Hi all im not sure if you fellas and ladies are aware of the yellow light of death.This is the equivelant of the red circle of death on the xbox 360. The problem occurs due to indutry standard solder products which are lead free which means today's solder is more brittle. The signs that i noticed are random freezing where the ps3 could not be turned off by the controller or by holding down the softkey below the blu ray drive. A full power cycle i.e. on/off was the only method of reseting.Thinking about it this has been reset atleast 5 times in my ps3's lifespan due to this freezing issue but in the last week of the machines life i reset it 3 times so you can only assume the solder deteriated at a accelerated rate.
What can you do?
I was already managing the heat so unless you liquid cool the gpu's it boils down to a game of chance.You can however backup your hardrive and sync your trophies eveytime you log in.This way when you get your machine back or purchase a new one you can be as close to to your last save as possible.
What does sony have to say?
Upon calling sony i realisied these guys are morons they could not confirm they reball the gpu's to the board but with a 3month warranty after the repair and a staggering bill of $250 is 3 months worth it when a new ps3 with a 3year warranty is $560 and a controller.I think now sony are incredibly smart as i think most people will proably get the new machine nice profit margin sony no better than a crack dealer.(damn you coz im going to buy a new machine)