PS4's internal clock battery could brick your console

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

One of humanity's greatest mistakes was allowing this statement to become normalized.

Are you under the impression that I have never fixed something before

Or did you want me to put new filaments into all my light bulbs

[Beskamir]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

Are you under the impression that I have never fixed something before

Or did you want me to put new filaments into all my light bulbs

Neither, I was merely addressing that the "meh, you can always just go buy another one" attitude is cancerous for society.

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

Neither, I was merely addressing that the "meh, you can always just go buy another one" attitude is cancerous for society.

and 10 years from now they'll be making new ps4's?

[Beskamir]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

and 10 years from now they'll be making new ps4's?

Obviously they won't, hence why I really want manufactures to be designing stuff with longevity and repairability in mind so that the product can last for as long as possible. Unfortunately designing products with longevity in mind isn't nearly as profitable as designing stuff to eventually break or even just using awful components to save 5 cents per product.

 

Had Sony designed the PS4 with longevity in mind the battery would be easily replaceable without requiring PSN or hacks to get it working afterward. Sure, that's not as bad as other manufactures but I think there's still a lot of room for improvement. Besides comparing with the worst is kind of pointless when trying to improve repairability as we want companies to improve rather than get worse.

[FRD]

I also thought this was a joke at first with McDonald's being the expert here.
Maybe in the future the PS4's PS Store will be removed, but I think PSN is here to stay for now.

By the way, this really reminds me of my original Xbox. It has the clock capacitor rather than cmos battery, but it's a ticking time bomb if it's leaking and it could brick your Xbox as well. Kind of similar to this new situation. My Xbox has been working fine for almost 20 years now though.

[Colty]

I don't see a time server being turned off for the PS4, I can't even imagine it being a different server between PS3/PS4/PS5. People also used some simple manual settings and a PC program to continue playing online PS2/OG Xbox games. I'm sure someone will have an exploit ready to trick the PS4 into accepting a time from your local PC if need be, no hacking needed. 

[Awesome84]

On 3/26/2021 at 12:55 AM, Pickles - One of the Jar said:

Source

Well, this was unexpected. Rather crappy too! I can understand the reasoning behind it, but you are telling me, 5 years down the line my console could basically become useless? Great. Fun! The fact it needs to connect by to PSN is a bummer to. If and when PSN goes away for the PS4, then that means the console is offically done if the battery goes. Which it will. Hopefully Sony has something to say about this. 

Has PSN even been killed for the PS3 yet?

[jagdtigger]

6 minutes ago, Awesome84 said:

Has PSN even been killed for the PS3 yet?

Fired it up on the weekend, it logged in and was able to use the PS Store.

[Awesome84]

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Fired it up on the weekend, it logged in and was able to use the PS Store.

Nice!

[Kisai]

On 3/27/2021 at 6:41 PM, Beskamir said:

Neither, I was merely addressing that the "meh, you can always just go buy another one" attitude is cancerous for society.

Look at the SNES to see how well that is working. All launch-model SNES models have CPU's that die spontaneously. Only some launch-model SFC units (1/1/1) and late model SNES models with the C CPU (2/1/3) appear to not have this problem. The last model of the SNES produced is actually less compatible because they made an entirely new chip with the previous chip dies.

 

Unless there becomes a standard socketed "console CPU", RAM, and GPU parts that can be replaced, repairing a console will remain impossible for end users, and most will likely end up recycle/landfilled rather than repaired.

 

Like again, with the SNES and NES, the parts are proprietary, but the SNES just dies without ever being turned on. The one saving grace of the Sega SG3000/Master System, and Genesis is that the CPU (Z80 and M68K) are off-the-shelf. Even the Apple II (6502 same as NES), Amiga (68K), Mac II (68K), and so forth all used off-the-shelf parts, even if they weren't socketed in all of those. FPGA replacements for all of these consoles and computers are now available, but FPGA's will never be able to reproduce anything more complicated than a PS1 because the cost of the FPGA's would outstrip the price of the console's original retail price. Heck, the NT Mini, Super NT, Mega SG, and so forth are all more expensive than the original retail price, but they can all play more than the original retail consoles can.

