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Thread: WipEout HD crashing regularly

  1. #1
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    Default WipEout HD crashing regularly

    Hey guys.

    I've been tackling this problem for at least 2 weeks and I've no wonder what has been causing it. I'll go on wipeout probably every night and there's a good chance it will freeze my PS3 completely every few races. I didn't have this problem earlier on it just seems to be the past 2 weeks or so... and it happened not 20 minutes ago when I was in the middle of hosting a pretty intense phantom tournament (GGs everyone in that room who may be reading this!)

    It is becoming a bit of a nuisance, since it is probably making me look like a bit of a rage quitter online when really it is completely out of my hands xD

    I've noticed it tends to happen moreso if I'm about to get hit by rockets or a quake (something explosive that takes up most of the screen), and it'll crash in the middle of me getting hit.

    I was wondering if anyone out there experiences or has experienced the same issue and whether they can think of a fix or not...

    If it helps, my PS3 is one of the fat fat original models, 60GB in size.

    I appreciate any help that gets thrown my way.

    Mark.

  2. #2
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    Did you update your PS3 to the latest firmware? If you already have, then is your PS3 in quite a spacious area where dust can't easily enter the casing and also where the PS3 can't heat up? I've had friends with the kind of the same problem and they solved it by cleaning their PS3 and moving it to a more airy place so it won't heat up as much. There's no guarantee that this'll work for you in particular but it's worth giving a try.

  3. #3
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    After suffering the death of a old FAT BC 60g PS3 myself, and having helped many people out at the technical section of the official Playstation forum, I'd say get prepared for your console to suddenly die on you, it's started showing the symptoms [momentary freezing] that start to happen before the Red or Yellow light of death suddenly appears.
    What happens with the old FAT 60G versions of the PS3 is that they used a "Green" type of solder in manufacturing to connect the CPU and the GPU onto the motherboard, this solder Sony used when these consoles were made is notorious for suffering "Dry Solder Joints".
    When the console heats up when turned on, these solder joints expand, when the console is turned off they contract again, eventually the solder gets cracks in it, and over time these cracks become so big that the electrical connection starts getting broken [which is where it appears your console is at now]
    All of a sudden the cracks in the solder will be so big no electrical signals will be able to be passed at all, that's when your console will suddenly show either the Red or Yellow light of death and it won't turn on.
    You won't be able to save any data if that happens, and if you send your console to Sony for repair they automatically wipe the contents of your HD as a security measure, so again you lose all data.
    Believe me, you don't want that to happen.

    Firstly, ASAP back up all your gave save data, with HD/FURY you will find a lot of small individual files, most of them will be your ghost save data for each track/speed class, you can easily fit all of them onto a 1G USB stick.
    Same goes with all your other game save data, then if [more like, when] your console does die at least you can reinstall it, either when you get your console fixed or on a new console.
    If you have Music & Photos/videos you want to keep, back them up to a external HD.

    As it's a old PS3 it will probably be out of warranty.
    Sony charge a arm and a leg to fix these old consoles, and they do a crap job of it as well
    They reheat the solder with a heat gun so what little solder is left, remelts and reconnects the chips to the MB, then adjust the thermal prob so it firstly starts the fan running at top speed at a lower temp, making the console ridiculously loud, and also set the thermal overheating alert to tell you to shut the console down at a lot lower temp than what it used to[which if you live in a climate like Sydney's, the alert is telling you to shut down 290 days of the year, making the console useless] , plus as mentioned before they wipe your HD.
    If you go to Sony they wil most likely offer you the choice of getting a refurbished unit...up to you...personally I wouldn't do it.

    Your best bet is to Google for a "None Sony" console repair place near you and get them to fix the console, they will do exactly the same repair, charge less, and not wipe your HD
    The result will be the same [a temporary fix, the console will probably last another couple of months at best, then fail again], then it's time to buy a new PS3.

  4. #4
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    Oh my god that's detailed. Explains a whole lot. I guess I can now tell my friend that this is gonna happen to his PS3.

  5. #5
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    Recently, my PS3 sometimes has problems to start up. My model is the 40 GB version, circa 2008.

