@MikeB

Quote:

Quickest solution to fix the problem is to format your harddrive on a PC, put it back inside your PS3 and let it format the disc as requested. The previous firmware update is still in the flash memory of your PS3 and this will be installed

They solved my worry of a full harddrive. Simply force users to reformat and dump all the cache and saved games with the new bios.

Seriously this along with the 360 issues seem to indicate that modern gaming is much, much more flaky then those Atari days. The need to backup a console is stupid. Alas I long for the days I can blow on a cartridge and the game would work again.

@BrianK

Just wanting to point out that I don't need to do anything more complicated with my PS2 than inserting a silver disk into a silver disk shaped hole. Its only this latest generation that has gone rogue.

This is what happens when the only role model the consoles have is the PC...

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Quote: No, your gpu won't overheat, but upgrade to their latest firmware and you risk losing everything on your harddrive. This is a worse situation than the RRoD issue as alteast there, the user's information was retained...and there was not charge for the repair... There's no need for repair, it's some sort of software bug which on some systems for some reason stopped installing the update (corrupt file?) in the middle of the install. Quickest solution to fix the problem is to format your harddrive on a PC, put it back inside your PS3 and let it format the disc as requested. The previous firmware update is still in the flash memory of your PS3 and this will be installed. Then sign into your registered account, everything you have downloaded before has been tracked, you can download everything again including everything you have bought from the Playstation store. Then you have to move your savegames onto the harddrive, hopefully you backed them up. Then everything's finally back to normal. Sounds stupid for Sony to mess this up though. Luckily nobody I know of has been affected by performing this update.

You call that a solution??
I highly doubt you would have said that if this was the 360...
Is it even possible to backup the savegames?

@Tomas

Major update with regard to the firmware 2.4 update!

At NeoGAF people were asked if they experienced these problems after the firmware update. Only registered accounts could participate cutting out the bulk of potential trolls.

After over 600 replies from users worldwide (multi--console users included), nobody experienced these issues!!

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=324089

It looks to have been a few isolated incidents and some fanboys and US media dragged the issue way out of proportions. Sony worried about the alledged mass report decides to pull the update to prevent it from causing any further potential issues.

You know how fanboys are, some do just about anything... This could have been a perfect launch for a very important PS3 update, instead again negative PR and FUD spreading.

It's BTW possible to re-create the issue on purpose, while installing the firmware update the user is specifically told not to turn off the console. Doing so can cause such issues.

Last edited by MikeB on 03-Jul-2008 at 11:07 AM.

@Tomas

Quote:

Is it even possible to backup the savegames?

Of course you can either backup the save files one by one, or you can use the backup utility which backups all you themes, photos, music, videos, save games, etc at once.

Last edited by MikeB on 03-Jul-2008 at 11:20 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Quote: No, your gpu won't overheat, but upgrade to their latest firmware and you risk losing everything on your harddrive. This is a worse situation than the RRoD issue as alteast there, the user's information was retained...and there was not charge for the repair... There's no need for repair, it's some sort of software bug which on some systems for some reason stopped installing the update (corrupt file?) in the middle of the install. Quickest solution to fix the problem is to format your harddrive on a PC, put it back inside your PS3 and let it format the disc as requested. The previous firmware update is still in the flash memory of your PS3 and this will be installed. Then sign into your registered account, everything you have downloaded before has been tracked, you can download everything again including everything you have bought from the Playstation store. Then you have to move your savegames onto the harddrive, hopefully you backed them up. Then everything's finally back to normal. Sounds stupid for Sony to mess this up though. Luckily nobody I know of has been affected by performing this update.

Hopefully indeed...

So now I need a second harddrive when I exceed the 40GB of storage and a backup for those harddrives... This console seems to get more expensive all the time...

Personally, I hope Nintendo never includes an internal harddrive. I guess Sony failed to look at the original Xbox's track record on those and I'm sure that's why MS initially didn't want developers depending on a harddrive anymore... SSD's and flash memory have come a long way and seem the way to go. Moving parts break. Things were simpler when the only moving parts was the optical media reader...

Last edited by Lou on 03-Jul-2008 at 12:04 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: It's BTW possible to re-create the issue on purpose, while installing the firmware update the user is specifically told not to turn off the console. Doing so can cause such issues.

I'm sure that method for bricking a console can be recreated on any current gen console...

So are you saying the users that reported problems simply turned off their consoles during the update?

