Sony Responds to Yellow Light of Death Fix
Sony fires back that the BBC's Watchdog over a PlayStation 3 report.
The BBC's Watchdog website recently investigated the PlayStation 3's "Yellow Light of Death" (article), a problem many console owners have experienced for years. In the past, Sony has expressed its dislike for the term, saying that the flashing yellow light doesn't focus on one particular error, but any one of "a range of issues that may inevitably affect any complex item of consumer electronics."
Apparently, the YLoD problem takes place 18 to 24 months after the original purchase, conveniently six or more months after the warranty expires. Sony has acknowledged the problem, reporting that around 12,500 of the 2.5 million consoles that have been sold in the UK have had this error since March 2007. But because the consoles are failing after the warranty expires, consumers are forced to send it off to Sony and pay around $200 for a refurbished replacement delivered directly to their door, or take the console to a repair shop and have it fixed.
However, Watchdog didn't buy the "range of issues" statement and sent off sixteen consoles owned by viewers who originally complained about the error. An independent console repairer disassembled the devices and heated the motherboard in a special oven, re-heating the solder to a point where the metal could repair bad connections between the components and the circuit board. After this trick, all sixteen consoles began working again; five were later reported to malfunction again.
Was this just coincidence that this solder "reflow" fix cured the overall YLoD problem despite Sony's claim? After reading Watchdog's article, Sony fired back with a response, saying that the YLoD doesn't stem from a manufacturing problem, and actually "dogged" the site for suggesting that the basic solder reflow process "can properly be done cheaply and quickly." Sony said it was unfair to criticize the company for service charges outside the warranty. To get a better understanding of the drama, check out article and Sony's full response.
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I watched the show, all the while thinking "Wtf? They are damaging Sony's reputation due to a 0.5 percent product failure on old consoles where the xbox has a failure rate of 30 to 120 times as much."
Now a whole load of people wont buy even the new consoles after watching that show thinking, "Sony make bad quality machines and charge you to fix them".
Really irritating show.
Sony should just expand their warranty to cover the issue. Its only a 0.5% failure rate. It would repair their reputation, increase sales, while only costing the replacment of 0.5% of consoles.
I've never even heard of the YLoD. My console was one of the first issued, and I've never had a problem with it. Now my XBOX on the other hand has scratched my discs on several occasions. Bastard XBOX...
Sony should just expand their warranty to cover the issue. Its only a 0.5% failure rate. It would repair their reputation, increase sales, while only costing the replacment of 0.5% of consoles.
+1
where are you guys pulling this figure out off , yoru anus ? seriously one web site quotes that 360 failrate is at 54% ( but this is only ammoung THEIR site visitors that did their dumb poll) and you act like thi9er word is holy law , and apply that rate to ALL the coutry of 360's , yet soem one mentions sony's might have a problem you pull this ghosted ass .5%n figure out of teh thin air , where the fuck are your fact you bunch of fanboys ???
chirst , i'm not a fan boy i just hate seening blantant fanboyism thrown around, i knwo jsut amny fols have a ps3 die on them as a 360 and even sony said they removed the backward ps2 chips fromteh ps3 becaseu of heating issues. i knwo oen person that had a 360 croak on tehm and i know one person that had a ps3 croak on them. also has it occured to you peoepla re doging teh ps3 becasue of it's price , ??? sure the 360 may croak otu , but at elast you avhe a warrenty for 3 eyars taht covers such a issue , plus the cosnole is the cheapest on market right now , while the ps3 is teh most expensive .. jsut sayign for ever argument you pose teh other side has decent arguments as well
so pelae stopt eh fanboyism ..
Theres a yellow light on the PS3? O_o I've had mine since a week after it came out. use it every day for a range of things never any problem.
I have a launch 360 with never any issues at all, I also have an 80GB PS3 that has no issues EXCEPT for the current issue of losing sync with all controllers!!! It drives me crazy! It just drops sync with every controller! I have to constantly have the controller hooked up to the system! Plus its out of warranty... Anyone know of a fix???
sony has been know to have solder problems in their products way back before Trinitron TVs. And it was bad back then.
i liked red lights better.
make the yellow light turn red
The fact is that it does happen. They seem to be trying to pull an Apple and say that it doesn't in general, then go ahead and make people pay for what is a manufacturers defect. This is the entire point of a warranty.
Even if the RRoD happened more, Microsoft acknowledged it as a problem and extended the warranty to compensate since it was their fault to begin with. And in fact it cost them much more to do it right than it would for Sony.
I DID have my PS3 fail, and it was just out of warranty (cost $150 to fix), but it wasn't the (yellow light of death)... it was the "Red Blink of death" and had something to do with the Blu-Ray player.
So yes... PS3's do occasionally fail, but in the same time period I've had my 360 replaced twice (though free both times), and until Netflix came to the 360 our PS3 saw about 3x more usage.
If the failure rate of this problem is only 0.5%, why is it even published on toms hardware? Please stop posting useless articles
@ demonhorde665
Where the heck did you learn how to spell? Seriously your spelling is horrible! Why don't you learn how to post readable text and then come back.
Never heard of this obscure problem with PS3's either. Sounds like some 360 fanboys are upset the PS3 slim is going to OM NOM NOM its way into a bigger share of the market this holiday season.