    I'd like to say this doesn't always happen when I want to turn my PS3 on.
    Once I do so, after a while, the LED changes to yellow and then to red quickly, with a triple beep. After that, the console won't start up while the red LED flashes continuously. In this situation, I have to press the On/Off button so the LED stops flashing (and thus, turning off the PS3) and later, I turn it on again.
    After all this, my PS3 either repeats the same actions stated above, or start up normally, usually at the second attempt.

    I've read the blackwiggle's post, and I don't know if the symptoms he described will be similar to my PS3 after several months, and later on, it'll be doomed to crash forever. Any advice or tips for my problem will be appreciated.

  6. #6
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    Thanks for the very useful replies everyone!

    I have just finished re-downloading and installing WipEout HD, I also moved my PS3 to a place where it is likely to be better ventilated. I am hoping this solves the problem (I'll let you know how it goes on), otherwise I fear I may be going PS3 shopping for christmas!

    Not that I'm disappointed, this PS3 is very old (we got it pretty much within a month of release) so for it to have lasted this long with no problems whatsoever I'm quite happy about (even though my Wii has lasted longer and still has no problems , xbox is another story which we won't go into).

  7. #7
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    The 40GB consoles used the same solder as the first backward compatible 60GB models, they were made to be just a cheaper buy in price for a PS3 at the time, plus Sony wanted to lose the backward compatibility because they were having problems with PS1 & 2 discs not reading depending on region or what print run the disc was.
    I'm afraid Ragsus, your console sounds like it is a LOT closer to dying than LightningRacer's.
    And by turning off the console at switch at the rear you can do irreparable damage to the HD; The disc is still spinning, it has a set of little arms that run across the disc slightly above it, that write/read the data from the disc.
    When you turn it off at the rear you are stopping the arms mid disc, and they can touch the disc surface, corrupting the data on it so it can no longer be read, or worse, the arm can get stuck in that position and freeze the HD.
    I'd back up your game save data as well.

    You could be suffering from a fragmented disc and the PS3 is having trouble reading the data, but it sounds more serious than that to me.
    To fix a fragmented disc, or just to get your PS3 running faster, follow the steps in the post at the link below.
    http://www.ps3trophies.com/forums/tr...ter-speed.html

  8. #8
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    Well this is terrible news. Does anyone know how to tell if your PS3 has been previously reflowed, like if you bought yours used out of the trunk of some dude on craigslist and it's obviously been opened before, are there any clues to look for inside?

    I bought my fat 60GB for $70, had a messed up disc tray. Turns out one of the motors in it is dead, but it still reads discs if you put them in by opening the top. I was about to buy a new motor for $15, now I'm wondering if it's worth it, since my PS3 has frozen a few times, usually at the end of a race right as I'm crossing the finish line.

  9. #9
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    If you had two BC 60GB PS3's sitting side by side, with one you know to have never having the "Heat-gun reflux treatment", well yes you could spot the difference.
    The one that had had the treatment would seem like it had quite a bit less solder around the prongs that hold the chips to the motherboard, that's because the heat gun melts what solder is there and some of it runs into the holes.

    If you live in the USA you are in luck though.
    The problem with FAT PS3's became so wide spread that some enterprising repair people devised a better solution, and that involved building a machine that removes the old solder from the chips & Motherboard, then putting totally new solder to secure the chips [ A higher lead content solder I imagine, that doesn't suffer the same problems as the stuff Sony used]
    Here's a link
    http://ps3repairman.com/ps3-repair-s...alling-service
    I wish it was available in Australia.

    The other option is to buy a heat gun and DIY, plenty of Youtube videos showing how to do it......I have a heat gun, I also build PC's, but I wouldn't try it myself.

