PS3 green screen malfunction/ green light of death?

Tech Talk
1

PS3 glitched while playing a game and froze. I cut the system off then restarted it, only to see the PS3 start up screen turn a glitchy green color. At this point the entire screen is covered with a green Matrix-like pattern.

If the system is powered down and allowed to cool off completely, upon restart it will operate like normal. You can even start games fine. Only until the system begins to give off heat does it return to the green light of death. This normally means 4 minutes of play time before lock up. What part on this thing is causing this? How much to fix?

2

Here is how to do a manual Reset of the PS3. See if this will work for you.

http://www.thetechgame.com/Forums/p=17302849.html

By the way the Light of Death on a PS3 is Yellow, not Green. On the PS3 Green is good, yellow is death, red is off/ Standby.

3

PS3’s and XBox 360’s both continue to run hotter than the last generation of systems did.

If you’re smart, get a snap-on cooling fan for your system – that’s for both Fat and Slim PS3’s. ESPECIALLY the earlier Fat PS3’s. It will prolong the life of the unit considerably. Sure, the system is louder with the external fan — GET USED TO IT. It’s better to have the fan there and not have to ship the unit back to Sony and get a refurbed (someone else’s used/“fixed” system) unit in the mail.

I don’t trust either Sony or MS at this point in time as far as console builds go. They’ve both had issues with their consoles since they entered the console market. Both companies demonstrate a remarkable lack of concern about the quality of their finished product and obviously don’t test the units to death before they market them. I’ve never heard about as many defective units being sold and people buying third and even fourth systems as much until this generation!

Original design PS1’s were notorious for overheating and had the freaking cooling vents on the BOTTOM of the system and not on the top and sides to allow hot air to escape.

We now know that the 360 was engineered and manufactured poorly to begin with and that MS was aware of the problem shortly after launch.
Sony did improve the PS3 somewhat with the slim design but it still has the heating issue. Cooling fans wouldn’t be being sold in stores if the problem didn’t still exist. The cooling fans do work and draw considerably more hot air out of the system. The best cooling fans are the ones with their own power supplies… they don’t work the PS3 even harder by drawing on its power supply.

4

I have the same issue with a ps3 atm… And it is infact a green light of death… The system powers on normally, and the screen glitches and freezes there… Doin the reset will only work for so long, and reflowing the thermal paste doesnt change anything, I dunno what causes it or how its fixed but nothin I tried works… So I sold the hard drive and now the ps3 is sitting

5

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, breathes** WRONG, WRONG, WRONG**

I strongly disagree, I seen external cooling units cause consoles to overheat more as it interferes with the built in cooling fan. Especially models made for original XBox 360s. You never want a fan over another fan forcing air, you will burn out of those 2 fans out. External Cooling fans are a waste of money, can void your warranty (read the MS Xbox 360 warranty carefully).

The Fat PS3s are not known for overheating, I left my originally 80 GB Fat PS3 run for 3 days straight running* folding @ home* and it was still cool.
1 out of 1 thousand (or so) PS3s will have a hardware failure, well with in acceptable tolerances for a product failure rate.
The hardware failure rate of a Xbox 360 (both fat and slim) is now Averaging 48.6%, most from bad design and QC, but alot made worst by owners who didn’t know how to take care of there consoles as well.

For the PS3:
The First 20, 40, 60 units had the better 19 blade fans over the later consoles that had 15 blade fans. Ether way the PS3 fat cooling fan is a beast, its like a turbine compared to most cooling fans. Slapping some El-cheapo 60mm PC fan masquerading as a PS3 accessory would do more damage than not having one at all.

There were problems, but it was more due to error of the Owner than the manufacture, Putting a console in an enclosed case or area with out air ventilation.
Current gen consoles must have 4 sides clear of obstruction to properly cool them selves, meaning if you have the system horizontally, the front, back and both left and right sides have to have atleast 6 inches of air space to cool.

Most Entertainment center furniture has enclosed spaces for entertainment equipment, ether a wooden or glass door closing off the shelf space from outside air, with rear openings only big enough to feed power and video cables though. Having the system on top of a towel or carpet is also a bad move as it blocks air vents, holds in heat and lint can clog air paths. Cooling fans isn’t a response to issues with the console, but to sucker in uninformed customers.

Yes and no. With the exception of fat Xbox 360s, the internal cooling fan best left alone to do its job alone.
Most 3rd external fans interfere with the normal internal fan operation, ether forcing too much air in the WRONG direction or negatively impacting air follow.

If you really want a better cooling fan for your console, you have to replace the stock cooling fan with an aftermarket fan.
For the fat PS3s this mean a 19 blade or better fan that meets or exceeds the specs of the 19 blade fan that in the earlier model consoles
For fat Xbox 360, you want to look for a damn fan that will pull enough air.

Ether console I recommend tailsmoon brand aftermarket fans. Avoid XCM.

Note: Doing a fan replacement will void your consoles warranty and makes you un-eligible for Microsoft or Sony’s repair services.