PS3 dead - again

What else needs to be said.

The PS3 shut down a couple of times yesterday in a spurious fashion, before finally giving up the ghost once and for all. It's what is termed affectionately as the yellow light of death. There seems to be quite a few videos on YouTube with the exact same behaviour so I'm not alone.

Turn power on, red light.

Press power button, fans whoosh, green light, yellow light, red light - 3 short beeps.

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that after a call to Sony in the UK, they are prepared to replace my 60Gb PS3 with another one, even though the unit is out of warranty.I bought the PS3 in April 2007 so this is one hell of a goodwill gesture on Sony's part!

I've been the proud owner of the original Playstation, a slimline PS2 and the first PSP. So I must admit, it has troubled me that the PS3 has been this unreliable.

The bad news is I face a wait of a couple of months. The reason being, Customs here tend to view items like this as items you have to pay import duty on - as if you are bringing the unit into the country to sell, and deprive the government of funds. Not so in my case, and last time I left the country, I had to obtain a special letter from the Customs people (Aduana) to enable me to take the PS3 back to Britain and return without it being impounded.

I may send the unit back to my parents via DHL/FedEx, and Sony UK will then arrange for a courier to pickup/replace my beloved PS3. I'll probably have to wait until friends come over from the UK in January before I see the PS3 again :-(