I suppose my experience with my PS3 can only be described as a series of bad decisions.
Around August of this year, my 80GB non-BC PS3 began to yellow light periodically (if I tried turning it on enough times it would eventually turn on). Eventually, it did not turn on at all. So, seeing as my PS3 was purchased less than a year ago (as a gift, mind you -- this is key), I figured it was still under warranty, called Sony up, and asked them how much it would cost to fix my PS3, serial number in hand. When asked if I had proof of purchase, I then asked the people who bought it for me if they had a receipt (it was a collaborative purchase across a few people) -- of course, no one could provide. So, Sony tells me it'd be $150 for the fix. Figuring I could buy a new one for not much more than that, I opted to attempt to fix it myself considering I'd had some experience in the area.
So a buddy of mine and myself open it up and perform the usual -- re-apply thermal paste and reflow the motherboard (we would have loved to clean out the dust, but there was none). Still no go. So I decide to take it to a shop that claims to fix ylod PS3's for $85 (Global GSM in Scarborough. Avoid them like the plague, if only because they were extremely slow and did not price as advertised). So I do. He calls me up the next day and tells me my motherboard is fried and that it'll now be $160 to pick up my PS3; after I tell him that I'm not going to pay that much, he says he'd already performed the motherboard swap and given me a new serial number, and that it was too late. At this point I was too frustrated (or potentially eager) to say no, so I ended up paying the $160. Based entirely on my history with my PS3 to that point, I asked him what warranty accompanied this repair: He told me that I was covered for 30 days. Fine. I didn't expect to use the warranty, but I kept the receipt anyway.
I also asked him what was wrong with my PS3 to cause it to ylod in the first place; he tells me that the motherboard was fried because we tried to fix it. I told him this couldn't have been the original cause considering I only opened up my PS3 in the first place to fix it, and I wouldn't have had reason to fix it if there weren't a problem to begin with. This argument goes nowhere and I never find out exactly what caused my PS3 to ylod in the first place.
So, lo and behold, not ten days later, my PS3 is now turning itself off, with the light going out after varying periods of gameplay (In fact, I can see the console losing power even if it's not in use -- the red light indicating that the console is powered has come and gone three times over the course of my typing this). I call him up, receipt in hand: He tells me that the warranty did not recover the repair but the motherboard itself and that it would be $85 to replace the PSU. So here I am stuck with a PS3 that will play games for a little while and then turn itself off shortly thereafter, very adamant not to pay this man another cent.
