PS3 overheating

[chikay]

My PS3 turns itself off after about 5 minutes saying it is overheating.
Can anyone help me please.

[safe-cracker]

open it up and clean the fans? if its in warranty check where u got it from and see if you can get some maintenance on it.

[BL4K3Y]

If it isn't under warranty, either perform the YLOD fix (that's what you will eventually end up with) or cut your losses and sell it then put money towards a new console.

[waqasahmed]

If you decide to fix it, then I'd recommend some Arctic Silver thermal paste instead of any old cheap rubbish. As far as cleaning fluids go, you could use arcticlean but I'd say standard isopropyl alcohol would do the trick

[pod76156]

have you updated the firmware3.61 recently, if not be careful as there has been a number of YLOD's related to this update.as mine did shortly after doing so. sony do not accept this though.

[BL4K3Y]

How can a firmware update possibly damage your PS3's hardware? I know a lot of people have updated and not one of them has had issues. If you check the #psgroove or #ps3fw channels on EFnet, you will see this for yourself.

[waqasahmed]

Originally Posted by blakey_8

How can a firmware update possibly damage your PS3's hardware? I know a lot of people have updated and not one of them has had issues. If you check the #psgroove or #ps3fw channels on EFnet, you will see this for yourself.

The fw update could potentially slow down the fans, and cause it to overheat. Some(very few) viruses can do this, which can render a computer absolutely useless

[BL4K3Y]

I wouldn't expect Sony to be so careless though. After all, they still have a very healthy profit margin with the sales of PS3 consoles drastically increasing because of the recent events (i.e. the jailbreak and custom firmware).

[waqasahmed]

Originally Posted by blakey_8

I wouldn't expect Sony to be so careless though.

That's what they thought before the hackers saw the private key in plain text. No encryption whatsoever!

Originally Posted by blakey_8

After all, they still have a very healthy profit margin with the sales of PS3 consoles drastically increasing because of the recent events (i.e. the jailbreak and custom firmware).

They lose $40/console actually. They hope to make money from fees they take for any games that are sold for the PS3. It is a lot better than before however; they used to lose about $400/console(ie $400 price, $800 cost to make)

Lots of companies work this way, including Microsoft, Epson, HP and the like

EDIT: It seems that they are now in profit, but they make lots more money on games than they ever have on the console:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39800/Sony-making-money-on-PS3-at-last

So whilst they make a marginal amount of profit on each PS3, they lose a lot of money for every game "acquired" and would lose more money from the lost sales than they would make from selling their PS3's. This is why they are so keen to protect their property. The money hasn't been in hardware for a very long time (unless you happen to be Cisco or BT)

This does however mean that the PS4 will be cheaper to make than the PS3, considering the considerate cost reductions found(cutting losses of $400/console, and having some quality kit is pretty impressive really)

Back to the OP however, get some isopropyl, get some flux, get a heat gun, get some thermal paste ie: Arctic MX-4, get some cotton buds and possibly tooth pickers. This should cost around £25, I believe.

Either that, or put it up on eBay and hope to get around £40 it

[PerryCox]

Originally Posted by blakey_8

I wouldn't expect Sony to be so careless though

Having spent a couple of hours reading other peoples emails (for teh lulz of course), I'm quite sure Sony do make mistakes.

Regarding Sony's losses per console, I watched an interesting video the other day about this. The video made the point that Sony was getting it's new BluRay format into homes, at a cost, in order to avoid the hammering they got with Betamax happening again. Short term hardware losses for long term media format royalties.

Of course, this is in addition to the licencing monies from games.