    There was, for a short time, a water cooling chip plate manufactured for modding FAT PS3's....... now that I would fit in a heartbeat, if I could find one.
    Here's a link to pictures of a DIY water cooled PS3 so you can see what it entails.
    http://www.gearfuse.com/water-cooled...ound-to-do-it/
    I still have my old FAT 60GB PS3, so if I can find the water cooling plate, or designs that will fit, I will go down this path, as it is ultimately the best solution.
    Here is another link to somebody who took the guts out of their FAT BC PS3, water cool modded it, then put it into a HTPC case.
    http://community.us.playstation.com/.../td-p/31005058

    You can buy spare parts like disc drives for the PS3 easily if you Google [pretty cheap as well], replacing a disc drive involves nothing more difficult than removing the case, unwiring the power and signal cables, pulling out the old drive, put in the new drive, reinsert the wires, put case back on, your done.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qztw_aUBQhI

    ONE LAST VERY IMPORTANT BIT OF INFO.
    Some people are under the impression that you can take the HD out of a old PS3 and put it into a new or refurbished PS3 and all will work as before...WRONG!!!
    Also, say you bought a PS3 and replaced the HD with a larger one, then went to put the original back in...the PS3 will refuse to read it unless you reformat that HD....then if you do that, and you went to put in the larger drive again, the same thing will happen, all data on the disc will be unreadable.
    Why is this?

    What happens is that each PS3 has a identifying code, lets call it ABC for instance.....so the HD drive that came with the PS3 will be called by the PS3 BIOS ABC1...the PS3 will only read data from this ABC1 HD.
    If you want to later replace ABC1 with a larger capacity HD, well you have to save the game save data onto USB sticks or a external HD "BEFORE"! you put in the new, larger HD.
    This is firstly because Sony's PS3 operating system is not able to be read by PC's [Microsoft-the competitors], only a PS3 can read data stored on that HD.
    And secondly, and more importantly, once you put in a new HD into a PS3 it has to be formatted........this is when the PS3's BIOS names the HD...in this case it would name it ABC2.
    So your PS3 will only read the internal ABC2 data......if you were to try and put the ABC1 [original] HD back into the PS3, it would refuse to recognize it and not read it.

    A LOT of people have fallen foul of this when they have had a problem with their consoles, then have rung Sony to get a repair booked in, Sony has then told them to "If you have replaced the HD, please reinstall the original before you send it in".....then they get their console back, think they can put the HD they removed back in and all will be back to the way it was........Sony NEVER mentions this, and it's a blight that has caused many a pissed of gamer.
    So please be aware of this if you haven't heard about it before, it will save a lot of heartache
    Last edited by blackwiggle; 19th October 2012 at 08:09 AM.

  10. #10
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    Thanks very much, blackwiggle, although you've told me what I was expecting.
    Thank goodness I have an external HDD. (BACKUP ALL THE DATA!)

    About the switch, when I said "the On/Off button", I meant the touch-sensitive switch, not the rear one. Sorry for the confusion.
    Nevertheless, I'll do the defrag process just in case; I never knew there was such option.

    I need to stick with this console as long as possible until I can afford a new one. Again, thanks for the advices, blackwiggle.

  11. #11
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    Since I found out that the BC is imperfect on these models anyway (3 frames of lag even when playing in 480i on an SD set), I'm going to eventually sell mine and grab the new model. I'm just hoping it lasts me until then.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by blackwiggle View Post
    [Treasure trove of knowledge]
    You are the reason forums exist. Thanks.


    Quote Originally Posted by Pico de Goroh View Post
    Since I found out that the BC is imperfect on these models anyway (3 frames of lag even when playing in 480i on an SD set), I'm going to eventually sell mine and grab the new model. I'm just hoping it lasts me until then.
    I hope you'll be selling it for parts. Calling poorly refurbished/dying PS3s functional and selling them to people is pretty lame. I'm sure you're not happy the guy you bought it from might have done that to you.

  13. #13
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    It's not crashing like the OP's PS3. It crashes at very specific points and not with any frequency.

    Now that I know that it's likely it will go down the same road, I'll go ahead and sell it. Don't see a problem with that. A BC PS3 is a BC PS3. They have the emotion engine and bad solder. I don't feel obligated to tell anyone about the second part, Sony certainly did not.

  14. #14
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    My PS3 Randomly freezes when I play WipEout... Its quite rare but I don't know why it only happens when I play Wipeout, Because when I play other games it never freezes the PS3.
    BTW my PS3 is a slim 160GB, not the latest super super slim ones. Should I be worried that my PS3 freezes?

  15. #15
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    Nah - mine freezes during Wipeout now and again as well. Usually if I join a game and the race starts immediately...

    Also, recently it freezes for about half a second which puts me off my lines which is very annoying but it doesn't do this that often.

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