|
|
|
AFTER TWO DAYS of PS3 fanbois crying over broken units it looks like the cause of the network glitch has been found, thanks to PS3 users on the #Efnet IRC network and not Sony.
Eurogamer reported yesterday that the fault, which denied PS3 users access to the Playstation Network (PSN) and corrupted trophy settings, was down to an ARM Syscon processor. The only job the processor had to do was work our how to process a leap year and it failed spectacularly. Apparently the same chip was responsible for dazed and confused hardware failures in Zune players and limited numbers of Blackberry devices were also afflicted.
PS3 users on the #Efnet IRC network believe they have pinpointed the problem and devised a fix. Like clearing the CMOS on your motherboard, the problem can be halted by removing the internal battery, leaving it out for ten seconds, and then putting it back in again. No problem for geeks with chipped consoles but a pain for anyone else who doesn't want to invalidate their warranty.
Quite how many users this problem hit is up for discussion. Sony initially said a few thousand with old, fat P3S3s were having problems accessing PSN. But extrapolate that to potentially hundreds of thousands or even million who found their consoles kicking them offline when they weren't accessing PSN and you have a serious issue.
Sony remained tight-lipped on the ARM issue and hasn't validated the fanbois' chatter with an official response and maybe won't. The issue has resolved itself without any intervention from Sony so maybe it hopes to sweep this one under its carpet along with the dust bunnies and fag butts.
Bring on the next leap-year. µ
Maybe not rendered completely useless but the PS3's primary audience wants to play games on it, not watch movies so to many, it was rendered useless
Rendered useless?
Hardly!
Okay so maybe it wouldn't do it's main job (play games) but it still played DVDs and streamed content from PS3 Media Server so I was a happy enough bunny.
All I noticed was a message saying that a 'Network Error' occurred. Until I read the articles on the net about it, I thought it was down to a connection problem from one of my PCs to the PS3.
Rob
it all comes back to nvidia. PS3 should have gone with ati it's all nvidia's fault shame on them. And this new web layout sucks ass on this site.
That wasn't the problem. The problem was a conflict between the hardware and software. For whatever reason, the hardware chip believed the Date should be February 29th, the OS, which likely had a separate calendar database, could not convert the "binary" date of Feb 29 to appear in the OS since it believed one does not exist and outputted a default date (Jan 1 2000, or something like that). Therefore, all "user saved data" became haywire because of this issue. This affected users who never access PSN or "checked in" online.
It's somewhat typical of Sony to try to shift the blame. Keep in mind that ARM doesn't make processors, they just sell IP to companies who do. In the end, it's that company's fault.
Anyway, the network being down for one day, effectively rendering thousands, if not millions of consoles useless for that time is a major issue regardless: the whole concept of having a device that must report to a central server is a bad idea in the first place, and this was a nice demonstration.
For the record, this poster does not own any games console.
But it's not a leap year....
It was 1 day that the network was down, and it seemed like it was the Xbox fanboys that were crying, trying to make the issue bigger than it actually was.
- Microsoft and Sony say no new consoles this year
- Activision releases first downloadable content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
- Microsoft will ditch its Points virtual currency
- Consoles are set to get digital download charts
- Onlive gaming will be pre-loaded on all Google TVs
- Sony apologises for Playstation Vita
- Star Wars: The Old Republic goes live
- Grand Theft Auto III hands-on review