 

 

[jagdtigger]

21 hours ago, Awesome84 said:

Nice!

 

[Colty]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

 

As someone who has been planning to buy a Vita for years (just always waiting for a bargain) this hurts me. I have so many PS+ games on the Vita and a number of PSone Classics to play on it, but I will be stuck modding the Vita to play a huge number of games I would have otherwise paid for.

[Distinctly Average]

On 3/27/2021 at 2:33 PM, gloop said:

If PSN for the PS4 gets shutdown, changing the CMOS won’t fix anything as it requires a connection to prevent ‘cheating’. You’ll be locked out of all disc and digital games unless you mod. 

Or you just buy a PS5 and use all your PS4 games on that.

[Mark Kaine]

So just to be clear this doesn't affect PS3 consoles? 

 

Also weird Sony apparently didn't learn anything from ApocalyPS3, since this seems even worse (ApocalyPS3 only downloads were affected,  disc games had no issues iirc)

 

Yeah, recalling it mostly correctly,  the similarities to this are striking however 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2010/03/apocalyps3/amp

[Dabombinable]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:08 AM, Distinctly Average said:

Or you just buy a PS5 and use all your PS4 games on that.

Some games have issues or glitches still. Or outright give you a warning (eg. NB2K 2020 <could be 2K games being arseholes though).

[Distinctly Average]

17 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Some games have issues or glitches still. Or outright give you a warning (eg. NB2K 2020 <could be 2K games being arseholes though).

Yeah, could be. Probably see some of those fixed in time.

 

Just spent the morning re-capping my old Amiga A1200 before it is too late. I do get the desire to keep things going. In the case of the PS4 I would hope that before it is too lat Sony will patch it or the community will. We will probably see a shed load of things like this happening in the coming years. It’s a shame, but kit cannot go on forever. In my world, mainframes and high end enterprise products, it makes me scream to see stuff less than five years old being scrapped. Not because it is not working, or doing the job. It is a case of protecting businesses by having supported kit and parts availability. Seeing millions of pounds worth of kit scrapped every year isn’t exactly green.

[Beerzerker]

On 3/28/2021 at 2:01 PM, FRD said:

I also thought this was a joke at first with McDonald's being the expert here.
Maybe in the future the PS4's PS Store will be removed, but I think PSN is here to stay for now.

By the way, this really reminds me of my original Xbox. It has the clock capacitor rather than cmos battery, but it's a ticking time bomb if it's leaking and it could brick your Xbox as well. Kind of similar to this new situation. My Xbox has been working fine for almost 20 years now though.

Have one and it hasn't been used for a long time now, plus it's never been ran alot anyway since new. However even with that a cap can swell anyway so probrably need to check this one and recap it if I spot a bad cap.

 

 

On 3/29/2021 at 1:55 PM, Kisai said:

Look at the SNES to see how well that is working. All launch-model SNES models have CPU's that die spontaneously. Only some launch-model SFC units (1/1/1) and late model SNES models with the C CPU (2/1/3) appear to not have this problem. The last model of the SNES produced is actually less compatible because they made an entirely new chip with the previous chip dies.

 

Like again, with the SNES and NES, the parts are proprietary, but the SNES just dies without ever being turned on.

 

 

I've never heard of this before but certainly possible in any instance. I can say my SNES works fine to this day and I got it new back in the day.
My top loader NES works fine as well along with all else I've got including a Dreamcast I got "Just because".

I've even bought a non-working "Regular" NES off of fleabay and fixed it. One of the easiest things I've ever done TBH and the repair itself really didn't cost anything except my time to do it.
Since the fix it's been working great. 
 

[Kisai]

9 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

 

I've never heard of this before but certainly possible in any instance. I can say my SNES works fine to this day and I got it new back in the day.
 

As I said, the SNES will just die. Mine was left in it's original box for a while when I moved and didn't work after. Another one purchased used and it likewise died randomly. I had to buy three used ones before I got one that worked. Hence, non-launch model SNES (the last two models of the SNES integrated the APU and the final model is a 1-chip model (the "mini/jr" redesign)) are the only models that are safe to buy (1993 model SNS-CPU-GPM-02 with S-CPU B and S-PPU2 C).  SNS-CPU-APU-01 (1995) is the last model before they integrated all the gpu parts into the cpu, but at a cost of compatibility.

