Rockstar Games and Sony Joint Statement on L.A. Noire

Rockstar and Sony have both received a very small number of customer support questions about PS3’s overheating or shutting down while playing L.A. Noire. At this time, Rockstar Games and Sony can confirm that neither L.A. Noire or firmware update 3.61 are causing the PS3 hardware to overheat...

[joeyisback]

bull ive had my ps3 phat since 08 and never over heated but now since ive played la noire it over heats within 30 mins the fans get loud and louder till i turn off for a few called sony said it would be 99.99 plus tax :/

[Dir_en_grey]

most are just a timely coincidence due to dust building up inside over time.

BOTH PS3 and 360 die mostly by the same cause, the snapping of the non-leaded solders both companies use (used for for environmental reasons I guess, but they snap easy).

When over heated and cooling down, sometimes they just snap. To fix this you need to "re-flow" the board which melts the circuits and thus melts the snapped circuits back together.
That's why there's "the towel trick" which purposely overheats the system in hopes the circuit will melt back together correctly (dumb trick betting on random luck, so don't do this).

360 died often at first because of the internal design was bad, it didn't let enough heat escape in the first place, and when dust got inside, overheat happens.

It's the exact same thing for PS3's. Both systems needs to take in air to fan out the heat. If there's any dust it will go in and get trapped inside over time (even if you clean the outside often)
For PS3's, no matter how well it was designed, after 2 or 3 years some people just get too much dust caught inside the system, which causes the overheat.

If your system is shutting down often but can at least start up, there might still be hope, air blow it or open it up(look at youtube vids to take it apart) and clean the inside. You might not even need to re-flow the system.

Official Sony Microsoft and 3rd party back yard repairs all do the same process for re-flowing, by melting the circuits. Just uses different equipment and different experience.

If they have proper equipment and melt the circuits evenly, even a 3rd party can do a good job and you can save yourself some money.

But just know that even the official companies will not know where exactly the snapped circuit is, they just melt the whole thing as evenly as they can. But sometimes a snapped circuit won't melt back evenly and will snap again easier and easier.
It's the reason why 360's fail rate on repaired consoles were so high.
Same with PS3 too, once it had a re-flow there's no telling when the circuits are gonna snap again. It could be perfectly fine and never break again, or it might break a week later.

My best suggestions is, if you care about your saves, get a new system and back it up to the new system once you get the re-flow.
If you don't care about your saves, you can either just buy a new system and save the money of re-flowing, or keep paying for the re-flow every time your system dies.

If a firmware or game make the system run too hot, then everybody's should die, but that's not the case. Every system owner should clean their systems often, inside and out.

[kneon]

Exactly, once my PS3s are out of warranty I crack them open and clean out the dust, dust is the enemy!!

With about 50 million of each console out there there will always be some that are failing. Even if the failure rate were only 1%/year that would mean about 500,000 per year, or about 10,000 per week, or over 1300 per day.

[axerated]

@joeyisback if u take out the continuous play protection scheme on ur ps3 then it will be insured for 4.99 a month, and whenever it has problems they will replace it within 2 days, I've replaced 2 faulty ones using this scheme and it's pretty hassle free!

[thespaz]

Mine has been perfectly fine.

Then again, I keep my PS3 in a well ventilated area.

[Orion]

Weird. The fans thing happened to me two days ago, playing Red Dead Redemption. Have a PS3 slim for 1 year and a half. That's the only time that happened. I just switched it off, cleaned it a little bit (first time also lol), and... well, looks like it's fine now :)

[Dir_en_grey]

Fan ran loud because the system sensed over heat and told the fan to run harder.
And yes you were right this is due to dust built up inside over time.

Everybody should take more care of their systems and remember to clean the inside by using a air duster from time to time (just don't shake the can before using which will blow liquid into the system).

[xyxzor]

Like they would openly admit there's issues, especially after PSN was down lol.

[fluffydelusions]

I have an 80gb I've been playing on for 6-8hrs a day since tuesday...no problems thus far.

[BlackTar187]

I have a old 20 gig from release that i have been alwso playing for 4-6 hrs a day and no problem.

i actually haven't had a problem ever and i got 3k trophies so i think im just lucky

[LoneWanderer09]

Mine is perfectly fine, i already completed L.A. Noire and am working on the street crimes on Free Roam and i have no problems at all

PS. I have the Slim PS3