Ps3 – PlayStation 3 wireless controllers won’t connect to the system, screen won’t even turn on

ps3technical-issues

I got a new game for the PS3 recently and was hoping to try it out yesterday, but to my surprise, when I turned on my PS3, two things happened:

  1. The controllers wouldn't connect at all.
  2. The screen started up, but never went to the menu.

I pressed the PS button on both of my two controllers and plugged both of them into the console separately, but to no avail. Today, I went to check on it and now the screen won't even turn on. Now I'm really worried because that means that it's not just a problem with the controllers, but with my PS3. I've had my PS3 since late December 2007, so I'm really hoping that my PS3 isn't having problems after just four years.

Now I've been trying to find solutions online and all of them that I've found so far have to do with holding the power button for 10 seconds. I've already tried this and it hasn't helped. Now I don't want to go to any drastic measures unless there is NO OTHER WAY of fixing it.

So I ask of you all: What is wrong with my PS3? How do I fix it?

Best Answer

In my opinion, your PS3 is as good as dead. Even if you manage to get it working in the short term, it won't last much longer in the long term.

I believe you have two options:

  • If you don't need to recover anything from your current PS3 (ie. if you've been using the PSN+ cloud service to backup your saved games), contact Sony and send your PS3 in for repair.

  • If you do need to recover data from your current PS3, you will need to have the PS3 repaired by a 3rd party service. Do not send it to Sony, as their policy is to format all received hard disks for privacy reasons. Sony may also send you a replacement, refurbished unit rather than return your original one, making your Backup Utility backup almost useless.

If you do manage to get your current PS3 working, you might be able to try a third option:

  • Buy a new PS3 and transfer your data over using the Data Transfer Utility. Do whatever you wish (repair/sell/etc) with your old PS3.

Don't bother with the Backup Utility. This is really only useful when you are upgrading the hard disk and may restore very little or even no data when restored to a different PS3 unit, as was my recent experience.

Best of luck.

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