They're owned by Mopar, right? I had that problem with my 90's era Neon.
I watched the show, all the while thinking "Wtf? They are damaging Sony's reputation due to a 0.5 percent product failure on old consoles where the xbox has a failure rate of 30 to 120 times as much."Now a whole load of people wont buy even the new consoles after watching that show thinking, "Sony make bad quality machines and charge you to fix them".Really irritating show.
Not sure its that as much as its the fact that Sony is not willing to take a dive for such a little cost yet MS took a dive for a giant cost even if the people didn't have a RRoD they still got the extended warranty on it.
And a one year warranty on a consumer electronic device is pretty shady to me. I think 3 years should be the minimum especially since consoles are around 5+ years.
^You a re totaly right 3+.
you pull this ghosted ass .5%n figure out of teh thin air
Can you not calculate percentages?
Says it in the article, "12,500 of the 2.5 million consoles".
In most manufacturing processes companies try to have failure rate below 2%. In this case a 0.5% is stellar. Don't know why it would warrant a investigative story.
I wonder of anyone simply threw their broke Playstations away. Personally I prefer my Atari.
0.5% my ass Sony.
This problem is MUCH WORST than your 0.5%
I can say this is the result of Lead Free Solder.
you guys are freaking ridiculous ...those figures are for the UK alone! jesus christ! LOL!
It's much worse than just Playstation problems. For a period of 3-4 years Sony produced LCD projection tv's that had major problems that they knew about, but they still released them. They also dodged responsibility for it and now have lawsuits filed against them. I have one of the tv's and now my 60Gb PS3 is dead. Seems this company is making a name for itself by leaving consumers high and dry. Check out http://sites.google.com/site/sonyl [...] ticalblock to read about tv problems.
I repaired my launch PS3 60GB once so far. IT stopped reading Blu-Ray first then DVDs. I used to drop sync with the controllers, too. Incredibly frustrating when playing games, especially fighting games. It may still have the problem but I'm wired the few times I actually play it. It is mainly used for movies.
The other issue here is that UK warranties aren't limited to one year - that is the absoloute minimum they are obliged to provide.
The warranty extends to a period of reasonable expectation of correct operation of any product purchased in the uk.
Therefore if your PS3 stops working you have an argument that since it cost three times as much as a nintendo wii or twice as much as an xbox and is marketed as a premium product, and is still well within its expected life cycle you have a reasonable expectation for it still to be functioning, and more importantly, when the shop sold it to you there was a reasonable expectation for it still to work 18 months down the line.
Some shops will not buy this, however some will, I know someone who bought a vaio laptop that broke 15 momths after purchase, and he succesfully argued (at PC World of all places) that there was an expectation for it to last longer than a medion laptop, at they conceded and paid for a repair.
Sony have already said that they are NOT making money from repairs. Watchdog actually admit this. Now unfortunately sony are also still not making a great deal of money from the entire ps3 operation. extending the warranty for even the claimed 0.5 percent of customers might sound like a nice idea. In truth the cost of that measure over several years and into the future really outweighs potential for loss of new sales from bad publicity.
It is obviously faaaar cheaper to simply wind up the PR machine and set it off, and it does seem to be working as the reports have been mostly discredited.
Sony have already said that they are NOT making money from repairs. Watchdog actually admit this. Now unfortunately sony are also still not making a great deal of money from the entire ps3 operation. extending the warranty for even the claimed 0.5 percent of customers might sound like a nice idea. In truth the cost of that measure over several years and into the future really outweighs potential for loss of new sales from bad publicity.
It is obviously faaaar cheaper to simply wind up the PR machine and set it off, and it does seem to be working as the reports have been mostly discredited.
Can someone who's not a 360 fanboï or a PS3 retard (or is it the other way around?) post a useful comment? It's not about which console is the most durable, it's wheter or not Sony is hiding a well-known manufacturing problem that could cost a lot for the average consumer to have fixed because their warranty will be expired when the problem arise. Microsoft recognized they had such a problem and they extended the warranty of the consoles for it. Will Sony acknowledge theirs and do the same?
Reading between the lines, seems Sony is upset it did not think of the oven fix sooner.
Seriously is no-one going to comment about sticking the motherboard into an oven to cure soldering defects. My god, all 16 worked again!!! Wow. I mean if your item is out of warranty, u pay US$200 for repair or US$299 for a brand new slim one, you might just think - what have I got to lose?
Has anyone tried this technique? Does it work for say a computer motherboard? How hot does the oven have to be, to fix the solder but not fry the chipset?
Fine, I will say something useful. One person got it right. It has been mandated that all electronic chips no longer use lead based solders. Unfortunately, that is currently the best kind that can take the thermal abuse of sophisticated, compact electronics such as laptops and you guessed it...game consoles. All to save little Timmy from taking apart his game console, removing the chips and start licking the lead based solders. The same Little Timmy that is more likely to die from drinking household detergents or sticking a knife in an electrical socket. All jokes aside, not counting the amounts that end up in landfills and the health of random factory workers who do get paid lots of money for the danger, I WANT MY LEAD!!! Because I don’t like licking random objects, just random females…kidding.