The most common problem you are likely to have with your Playstation 3 is overheating, shown by a blinking yellow light. However, there are other problems you might encounter as well, such as freezing or a flashing red light. Returning it to Sony is quite expensive, apart from the fact that it means you have to do without it for several weeks. So it is helpful to know how to fix your ps3 yourself.
The appearance of the blinking yellow light when you are using your ps3 is something that makes your heart sink. It is sometimes known as the ylod or yellow light of death, and is generally thought to be caused by overheating. If you think your ps3 is overheating, the first thing you must do is switch it off straight away saving your game progress if necessary. By switching it off as soon as you notice the light, you prevent any more damage than has already been caused to the internal components. Leave it to cool down for at least 30 minutes.
The next thing to do in learning how to fix your ps3 is open up your console and remove any dust that may be clogging any of the parts, especially the heatsinks and the two main fans on the motherboard. Use a can of compressed air to blow the dust away and do not touch any of the parts, especially the motherboard. You also need to clean the ventilation grilles on the console in fact this should be done regularly to prevent overheating in the first place. Also remember to check all the cables to make sure they have not worked loose. If none of this works, you can try gently taking out your hard drive and then replacing it. Another thing you should check is whether your wireless router needs resetting. Or, in fact, you can get rid of it altogether and use a wired connection. The wireless router can cause a lot of issues and errors if there are disruptions to the wireless network connection. If you want to keep the wireless router, you can download the update to a USB pen drive from your computer, and use that to load it on to your ps3.
It is of course possible that the appearance of the yellow light could be due to something other than overheating. To check this, you can carry out a console “reset”, by pressing the touch power button while the ps3 is in standby mode, and holding it down till you hear a series of beeps. If you then follow the instructions that come on to the screen, this should return your ps3 to its factory condition without interfering with your saved games.
The steps you use to deal with the overheating could also help with other problems you may encounter, such as freezing, or the flashing red light. The red light could just mean that there is too heavy a workload on your console, or it could indicate a more serious hardware error. In either of these situations, try restarting the console. Then unplug and re-insert all the cables, and finally remove and re-insert the hard drive. It is well worth learning how to fix your ps3 yourself, and these steps will deal with the majority of issues that arise.
