Over the past 2 weeks I’ve come into the possession of quite the atypical piece of gaming tech — a PAL format PlayStation 3 console. This is odd, of course, because I’m in the United States and we aren’t exactly in a location where a PAL system has any real use. Still, it came through the shop doors and eventually wound up coming home with me after quite the random chain of events.
Let’s start with 2 weeks ago. I got a call in at work with a customer asking if we repaired PlayStation 3 consoles — that this one wasn’t powering up. I told him sure, bring it on in and we’d take a look. He said he believed it was one of the “fat” ones; an original model. I told him it may not be a cost effective repair, but we’d see.
Move ahead an hour or two, and he comes in. Super nice guy, he wanted to see about getting the system fixed so that it would be used for the breakroom at his own workplace. A perfect option, I’d say!
The system comes in, and it is indeed a “fat” model PlayStation 3, Spider-Man font and all. The first thing I do once I have it in my hands is look at the ports on the front to see if it has 2 USB ports or 4.
For those who don’t know, or don’t remember, the very first PlayStation 3 consoles released were able to play PlayStation 2 games as well as original series PlayStation software. This feature, at least regarding PlayStation 2 capabilities, was changed slightly before being completely discontinued pretty early in the systems life, leaving the console only able to play from disc PlayStation and PlayStation 3 games — no PlayStation 2 support existed beyond a select set of digitally purchased game options.
This system having the 4 ports meant it was, in some form or another, capable of playing PlayStation 2 games. These systems sadly do have high failure rates (somewhat similar to, but not as infamous as the Xbox 360 “Red Ring of Death”) but if it was only the power supply being dead and not another issue alongside that it would be worth the repair. In a “no power” state however, one can’t really tell ahead of time.
I looked over the system a bit more to make sure I didn’t see anything obvious — broken power port, HDMI, or the evidence of a roach infestation – and that’s when I saw the thing that made this odd — this was a PAL unit!
Now, at the time I didn’t notice the voltage rating on it. This will of course come into play later in the story, but for now I realized this was sort of a stopping point for this repair. I told them it was a European console and while it would play PS3 games fine, they would have issues with most films and any older games they may want to run on it.
With this info in mind, the customer decided against the repair and, since the system was now effectively useless, they left it for us to use it as we may need parts, what have you. That happens often, actually, but usually the system is too far gone to even be salvage — the parts that we would usually need are what’s dead on it!
This PlayStation 3, however, was a bit of an enigma. It could be perfect. It could be trash. Who knows? I began to grow curious about it and wonder what could be done if it was functional? What if it’s fine? What if we replace the power supply and it works? What could I do with it personally?
I already had a PS3 that I found while thrifting (a 2001 series “slim” model) so I didn’t need another one, but this was too much of a fun project not to pass up.
So, after many days of forgetting it even existed as it sat next to the trash can to eventually be tossed outside, I took to the backroom, put a note with my name on it, and got ready for a day when it could be cracked open and we could test the power supply, working our way through the same troubleshooting we’d do on any customer repair to see just what shape this thing is even in.
What follows in the next entries in the series include cases of us missing the blatantly obvious, me learning the hard way just how the PlayStation 3 actually works, and a magical “AHA” moment that happened just earlier today that made all the time and effort worth it.
Of course, more will come — on Monday. Enjoy the weekend, readers!
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