Sony pulled the update. That tells me enough right there. To claim only fanboys of other consoles are having issues is pretty fanboyish, if you ask me... If that was the case, Sony would have replied with "don't turn off the PS3 during an update you fools"...

Last edited by Lou on 03-Jul-2008 at 11:58 AM.

@Lou

Quote:

Hopefully indeed...

If you are a PC user you will know, it's a good idea to backup precious data stored onto the harddrive. Harddrives don't last forever, compared to other parts they are prone to issues ranging from data corruption to complete failure.

The PS3 harddrives are more sturdy compared to the average PC harddrive for a few reasons, they use more sturdy 2.5 inch laptop drives and workload is far more divided between Blu-Ray media and harddrive, a Windows PC moves data back and forth to the harddrive continuously even when completely idle.

And with regard to you putting words into my mouth, no I don't think it were some fanboys doing this on purpose, but many fanboys spread the news like wildfire making degrading comments, also some fake internet accounts have been created to fake alledged issues.

@Space Druid
I have a PS2, not my first one, but it is working like a charm. Xbox still on my first 1. Alas the old days of reliability.

@MikeB
Quote:

After over 600 replies from users worldwide (multi--console users included), nobody experienced these issues!!... You know how fanboys are, some do just about anything...

You seem to be failing down here MikeB old boy. There's more then 600 users of the launch console still in use (I expect the 5 I know of aren't the only ones.) yet that doesn't exclude there was a RRoD issue did it? Also you seem to have the assumption fanboys only unfairly attack the PS3. If fansboys will do anything then there are certainly PS3 fanboys who have the problem but are keeping quiet because they don't want the 360 unreliability tag to carry over to their console, they'd lose a 360 attack point. So really your sentence, IMO, should be - over 600 users and no one's admitted to having a problem. Your sentence we can't verify except by heresay. My reworked version of your setence we can all log into NeoGaf and verify if that's the case or not.

@Lou
Quote:

So are you saying the users that reported problems simply turned off their consoles during the update?

Lou watch out fanboys will say anything.


@MikeB
Quote:

The PS3 harddrives are more sturdy compared to the average PC harddrive for a few reasons, they use more sturdy 2.5 inch laptop drives and workload is far more divided between Blu-Ray media and harddrive, a Windows PC moves data back and forth to the harddrive continuously even when completely idle.

Okay first it's unfair to compare the PS3 to the average PC because well as you stated it doesn't use the same drive. It's likely as reliable as the 2.5 inch drive which is commonly used in laptops. It might be more for reasons you've given such as division of workload with Blu-ray, and the PC moving data about. It's likely more reliable then other 2.5 inch drives in laptops because laptops are shaken, moved, abused all while running, this can be hard. However, IF they truly are more reliable has yet to be proven, afaik. Do you know of any hard data out there tracking failed PS3 harddrives vs failed other drives? Also does it track it by model? So is the PS3's Medalist drive more reliable then a laptop with a Medalist drive? Does it track it by hours in use?

@MikeB
Why is the update still not available then? I just turned on my ps3 and it still said no update available
I dont see why the should withdraw the firmware if it was a non issue.

Last edited by Tomas on 03-Jul-2008 at 12:40 PM.

@MikeB
Quote:

The PS3 harddrives are more sturdy compared to the average PC harddrive for a few reasons, they use more sturdy 2.5 inch laptop drives and workload is far more divided between Blu-Ray media and harddrive, a Windows PC moves data back and forth to the harddrive continuously even when completely idle.

2.5 inch drives are still less reliable than 3.5 in my experience.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Quote: Hopefully indeed... If you are a PC user you will know, it's a good idea to backup precious data stored onto the harddrive. Harddrives don't last forever, compared to other parts they are prone to issues ranging from data corruption to complete failure. The PS3 harddrives are more sturdy compared to the average PC harddrive for a few reasons, they use more sturdy 2.5 inch laptop drives and workload is far more divided between Blu-Ray media and harddrive, a Windows PC moves data back and forth to the harddrive continuously even when completely idle. And with regard to you putting words into my mouth, no I don't think it were some fanboys doing this on purpose, but many fanboys spread the news like wildfire making degrading comments, also some fake internet accounts have been created to fake alledged issues.

The average PC being sold these days are laptops.

Refer to http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/everybody-wants-a-laptop-these-days-134013

"Industry analyst Gartner reports that the globe's major PC builders have shipped more laptops than desktop PCs for the first time".