 

More to the point, the model I originally had was a model that wasn't discolored with age, while the first used one the top shell was discolored. So those are from different ends of the production process, and the serial numbers reflect such. If you are trying to get a working SNES, GPM-02 (1993 model) or later is the best chance. 

 

If you look on eBay you see a lot of "parts/repair only" for the SNES. It's probably more reliable than the Xbox 360, where every model RROD's before the S model, because Microsoft couldn't be bothered to put a good enough cooler in the unit.

[Beerzerker]

Mine is a model SNS-001and has never failed to work for any reason (Yet.)
It's been used and has also sat for a long time but in every instance it's worked fine whenever I try it.

I'm sorry to hear your experience has been different as in bad, nothing I can do about that. 

Eventually everything quits, that's just how it is but if this one were to quit now I can't complain.

[FRD]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:42 PM, Beerzerker said:

Have one and it hasn't been used for a long time now, plus it's never been ran alot anyway since new. However even with that a cap can swell anyway so probrably need to check this one and recap it if I spot a bad cap.

 

 

I've never heard of this before but certainly possible in any instance. I can say my SNES works fine to this day and I got it new back in the day.
My top loader NES works fine as well along with all else I've got including a Dreamcast I got "Just because".

I've even bought a non-working "Regular" NES off of fleabay and fixed it. One of the easiest things I've ever done TBH and the repair itself really didn't cost anything except my time to do it.
Since the fix it's been working great. 
 

Actually it didn't run every year since release, it was stored for many years, but it still works fine.

Not perfectly though, after long time of no use on every restart I need to set the date. I just keep it at default (2001 or something) and press A.
I always thought that it uses a CMOS battery like computers, but a capacitor. Do you think I should leave it like this if it or take out the capacitor? I don't really feel like fiddling with a in my eyes good working console though.

(Sorry for being off-topic by the way)

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, FRD said:

Actually it didn't run every year since release, it was stored for many years, but it still works fine.

Not perfectly though, after long time of no use on every restart I need to set the date. I just keep it at default (2001 or something) and press A.
I always thought that it uses a CMOS battery like computers, but a capacitor. Do you think I should leave it like this if it or take out the capacitor? I don't really feel like fiddling with a in my eyes good working console though.

(Sorry for being off-topic by the way)

You need to replace the cap, no sense in just risking it. If it's an older style cap (I believe those are) they can leak and cause damage to the system, effectively killing it.
Replacing a cap if you can solder is a quick fix, need to check mine one day and see if it's OK or not.

Speaking of batteries, I did a mod to a PS2 Slim I was tinkering with to make it so I woudn't have to go with the more expensive 2032's with the little pigtail plug.
Took advantage of a dead board I had, robbed it's battery holder and went from there.
Had to use alot of silicon to keep the battery wires below where the game disk would be spinning, aside from that it wasn't hard at all to do.


 

[FRD]

2 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

You need to replace the cap, no sense in just risking it. If it's an older style cap (I believe those are) they can leak and cause damage to the system, effectively killing it.
Replacing a cap if you can solder is a quick fix, need to check mine one day and see if it's OK or not.
 

Okay. I can solder gladly, I just need to find the cap. Gladly there are some tutorials on YouTube.

[Quackers101]

Well SONY is going to shutdown their older stores, now its PS3 in a couple of years it could be for the PS4?

Also an reason for piracy to exist, when certain content will be lost into the abyss of PS exclusives.

 

To some issues that could be related to PS5, and hopefully the PS5 don't have the same issue as the PS4 in this case.

Heard a few units of the PS5 wasn't too good when first bought, and if heat or metal liquid (if it was PS5 that had it) could be an issue.

[Beerzerker]

PS5's are TIMed with LM and if I ever were to get one that would be the VERY FIRST thing I'd fix about it.
LM in a machine like that long term means it won't last for too long.

You'll probrably get 3-4 years max before the LM has eaten enough of the cooler way to start affecting temps and then keeping the CPU cool is a real problem.
Any one wanting to keep one of these around for a long time will have to do something about it.