the phone are native English-speakers, courteous, and have dutifully taken notes on my problems. I'll receive shipping labels by email to send the system to a repair center that will try to fix the problem, whatever it may be. If they can't fix it, they'll notify the warranty people who will then do what they call a “buy-out” that is typically a gift card in the amount of the purchase price.
The story of my PS3's decline goes back just about a year and stretches across a few games.
Anomaly 1: Flashing Indoor Textures (sample screens and videos here)
Sometime during one of my two playthroughs of Grand Theft Auto IV I noticed that when I was indoors in a safe house I'd see the door texture or wall texture flash white just after the game loaded. Sometimes another bit of scenery would flash white, but that's about it. It didn't seem to happen when I was out and about, so I chalked it up to bad programming on the PS3 at the time, but it happened with such regularity that I never forgot it.
Fast-forward to this year and my exhaustive, two playthroughs of Mercenaries 2. Again I saw the flashing texture problem when walking around within the HQ. Textures comprising the floor would flash on occasion or another bit of indoor scenery would flash white now and again. The coincidence caught my attention, but I didn't worry much about it. Mercenaries 2 was known for being glitchy so I presumed it might be a programming problem and not a hardware problem.
Anomaly 2: Astonishing Physics Problems.
Saints Row 2 sent up huge red flags for me, but again warnings in the press that this game, too, was glitchy didn't prepare me for the horrific physics glitches. The opening level had a boat that bounced away on the waves. Occasionally driving down a hill a certain patch of road would make the cars stop and float a bit, hopping vertically as the engine tried to assert gravity on them, stranding me in midair until I could maneuver out of what seemed like an antigravity field. Running through the city I'd see people with bizarrre, long geometric spikes. Someone suggested I reload the game's data after saying they'd never seen anything like that. It did seem to take care of most of the problems, but not all of them. I had a sneaking suspicion that I hadn't seen the last of its problems, but I returned to Mercenaries 2 to finish up that game first.
To be fair, during a very extended Mercenaries 2 online session I noticed some physics problems cropping up. I had my character jump from a moving car at one point, only to have the car fly off into the air unexpectedly.
Return Of The Flash
Occasional trips into Unreal Tournament III, especially with the advent of the Titan Pack, showed me the flashing texture problem. This was too much to ignore – it was happening in the menus that panned through various levels. During games it was starting to happen more often – I was noticing the flashes like camera flashes as I played, not in the same spots, just here and there.
Anomaly 3: Spiky Models (sample videos here)
The final nail in the coffin was my time playing Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. From the beginning I started seeing something strange about the character models. They would occasionally have spikes that deformed them, jutting off in one direction or another, as if data in the system that drew the polygons was getting damaged or just rendered wrong. I also noticed on occasion a weapon model would have a texture that jutted off in a certain direction unless I reloaded from a checkpoint. The levels never exhibited this problem, just character models, and not during every playthrough. I occasionally saw some smoothing problems with the models as well. During my tour of its multiplayer modes I saw my own character exhibit the spiking problem as well as certain visual problems with one of the levels. I knew my system was in decline at that point.
Spiky models also appeared in the Wolverine demo during a cut scene. This forced me to take it this problem very seriously. These were too many games with too many different development houses behind them for it to be coincidence.
Documentation
I documented the Riddick glitches on video and posted to the vgevo.com forums to see if others had seen this and if it meant my console was dying. One or two people immediately recognized the symptoms and told me the end was near.
It's probably not a bad thing for me that the problem went from something game-specific – flashing white textures on some, spiky models on others – to a complete collapse into yellow light status. I was worried the repair center wouldn't be able to reproduce or diagnose the problem – do they even have games to test it with? If the device can't start up or run for any length of time before yellow-lighting, well, that's pretty concrete as far as problems go.
Goodbye To Backwards Compatibility
Would I take it back if they could fix it? Sure, but as long as it is really fixed. If they can't the consolation is that the price difference from when I bought this beast for $600 and today could more than cover the $100 for a new PS2 should I ever be compelled to play PS2 games again.
And really, with the PSN now boasting in-game text chat and other nifty features I have little desire to play anything but PS3 games on the console. I hasn't played a PS2 game on it in over a year, I'd wager, and not having the XMB available in game for even PS1 games keeps me from spending time on those titles I still have and treasure.
What Now?
I have a personal laptop plays some older Windows games and plays some free to play MMOs rather nicely -- Runes of Magic and Free Realms are my current favorites -- and I also have a PSP to spend leisure time on.
But in the meantime I'll be adding on to this post with comments documenting my console's voyage.
First Step: Shipping Labels
2009-05-27
I called and updated my system's set of problems with the yellow light of death description. I haven't received the shipping labels yet. It can take 24 to 48 hours from when I requested them (yesterday) to receive them.
Day 35: The New Boss
The replacement PS3 arrived today with plastic sheets over each bit of its sleek black surface just as if it was brand new. A bar code stuck on the rear of the left side reminds me it's not. It is, however, a 60GB unit that so far seems to be functioning just fine.