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jul-2008 at 01:21 PM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Tomas

Quote:

Tomas wrote: @MikeB Quote: The PS3 harddrives are more sturdy compared to the average PC harddrive for a few reasons, they use more sturdy 2.5 inch laptop drives and workload is far more divided between Blu-Ray media and harddrive, a Windows PC moves data back and forth to the harddrive continuously even when completely idle. 2.5 inch drives are still less reliable than 3.5 in my experience.

Depends on the manufacturer.

WD Scorpio® Black Mobile Hard Drives features;
1. WD's ShockGuard™ technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks during shipping and handling and in daily operation.
2. WD's SecurePark parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear and improved shock tolerance.
3. With free-fall sensor option.

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jul-2008 at 01:00 PM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

SpaceDruid wrote: @BrianK Just wanting to point out that I don't need to do anything more complicated with my PS2 than inserting a silver disk into a silver disk shaped hole. Its only this latest generation that has gone rogue. This is what happens when the only role model the consoles have is the PC...

The PS3 console didn't follow the PC; for example
1. PCs can reformat it's own hard disk via OS install CD/DVD.
2. Brand name PCs comes with "restore" DVD.
3. Some PC BIOS has failed flash recovery mode or twin BIOS.

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jul-2008 at 01:22 PM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Tomas

Quote:

2.5 inch drives are still less reliable than 3.5 in my experience.

Size is but one factor for drivers.

Google did a harddrive study LINK

One interesting find -- heavy data "grinding" is not a significant factor in failure. MikeB's point of the heavier PC usage of a Harddrive is therefore incorrect. A great thought but unfortunately the real life data proved it to be wrong. Heavier disk usage appears to have negliable impact on reliability.

@BrianK

Quote:

One interesting find -- heavy data "grinding" is not a significant factor in failure. MikeB's point of the heavier PC usage of a Harddrive is therefore incorrect

You are wrong they state harddrives in heavy use fail more often early in their lifecycle as well as later in their lifecycle. However for those which don't fail early within their lifecycle they have the following explanation as the results were unexpected for them (not a linear trend in course of time):

"One possible explanation for this behavior is the survival
of the fittest theory. It is possible that the failure
modes that are associated with higher utilization are
more prominent early in the drive’s lifetime. If that is the
case, the drives that survive the infant mortality phase
are the least susceptible to that failure mode, and result
in a population that is more robust with respect to variations
in utilization levels."

Still failure rates go up again when the older drives are still heavily used. It's still a relevant factor.

Last edited by MikeB on 03-Jul-2008 at 04:02 PM.

@ BrianK

Compare it with soldiers going to war, those who survive the first year of heavy fighting are better solidiers and manage to stay alive for a longer period of time afterwards on average than the RIP soldiers could, but still they start to die more quickly when they reach older age and are still fighting just as heavily.

@MikeB

Quote:

Try to play online multi-player in those games, to do so you will be required to download the latest updates.

Thanks MikeB! I checked the system settings, vibration was on. Going ONLINE did find an update to Motorstorm, but no vibration and none in the SETUP menu... But, AHA! Vibration was found in the start button pause menu with different settings. Set it to High and there it was, the familiar rumbling. Not overwhelming, but just fine, just fine. Goodie, goodie. Now I'm a happy camper. No complaints about either console. :)

I also re-checked my firmware and yes, I am running 2.40 and it is working just great. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't issues somewhere out there, but I am doing fine - that's all I can report. More time is needed to assess how wide an issue this really was or not.

My Xboxes are going fine too, although the launch unit hasn't seen much action since I got my Falcon. :)

@MikeB

Quote:

You are wrong they state harddrives in heavy use fail more often early in their lifecycle as well as later in their lifecycle.

Page of reference is 5/13.

You will see that heavy usage does make a difference in the 3 month to 1 year range. In the 2-4 year range (range of majority of failures) it doesn't. In year 3 heavy usage is actually better. Year 5 again goes up a bit.

My arguement here is you compared a desktop PC drive. The user of a PC does not have the heavy characteristic usage that Google would have. Heavy usage there are RAID sets with high rates of database usages. I'd argue their medium usage at best is what would constitute a similar PC desktop drive. In these cases the low and medium usage is nearly identical across the board. Month 3 and year 3 are exceptions where low usage actually appears to have a higher rate of failure then medium.

Sorry but I think the Google data here doesn't lend credit to your theory that the PC drive is going to be worse off then the PS3 drive.