Well, after having some minor issues getting progressively worse, my PS3 has finally gotten to the unusable state.
I've been having problems with data corruption from Call of Duty 3, then videos downloaded from the Playstation Store, then demos downloaded from the Playstation Store. The problems ranged from CoD3 freezing in the middle of online play and not able to start up again without deleting the multiplayer patches and redownloading them (several times in some cases), to videos macroblocking and finally stopping with a message saying the data is corrupt, to game demos not even installing or not playing due to corruption if the install was ever successful.
Things got seriously bad this past Friday when my PS3 froze while playing CoD3 online. I had to restart the system by holding down the power button for 10seconds. When the PS3 started back up, it kept hanging at the auto sign-in to the Playstation Network (the "Signed In" message stayed on the upper right corner of the screen and the PS3 would not respond to any controller actions). Talked to tech support, and I was able to get the PS3 to go past this point by unplugging my network cable (I figured this out without their help while on hold). Support offered to have my PS3 sent in and a refurb sent to me to replace it, but I declined the offer for the moment to see if it would work by doing a system restore (reformats the hard drive and deletes default data...effectively restoring the PS3 back to its "new" state but keeping the current firmware version intact).
After letting the system restore run overnight (took about 4 hours), I tried the PS3 the next day. Many of the same problems occurred. I was able to play MotorStorm without any problems, but anything using the hard drive for storage of videos or game patches would not work.
Called tech support again on Monday, and they had me remove the hard drive to ensure no pins were messed up...which they weren't. They asked me to do another system restore after replacing the hard drive, so I ran this overnight again. The next morning, the PS3 would not even get past the power up screen that happens before the XMB. Called tech support on Tuesday, and I setup the exchange of my PS3 for a refurb.
I honestly think its just the hard drive going bad, and I wish they would offer to send a replacement hard drive instead of a whole different PS3 unit. But I am happy that Sony has not given me a problem exchanging the PS3, and I get a whole new 1 year warranty starting on the date Sony ships my replacement instead of my original purchase of mid December.
Hope none of you PS3 owners have problems with your units, but rest assured that Sony's service seems to be fair and responsive...so far anyway.
Anthony
I've been having problems with data corruption from Call of Duty 3, then videos downloaded from the Playstation Store, then demos downloaded from the Playstation Store. The problems ranged from CoD3 freezing in the middle of online play and not able to start up again without deleting the multiplayer patches and redownloading them (several times in some cases), to videos macroblocking and finally stopping with a message saying the data is corrupt, to game demos not even installing or not playing due to corruption if the install was ever successful.
Things got seriously bad this past Friday when my PS3 froze while playing CoD3 online. I had to restart the system by holding down the power button for 10seconds. When the PS3 started back up, it kept hanging at the auto sign-in to the Playstation Network (the "Signed In" message stayed on the upper right corner of the screen and the PS3 would not respond to any controller actions). Talked to tech support, and I was able to get the PS3 to go past this point by unplugging my network cable (I figured this out without their help while on hold). Support offered to have my PS3 sent in and a refurb sent to me to replace it, but I declined the offer for the moment to see if it would work by doing a system restore (reformats the hard drive and deletes default data...effectively restoring the PS3 back to its "new" state but keeping the current firmware version intact).
After letting the system restore run overnight (took about 4 hours), I tried the PS3 the next day. Many of the same problems occurred. I was able to play MotorStorm without any problems, but anything using the hard drive for storage of videos or game patches would not work.
Called tech support again on Monday, and they had me remove the hard drive to ensure no pins were messed up...which they weren't. They asked me to do another system restore after replacing the hard drive, so I ran this overnight again. The next morning, the PS3 would not even get past the power up screen that happens before the XMB. Called tech support on Tuesday, and I setup the exchange of my PS3 for a refurb.
I honestly think its just the hard drive going bad, and I wish they would offer to send a replacement hard drive instead of a whole different PS3 unit. But I am happy that Sony has not given me a problem exchanging the PS3, and I get a whole new 1 year warranty starting on the date Sony ships my replacement instead of my original purchase of mid December.
Hope none of you PS3 owners have problems with your units, but rest assured that Sony's service seems to be fair and responsive...so far anyway.
Anthony