The Tale of the Thrifted Playstation 3

I'm still a little frustrated at this find because we just can't get it to work. But I thought I'd go ahead and share our Playstation 3 story...

I went to Goodwill Outlet Saturday morning, and went through most of the bins with a still-empty basket. It was a little disappointing to not find anything good after searching through so many bins, but I had a couple more rows to go through.

That's when I heard a woman telling her son that there was a Playstation in the bin. I thought it was probably just an old one, so I kept going while they looked at it. When they set it back down and walked away, I went over to the bin to take a peek...and there it was. A Playstation 3 console! It had a cover on it, so you couldn't see the huge 'Playstation 3' across the top, but that's definitely what it was.

Playstation 3: Goodwill Outlet ($6)

All that was missing (other than the cords) was one of the front panels, which is just decorative. Figuring I had nothing to lose but a couple bucks, I went ahead and got it. It was weighed by the pound, and it ended up being six dollars for the console with an 80G hard drive.

I was super excited to get this home, take off the cover, and give it to Josh. While I figured it wouldn't work right away, I thought we might be able to fix it. So I took the cover off and waited for Josh to come home from work.

With the Dark Knight cover off, it looked pretty good! And when I plugged it into the wall, it turned on and cranked up! I took that as a good sign that we might be able to get it running. When my hubby got home from work, he couldn't believe that I had thrifted a PS3. I knew it was a pretty great find, but he was really excited.

That's when the real fun started. We plugged it into the TV with all the correct cords and hit the on button. It was so exciting to see something start to come up on the screen...until we saw what it was.

Apparently, our poor thrifted PS3 has the 'red screen of death.' Dun, dun, dun. I googled and you-tubed the heck out of the issue, and we tried all the possible fixes but one. (And there are a lot.) The only thing we haven't tried is heating up the motherboard to melt some of the components back together. (Just because that sounds a little crazy and is something Josh will have to do.)

But for now, we are the proud owners of a six dollar Playstation 3 that proudly displays a red screen. And nothing else! (We are gladly taking any suggestions you might have. :))

Always,
Amanda