PS3 Won't Turn On? You Might Be a Victim of the YLoD

You're entering your sixth straight hour of COD 4, when all of a sudden your 50" plasma goes black. Your brain spends a couple of seconds scanning for some explanation as to why you were frozen in your endeavor to pawn smack-talking newbs with your golden Desert Eagle. With no such luck, and a sudden jump of heart-pumping worry, an unexpected beeping resonates from your PS3. The light goes red.

You dab your finger onto the sensor-like power button. It beeps as if restarting, however, it does not boot up. Instead, the brilliant green light immediately goes yellow, then red, followed by the same unexpected beeping. You stop breathing a moment in panic. Something is wrong with your insanely expensive PS3.

To the possible hundreds of gamers who've experienced this phenomenon, this is referred to as the YLoD (pronounced why-lod). The YLoD is an ever-growing problem and feared acronym for PS3 users meaning "Yellow Light of Death". At this very moment it is probably assassinating yet another helpless gamer's PS3.

You have gotten the YLoD. Your PS3 is officially broken. Now What?

An hour or so of reading your Playstation 3 User Manual later, you'll realize there is no real advice or explanation for this sneaky little yellow light. At first you may be inclined to believe you are left with two options for researching this issue.

Waste another precious hour of your life reading the FAQ and Support information at the Playstation site, or start hitting forums and talking to other gamers.

More than likely you'll find neither are that helpful. The Playstation site wants 24 hours to get back to you on a trouble ticket you submit via email; and will inform you within its less-than-helpful FAQ that if you decide to send them your console for repairs its service center makes no attempt to salvage your data from your hard drive. So likely, you will lose all saved games, downloaded games, and other data. Also, they make no guarantee to return your original console. You may instead be sent a refurbished one of equal value. If you were lucky enough to snag one you may end up having to say "bye bye" to your backward compatible awesomeness.

If you do decide to go forum jumping the majority of info out there is YLoD complaints and vague explanations of what causes the YLoD. (Including that the YLoD is potentially the same warning for a number of hardware failures, and you may have to troubleshoot numerous pieces of hardware to narrow down the problem).

Overall there are more broken PS3s out there than fixes; and if you plan to have Sony fix it the general YLoD victim consensus is not only do you have to pay to ship your system, but if your warranty is expired expect to shell out a minimum of $150 (US dollars) to have it repaired or replaced.

Don't panic callused-thumbs gamer. There is hope.

So if your PS3's warranty is shot, what's a Playstation junkie to do?

Rest assured my dear gamer there is light, dare I say a beautiful (and lasting!) green one, at the end of this tunnel. Scanning the web lead me to two promising alternatives. One for the electronically savvy, and one for the...well, electronically challenged.

If you're electronically savvy, you might just be able to fix it yourself.

Really! No kidding! From the depths of popular and remote gaming forums alike, arises the Slayer of the YLoD, Colin Gilks. Colin has spent 16 years in the electronics business and currently works for a company that makes ultra sonic flow and level sensors.

This electronic and gaming genius tackled a friend's PS3 on his own after the YLoD had roared its ugly head, only to successfully remedy the issue. After some other volunteers donated their broken PS3s to Colin he began to discover that his fix was resurrecting other PS3s affected by the YLoD. He was seeing a pattern in the form of what he currently calls, "...an obvious design flaw," involving the motherboard, and decided this must be the largest cause of the YLoD. He began getting the word out about his fix, helping other YLoD victims repair their own consoles. As I write this article the net becomes slowly but surely populated with people who have successfully gotten their PS3s working again because of Colin's miracle cure.

Eventually he created a PDF manual to show PS3 owners how to cure this injury themselves, which recently led to a YouTube video series of the operation. For an explanation of the cause and fix, you can access the PDF here or the video series here.

Note that this procedure will require you to take apart your PS3, and as a result you will be breaking warranty labels within the console. Do not perform this procedure unless you are absolutely comfortable with the guts of a PS3 console and how they operate. While the video is ultimately helpful, it will not hurt to read the manual first and fully understand Colin's directions. Colin is not responsible for any damage done to any console. Perform this at your own risk!

Don't want to fix it yourself? That's cool. There's another way.

While the path of the less adventurous PS3 owner is not nearly as cheap as fixing it oneself, it's cheaper than sending it to Sony by about half. And, unlike Sony, these guys will keep your console's HDD information if it is salvageable. (Which by the way, it usually is.) No lost games, data, or media! Plus, they'll share the burden of the shipping costs with you.

Yeah, it really is a pretty sweet deal.

Patrick Warburon, Josh Homer, and Dustin Knight - three owners of a company called Knights Gaming Repair out of Salt Lake City, UT. For $80 (US dollars) through their eBay store these guys will repair your broken PS3 and provide you with a warranty. (They actually make special mention of their ability to repair the YLoD.) If they can't fix it, you get your money refunded minus the shipping. Although with a 100% feedback rating, I'd say not too many people have been disappointed in their services.

To check out Knights Gaming Repair, you can visit their eBay store here. Understand however, that sending your PS3 to a third-party repair shop (like fixing it yourself) will result in the breaking of internal warranty labels.

These options are most beneficial to the PS3 owner who has a lapsed warranty. If your warranty has lapsed but you are still unsure about these alternatives, do not hesitate to contact Sony. Just be prepared to pay $150 and probably lose your saved HDD information. Good luck!

Sources:

Sony Computer Entertainment
Playstation Online Service FAQ
Playstation.com

Colin Gilks (A.K.A. colinjester)
PS3-Hacks Forums
PS3-Hacks.com

Colin Gilks (A.K.A. colinjest) / Multiple Forum Members
afterdawn.com Forums: Ps3 YLoD attempted fixes. Any more ideas?
afterdawn.com

Patrick Warburon
Knights Gaming Repair
KnightsGamingRepair.com

Multiple Forum Members
Will Sony fix a out of warranty / voided / modded PS3??
Playstation.com