- Joined
- Jul 25, 2013
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So, I'm on my third PS/3 in about five years. The first one began a slow death one cold winter's day, I believe while I was playing Fallout 3. It just started "freezing", with the disk I/O light flashing madly. I made a mistake and pulled the power cord after about five minutes of frustrated waiting, plugged it back in and got the nasty "You didn't shut me down right! Now I have to see if my disk is OK." message. (Ok, the wording was different, I don't remember it, to be honest). Over the next few days, the "freezing" seemed to get worse. No amount of bribing or cajoling helped - neither did carefully blowing out the PS3, reformatting the disk, etc. So, it eventually got binned.
The second PS/3 lasted 1 year, 1 month - almost to the day. It began simply shutting itself off - then proceeded to do the strange "freezing" thing. This time on Skyrim - a notorious source of load for these consoles. I decided to get a bit proactive about it, and disassembled the PS/3 - it being out of warranty anyway. I basically modded it to fit into a PC case, put liquid cooling on it - went all out. It performed very quickly and flawlessly until the coolant leaked...
Third PS/3 - starting to do the same thing. It's not quite a year old yet. This time, on Fallout: New Vegas. (I've noted that all three games share the same antiquated Bethesda engine). Today, I've formatted it and dropped in a 240GB Intel SSD in the hopes that that'll help performance. I have read that the reviews of an SSD PS/3 are mixed, at best - I figure it can't hurt to try, at least - if nothing else, it'll decrease the thermal load.
More information:
- House temperature is a stable ~72 degrees fahrenheit.
- It's kept relatively dust free.
- The PS/3 is stationed on TOP of an entertainment center/platform. Ventilation is not an issue.
Can I do anything at all to preserve the life of these things? Or is it time to just build a damned gaming PC and be done with them?
I really like the PS3 for the "one-shop" ability to play Netflix, Amazon and use a PS/3 media server to play other things.
Given my history, though - I'm damned reluctant to pay money for a PS/4.
The second PS/3 lasted 1 year, 1 month - almost to the day. It began simply shutting itself off - then proceeded to do the strange "freezing" thing. This time on Skyrim - a notorious source of load for these consoles. I decided to get a bit proactive about it, and disassembled the PS/3 - it being out of warranty anyway. I basically modded it to fit into a PC case, put liquid cooling on it - went all out. It performed very quickly and flawlessly until the coolant leaked...
Third PS/3 - starting to do the same thing. It's not quite a year old yet. This time, on Fallout: New Vegas. (I've noted that all three games share the same antiquated Bethesda engine). Today, I've formatted it and dropped in a 240GB Intel SSD in the hopes that that'll help performance. I have read that the reviews of an SSD PS/3 are mixed, at best - I figure it can't hurt to try, at least - if nothing else, it'll decrease the thermal load.
More information:
- House temperature is a stable ~72 degrees fahrenheit.
- It's kept relatively dust free.
- The PS/3 is stationed on TOP of an entertainment center/platform. Ventilation is not an issue.
Can I do anything at all to preserve the life of these things? Or is it time to just build a damned gaming PC and be done with them?
I really like the PS3 for the "one-shop" ability to play Netflix, Amazon and use a PS/3 media server to play other things.
Given my history, though - I'm damned reluctant to pay money for a PS/4.