I've seen this posted in places and I'm wondering if the crashes and resets by that off button in the front (Is it called a hard reset?) that I've been experiencing and having to resort to are actually damaging my PS3. My old, 40gb PS3 got the yellow light of death last September and I got a 160 gb slim replacement in October. If it breaks, I'm not getting another replacement. What should I do? Can hardware actually be damaged by this?

I don't know, it's kind of mixed feelings on the forums about that. I think if you have a slim you should be alright. I think all of the posts I've seen about damaged systems are the old models, so you should be good. if your constantly restarting your system though, you should play it safe and either shelve it (the game) for future patches(if they ever come) or sell it. I sold mine I got too fed up with it, and I preordered the CE game and guide for a total of 140 CND... I've never felt so ripped off in my life.

[censored] YOU BETHESDA!!!!

I have a been playing on ps3, and i have been able to, stop lockups and systems crashes (a least 90% of the time)
every time i go into a new area (for example mojave station for repairs, or gun runners to buy stuff)
Before i do anything , start buying or initiating conversation with anybody (immediately after you enter a new area)
i hit the save button on my ps3 (if the save icon is not lit or shaded) i wait till it is, before i do anthing.
For a while there , everytime i go into mojave station for repairs with the major (lots of loot onboard) it would lockup.
Hope this helps, it's a hell of a game, sans the lockups.

what? save button on the ps3? like the system itself? as far as I know, there isn't such thing. do you mean you just save your game?

totaly screwed my original ps3, ruined the hdd and caused overheating problems. Funny how unlucky us first gen ps3 owners are to all have FONV in the drive when it happened, a little more than co-incidence!!! I know of 4 other dead 1st gens in my town, all worked perfectly for years before they got FONV.

total cretins that released this game... i mean beta, full of bugs without a warning that it cud destroy the system.

on a lighter note went into game shop and saw a whole display of brand new FONV for ￡25 or ￡19.99 pre owned last weekend. i did well paying ￡45 for a new game i cant play, which killed the system, i shud have waited got it half price..... or not at all.

I was another that had my original PS3 coincidentally die while playing FONV after experiencing dozens of in-game bugs.

On the slim now, with increasing amounts of freezing/crashing issues.

Switching any device on/off lots and lots of times (which basically a reset is) have a small chance to hurt electric hardware. For example, lightbulbs pretty much only die when you turn them on for the thousandth time (or whatever), they never die while they are on or when turned off.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is an extremely unlikely thing to hurt the PS3. Old-fashioned lightbulbs are a much more unreliable than the PS3 (or any modern piece of electronic hardware) in this regard.

As I see it, the two main things that can cause a PS3 to die are overheating (which pretty much only happens to older models, more explained below) or that the blu-ray drive die (optical drive issues were present on both on the PS1 and PS2 and are to an extent present on the 360 and PS3 too). This is why I wish all PS3 games supported 100% game installs, as the less the blu-ray drive is used, the better. Faster and more reliable.

Any complex piece hardware can of course die in multiple other ways too, but these are what I consider the two most likely bad things that might happen, not that it's switched on/off a lot.


Indeed. The older PS3 and 360 models have their YLOD and RROD problems, which both originate from overheating issues.

This is because they are energy hungry machines that consume about 200W during 100% workload (of which a lot is transformed into heat) and kept in a relatively small case so overheating issues are somewhat likely to happen. This has nothing do with the actual game as it's a hardware fault. Software can't never use more than 100% of the hardware and if the cooling isn't enough to deal with 100% of the hardware working, that's not an issue of the software.

The newer PS3 and 360 models are much more energy efficient, and thus generate a lot less heat, and are therefore more reliable. The http://www.justpushstart.com/2010/07/30/new-ps3-model-now-more-eco-friendly/, which I would consider safe. The PS2 launch model consumed about 100W, and I've never read anything about it having overheating issues.

Granted, slim models can still get hardware issues, but as far overheating issues are concerned, they are a lot less likely to get them.

I imagine you were the mod that cleaned up a bit? thank-you, and sorry about the off-topic personal exchanges, but... wow..... :facepalm:

on topic, thanks for the information, finally a smart, sophisticated and researched answer to a question that has been tossed around and debated for a little while now. I thought it may have to do with the hard resets all the time, but it seems the overheating issue is the cause. I never knew they used so much power...thanks again.

well, my GPU is now F'ed. Was working before F:NV Crashed on me several times. Now everything I play gets the Polygons off into infinity glitch.

not even the XMB is displayed correctly? try a system restore, google "PS3 forums safe mode". you'll want to select "restore file system" from the safe mode menu.

Tried that on Sunday. Haven't played my ps3 munch since. Will let you know if it fixes anything.

Add another 60gb fat with a FONV disk stuck inside the system. Got GT 5 and FONV for Christmas. played the heck out of GT 5 until i thought it was safe to play New Vegas, even did some B Spec endurance races leaving the PS3 on overnight this last Friday. Decided to try FONV Saturday night after seeing a patch was out.

Everything went well. no lock-ups or freezes just a few studders here and there. until Sunday night while in the Casino in in Primm saved the game and exited to the main screen. that is where my PS3 died. red light blinking.

Its hard to blame the game.I have noticed odd sounds from the PS3 lateley and decided to back-up all my saves thinking the HD was going.

I thought it was silly to blame software on hardware failures.....I will keep saying that while i tear apart my dead PS3 to get my FONV disk out crying the whole time.

@ Fredo:
You give a really definitve argument. I had an original fat 60 gb launch that died with New Vegas in the system around Thanksgiving. My system is in an open air environment and my apartment does not go any higher than 60 F in the winter and I restrict playing in the summer because I don't run an AC. Sure I had it for 5 years without much of a problem, but the only crashed I've ever had was with Fallout 3/GOTY, Oblivion (much more rarer than the former and later) and New Vegas. I had it crash once on me with Assasin's Creed 2, once with Red Dead Redemption, and MAYBE, I'm not sure, with Heavenly Sword. I took very good care of it. Vacuumed the in/out takes of the system every 2 weeks. These games can not be that taxing on the Playstation hardware, I mean, look at others that blow the Fallouts and Oblivion out of the water in terms of graphics, there are many games out there (Uncharted, MGS 4, KillZone, God of War) that are FAR more demanding of the system that any of these. And no problems. I'm SOOO excited about Skyrim. But, I'm jaded. The game looks amazing, but I'm on a 2nd fat 60 because I didn't want a slim. I wanted 4 USB ports, 3 flash card drives and my original $600 investment. I didn't even get that. Sony sent me a refurb of the same model year ($139 later). I understand what you're saying, but it DOES not justify selling a crappy product. I would have gladly waited another year for NV to come out, but I now understand why Fallout 3 only got patched once, and New Vegas 2.5 (trophy update don't count) times. Bethesda is working on Skyrim and have been for (allegedly) 3 years (since Fallout 3 came out). I eagerly await RAGE, because I think Id can deliver, they always have. It'll be released when its done. Although, this is the rare ocasion that they gave a definitive release date.