My PS3 broke. (No acronyms, it just broke.)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Written by: Jed

It wasn’t flashy. There weren’t any blinking lights. It just broke.

Recently my PS3 has been giving the Wii a run for its money in its dust-gathering abilities. It’s been several months since I logged into my PSN account or play an actual game on it. It’s only saving grace, and real use has been in DVD/Blu-ray playback (and my brother’s occasional Rock Band session) .

Last weekend, before popping in some DVDs to watch – I noticed that  that a systems update was available. I opted to update, and I soon realized it was a mistake. First, I’ve somehow overlooked the time required for the PS3 to download, and then install updates (usually around the 1 hour mark). This killed any desire to watch a movie. So I let the system do its thing in the background, and turned it off when it was done. The next morning, I noticed a note my brother left by the console that said something to the like of, “it doesn’t read discs”.  And after scavenging the house for a CD, DVD, and Blu-ray – he was right. The optical drive seemed to have just died. I immediately thought that the 2.80 update was the culprit, but my brother said otherwise. It turns out that games have been randomly crashing for weeks before, and that he was able to watch a DVD movie (post update) after which the drive simply gave up.

Everything but the Blu-ray drive was fully functional. So I scoured the forums looking for possible solutions. I ran across a number of posts suggesting that a system format would solve the problem. After the three hour process; no dice. I thought a can of compressed air would help the cause, and was again met with no luck. I even set the PS3 in its vertical orientation to see if that would help. It didn’t. The fact that I was two years past warranty wasn’t comforting. I remembered going through a free (out of warranty) repair process with my PS2 when its drive died back in the day, but a class-action lawsuit probably had something to do with that. This time around, the problem seemed relatively isolated and I was on my own. The forums also pointed to a standard $150 (US) service fee – which after conversion and taxes totalled to $190.97 Canadian. Still much less than the current rate for the lowest-tiered PS3 model, so pay it I did. The Sony rep I spoke with on the phone seemed pretty succinct as well; no real troubleshooting (I did mention the format); he instantly began filling a service-request form, that in fact was going to cost me the quoted $150.

The process was surprisingly quick. Purolator dropped off a shipping box and label the following morning. I dropped it off at the nearest branch and two days later, there was a “new” and fully-functional PS3 sitting on my front porch. I still haven’t compared serial numbers to see if this was indeed a new system but the repair invoice was a bit off-putting. The stated cost of parts, was nil. All $190.97 went towards labour. I guess this point is moot, given that I already accepted the cost coming in, but the fact that a simple lens cleaner might have solved the issue leaves me a bit frustrated; particularly given my years of Dreamcast and PS2 troubleshooting by soaking their lenses with alcohol. Of course the PS3’s slot-loading system makes access to the lens a bit tougher, but I now wonder what one of these cleaners would have done?

It's not flashy, but it is broken.

While it was announced last month that  Microsoft was lowering their RRoD service a notch – my PS3 service experience was surprisingly pleasant.  Granted RRoDs have what seems to be a free lifetime of coverage, while this ordeal cost me half the price of a new console, but who’s complaining? (read: me). I guess until a hardware defect receives acronym status – consumers are as they say, SOL.

Given Sony’s history with failing lenses with the PS2, I wouldn’t be surprised if another class action lawsuit with the PS3 is around the far corner – if or when it reaches wider adoption. It might be a rare case where its relatively smaller market share is actually helping in allowing its hardware defects to go unnoticed.

That was a gloomy three days, but I can once again say that I have a working PS3, gathering dust in my basement.