Here's what reloading from a backup off of my old unit did not bring back:
All Game Data entries (patches, add-ons, cached data, etc).
All PSN games.
All PS1 memory cards
All PS2 memory cards
The old memory cards being gone is pretty annoying but I do have recent backups on flash memory cards. Why on earth is there this restriction to backed up data?
As I reload games and their patches into the machine I've yet to really put it through its paces. I plan to test it out pretty thoroughly with Unreal Tournament III, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet, Saints Row 2, Burnout Paradise, and the various new demos I've missed over the past month. I also plan to replay demos like the Red Faction: Guerrila demo to see how much worse my old machine was mangling the graphics towards the end of its life.
Day 32: Soon Will This All Be Over?
Fastest Diagnosis In The West
The console hit Sony's Laredo, Texas repair facility early Thursday morning. That night I checked the web page with my claim number to find that the system wasn't registered with a Service Agent yet, and that it could take 1-2 days to do so. This seemed fair enough -- the first repair shop it hit took up to a whole day for "check-in". To my surprise late Thursday night I got an email noting that a replacement CECHA01 had been shipped via UPS 3-Day Select and that it will require a signature. The trip there, incidentally, turned out to be via 3-Day Select shipping as well, which let me get it into UPS's hands Saturday afternoon instead of Monday night.
This leg of the journey might end up being the best yet.
The Replacements
One thing I hadn't bothered to look up yet was just what qualified as a replacement. My initial thoughts, backed up by online research, were that I wouldn't receive an equivalent unit from Sony -- they simply don't make that console any longer and thus shouldn't have any on hand this long after it's been discontinued. As we saw, first the operator and now this email seems to disprove that.
The key language in the service plan terms and conditions is capitalized at the website, and is as follows:
Provided that this unit performs to factory specifications, they've done their job and I get a machine that will hopefully get all of my data restored to it from the backup I made. I've heard rumors of PS1 and PS2 memory card saves not making it across to a new unit along with locked saves like the one for Mercenaries 2, but we'll see how that goes.
This unit will arrive with a 90-day warranty from Sony but I haven't discovered yet if my Service Plan will still be in effect until its early 2010 expiration date as well.
Day 25: Another Sad Weekend
Thursday, after a call with a knowledgeable Sony support person the picture became clearer about what's happening from here on out.
Here's what this whole repair scenario has boiled down to:
1. Warranty company tries to get a cheap repair from their chosen shop.
2. Chosen repair shop cannot repair it.
3. Chosen repair shop opens an "out-of-warranty repair" with Sony for the console.
4. Chosen repair shop ships dead console to me. Sony ships me a special box for the unit.
5. I wait for repair shop console and Sony box, I pack dead console in Sony box, ship to Sony.
6. Sony gets box, Sony tries to fix the PS3 as if no other attempt has been made.
7. If Sony cannot fix it, a "factory recertified 60GB PS3" will be shipped to me in its place.
8. Steps 6 to 7 will take 8 to 12 business days.
The odd thing is that the Sony support person told me that while the case of the 60GB recertified PS3 will not be new, all of the internal components will be "brand new". I pressed him on this issue and asked if it would be a refurb unit, he said no, its internals would be brand new while the case might not look new. I also questioned how they could possibly have brand new 60GB system parts available when the model is completely discontinued. He replied that Sony still manufactures the parts for the repair center's use only. They manufacture these parts for the repair center but don't manufacture new cases? What a strange thing to say.
This strikes me as a complete lie. Really, the guy sounded honest, but he must be misinformed.
Speaking to the insurance company before calling Sony also left me wary of the repair shop. They had no record on file of the repair shop's findings or of any out-of-warranty repair for my console. This, to me, sounds like the repair shop operates autonomously, solving the problem themselves without consulting the insurer when things come up, obviously within a certian budget. When I pressed the person on the phone about what I should do, she told me to do whatever the repair center told me to do.
Where does this leave me if my insurance policy is supposed to repair or replace with an identical unit when a refurbished item comes back? How can I possibly tell if it's new or not? And now that this policy has been used, getting a used unit back from Sony means I can't buy another replacement plan in case it decides to croak the same way down the road.
All of this aside, if Sony can fix my own 60GB PS3 that would be fabulous. If they can't getting another 60GB PS3 back would be pretty good. It would certainly beat getting a refurbished 80GB model that can't play any PS2 games. In the end, though, it's just going to take a couple of weeks longer to know what's going to happen next with Sony.
And as far as timelines go, I did get the console back on Thursday while the box from Sony arrived on Friday. The unfortunate part is that the Sony box arrived after the last pickup made at the shipping store I would have shipped it out from, so it won't leave for Sony until Monday night at the earliest. The box was right here in town first thing in the morning and out on the truck right away, but for some reason it waited until the late evening to make an appearance, which is the typical evening delivery time for UPS.
It's another sad weekend without a console. Happy Father's Day!
Day 21: Wait, You Said There Was Good News Too.
Three weeks after my own determination of the console's time of death we have an official verdict from the repair shop: it's dead and cannot be repaired.
