Here is the very brief outline of whatever that has happened. A few months back, my Playstation 3 (PS3) encountered a rather common problem, the yellow light of death (YLOD). The playstation just would not boot up, giving beeps and a yellow light after that. The first thing came into my mind was to bring it to the service center to see the problem. After a few weeks, they called and told us their diagnosis, the motherboard had failed. Changing the motherboard would set us back over $200, a price which we decided was not worth to pay. Went to the service center, got back my PS3 after paying for their initial diagnosis. Fair enough, brought it back home and never tried to on it again. Today, I’ve just discovered (Yes how stupid I am to not know this in the first place) a probable fix for the YLOD. Tried to turn on the PS3 and to my horror, there was no power at all. No light, no nothing. How? From a PS3 that had lights and beeping, to a dead black brick (after their “servicingâ€/â€diagnosisâ€).
I was shocked, and am still shocked. Check for voltage in the power cord, yup there is. Check all external factors and eliminated almost all possible ones that I could have thought of. Thinking that it was probably the motherboard being the problem, I continued to open the PS3 apart. Carefully and cautiously, I stripped down the PS3 to its naked parts. The first thing I see that got me really pissed and angry was how terrible the internal state of the PS3 was. First, there was the Wifi component. What’s wrong with it? IT WASN’T EVEN PLUGGED INTO THE MOTHERBOARD. Hell I’m not sure if it is supposed to be like that but if it is not plugged in, how on earth is my PS3 supposed to have the wireless capabilities?
Moving on to the internal power supply: With professional help (a father very experienced in mechanical and electrical stuff) we check and verified that indeed the power supply was dead. I had only one conclusion after seeing the Wifi component not being plugged in and now the power supply being dead, the technicians or somebody that handled my PS3 had tempered and exchanged my power supply with a faulty one. No reason for it to be sent in and then coming back with a totally new problem. No reason for it to become a power problem and not a motherboard problem as they “diagnosed†previously. No reason for it to be in such a horrible state.
“Dude, your power supply might have died by itself. You can’t blame themâ€. Alright here is my logical reasoning to the conclusion to how I believed my perfectly working internal power supply (and god knows what other things) have been exchanged for a faulty one:
1.      My PS3 had the YLOD. Power was working, everything was working. Lights etc, just that not booting up.
2.      Sony Service Center’s technician/personal (whoever who called) mentioned that the PS3 had a “motherboard†problem. Nothing mentioned on the power not working.
3.      Sony Service Center’s technician/personal said that I had to “change the motherboard†for the ps3 to work. To do so, I had to pay for the motherboard plus handling charges which amount to over $200.
4.      I stripped apart my PS3 and found that the Wifi component was not even plugged into the motherboard. (Wifi was perfectly fine before)
5.      Tested the power supply unit to see if there was any charge/voltage but all I see is a big 0 (used a multimeter).
Because my power was working before, the Sony Service center personal told me that it was completely a “motherboard†issue and that I ONLY had to change the “motherboardâ€, the internal parts not even properly ensembled (Wifi component), and the power supply now magically not working. It can only be due to these conclusions:
1.      God didn’t want me to use my PS3 anymore.
2.      They damaged my internal power supply while the diagnosis.
3.      They exchanged my perfectly working internal power supply for a faulty one.
4.      I magically damaged my INTERNAL power supply.
With the reasons above (1 – 4), I can only say the probability of conclusions 2 and 3 are most likely. Magic is an illusion and using God to explain things just isn’t concrete enough. Oh well, what can I say, believe it or not is up to you. I put up my reasoning and argument and all I have to say is, be careful of all service centers. You never know what they do to your semi-damaged product. And of course in addition to that, Thanks for breaking my PS3 into even smaller pieces Singapore Sony Playstation Service Center peoples.
(Related: Visit he following to learn more about the impact of DAS on joint assets)
Goodbye my lovely fat ps3.
[image by: shagy6six6 via Flickr]
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