They just called me to give me "the bad news and good news" and fill me in on what happens next, and it's not the rosy picture I painted above, either. What happens next promises to extend this process even further.
- The repair shop is shipping my console back to me.
- A separate box will arrive from Sony in 3 to 5 days.
- I will follow the directions in the repair shop box and ship my console to Sony in the provided box.
- Sony will ship me a brand new console as part of my coverage.
As far as I can tell my best case scenario now is that I have the Sony box and my console in hand on Friday and if I'm lucky I could possibly ship the dead machine out by whatever carrier Sony has chosen that afternoon. Who knows what the timeline is like after that.Day 17: Almost There
Another call to the service center today and the gentleman who picked up the line confirmed that they would finish up the devices that came in on 6/2 and then start on the 6/3 items, of which my console is one, on Monday.
Surprising that they're so far behind their device queue, but in the end as a business it's a good thing to have a big backlog of work.
Day 14: Don't Call Us...
I thought I was being all cool, waiting a while so I don't look desperate, but I called them today and got the party line. Seven to ten business days and they'll ship it back to me, no other information. Their primitive web system still just says it got there on the 3rd.
I wonder if they look at their queue and put the yellow light of death machines on the very end since I don't know if they're going to get paid for them. Would be nice if I could get it back though, even if I had to pay shipping, but I doubt it.
I find myself looking more dispassionately at game news this many days away from it, but I did plug in my PS2 tonight to help my brother determine if a unit he's trying to sell for a friend had a hard drive in it or not. I'm not really motivated to play it, but I'll leave it there. Just because.
Day 8: See Day 15, or is it Day 10?
The console made it to the repair center overnight and was signed for by 10am. This is encouraging.
I called them mid-afternoon to find out what the timeline might be like.
"Today is a check-in day only. Repairs are performed and turned around within 7 to 10 business days," the nice young lady said.
I asked "When should I call back for a status on it, or will I receive an email...?"
She recommended I call back next Friday. Given how often not calling has dragged this whole process out I'll be calling sooner, probably this Friday.
2009-06-02
Day 7: What Am I Paying For Again?
So why does the UPS tag for my console show it hasn't been taken possession of by UPS yet?
PostNet employee: "Oh no it didn't ship last night because I didn't have the box I needed. I just got those in this morning."
Me: "... Is it packed yet?"
Her: "No, I'll do it in a little while. It'll ship out tonight. Okay?"
Me: Click.
2009-06-01
Shipping out
First thing this morning I called PSR to ask how to pack and ship my PS3. They had emailed the UPS label on Friday afternoon but hadn't emailed me packing and shipping instructions. The gentleman on the other end said I should pack it in a box with 2 inches of space on all sides and use bubble wrap and/or packing peanuts in order to qualify for an insurance claim should UPS lose or damage the item in transit. I asked if I should take it to a packing and shipping store that does UPS pickups and they agreed that would be the best way to ensure it is packed properly.
During my lunch break I handed my PS3 and the label over to a shipping storefront, paid under $6 for the shipping materials, and was told it would ship 6:30 this evening.
Mail call
After work I picked up my postal mail, which contained the mailed out shipping label from last week and detailed instructions on how to pack and ship the item. Details that were in no way communicated to me by PSR in my two phone calls to them include:
- Include a full description of the problem -- PSR said I didn't have to do this as it was linked to the shipping label.
- Do not pack in anything but the console itself -- I had packed everything it came with in the original retail box.
Other information hints that I could have enclosed a game to help them test the system as long as I had documented it, but I would have been a bit hesitant to do that.I doubt these are critical to the repair process and while their packing instructions are quite detailed -- leading me to think they they know the best way to get systems in and out of their shop safely, at least -- I'm sure folks must send them things in all sorts of shape. Especially if nobody ever tells them ahead of time how to pack it when communicating by email.
2009-05-29
With no shipping labels in hand, I called again. They said they would have the repair center send them again.
On a whim I looked up the repair center Professional Satellite Repair and found them on the web here as PSR. I called them up directly, gave them my service request number Target had given me, and they noted that labels had been snail mailed to me instead of emailed but he noted that the UPS system would email them to me after the close of business hours, apparently a standard practice. No matter what I got today, he said, be it via snail mail or email, I could bring the packed up box to a drop over the weekend but it wouldn't ship the item out until Monday.
I am not amused. The unit won't leave for repair until 6 days after it first died. Points off for Target for not communicating my request effectively.
At any rate I have the emailed shipping label but not PSR's specific instructions they said they were going to send describing how to pack the item.
2009-05-27
2009-05-27 20:29 I booted the system earlier this evening, erased the user accounts, and did a quick format of the drive. Not sure why but it's been running for about 40 minutes now safely, idling. I imagine if I re-log in and reload a game it will crash itself out again. I need to satisfy my curiosity...
20:41
I booted to the Recovery Menu, reset to factory defaults, booted to the Recovery Menu again, rebuilt the filesystem, and when trying to reboot to the recovery menu a third time got the Yellow Light of Death when trying to start up. This is a relief of sorts -- I was afraid I'd be sending it off for no good reason. Now I know it's overheating.
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