Please Allow Me to Vent For a Moment

Last March my PS3 unceremoniously broke while I was playing Oblivion. With no warning it just stopped being able to play discs. Several months and a $200 loan from my parents later I have a working PS3 again courtesy of Sony tech support. Since then I have been extremely paranoid about my PS3 convinced that even the slightest bump or nudge might break it again. So imagine my horror when my beloved console started emitting loud feedback noises and displaying flickering lines across the screen whenever it was used.

At first I was angry, thinking that it was about to break again just as my extended warranty was up. But then I realized that the noises and lines showed up even when I hadn’t put a disc in and seemed to get better or worse at random. So I poured over Sony message board posts and tech support pages trying to figure out the problem but kept coming up empty. Finally under a heading that didn’t make any sense (at least to me) Sony advised me to try to unplug any coaxial cables connected to my TV. The moment I did this, the horrible noise and flickering lines stopped. Apparently the signals from my cable provider were interfering with my PS3. Thrilled, I played Street Fighter 4 for the rest of the afternoon in celebration and later pulled my roommate away from studying to play Virtua Fighter 5.

As I said above, I really am glad to have found the source of the problem, but unscrewing my cable connection every time that I want to play a game is a real pain. Mostly it’s annoying because my hands become spastic whenever I try to screw the cable back in. And just leaving the cable plugged in all the time isn’t really an option because the noise and lines had been getting bad enough to drown out dialogue and music in games.

Writing this I feel kind of pathetic for complaining about something so silly. But if anyone can understand my frustration I think it would be the Bitmob community. So thanks for reading/listening!

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Comments (10)

Sounds like you're getting some cross-talk on your cables. From what I understand, all coaxial cable should be shielded to avoid this sort of thing, but if your installer used some cheap stuff or the cable is at some point damaged you can get some bleed off of the RF signal being sent through the cable. Try replacing the cable you use to connect your TV to the wall.

Travis McReynolds, October 20, 2009 02:31

Better than a red ring of death! :)

Dan "Shoe" Hsu, October 20, 2009 04:04

There was a lack of swearing, name calling, and general anger for this to be called venting. ;) I agree with Shoe. NOTHING is as bad as the red ring of death. I am going to have a red ring painted on my coffin.

Lance Darnell, October 20, 2009 06:30

To Rachel: my sympathies on the system problems. I'm lucky enough to have a stable PS3 and a cable provider that uses cables that are worth a crap. No shame in venting frustration. Thas what blogs is for! To lance and Dan: Yeah. You all continue on with your life of fear of the red ring. I've had 10 x-box 360 failures. Only 3 of which were red rings if my count is right. the rest were overheating and disk drive malfuctions. A system being on the blink is a frustrating mess and I feel for anyone who has to deal with it.....i just won't listen to anyone claim they've had a worse experience then I have except that one guy who made the news for 9 system deaths....i was at 7 when he was at 9. Lord knows how high he is now if his luck continued as mine has. PS. The best buy warranty system is a godsend that has saved me a mess of trouble on my last 3 360 failures. exchange in the store is a lot more painless then going through tech support...to inevitably be replaced just as if you had exchanged it at the store most times.

Jeffrey Sandlin, October 20, 2009 06:55

That sounds like a pain in the ass. I mean it's good that it wasn't broken, but that's ridiculous that it doesn't work when you have that cable connected. I've been fortunate enough to only have one major system issue, and that was with my PS3. But the good thing was that it stopped working within the first two hours, so they were able to fix it, since it was still under a one-year warranty.

Brian Shirk, October 20, 2009 07:31

@ Travis: I tried a new coaxial cable and while it was better the sound remains an issue. I also tried several different TVs, but I seem to have the problem everywhere.

Rachel Jagielski, October 20, 2009 21:08

If your TV and your cable box are both new enough, you should be able to connect the two with something other than a coaxial cable, such as component, composite, s-video or HDMI cables.

Jay Henningsen, October 20, 2009 22:17

@Jay Totally. The problem is most definitely RF bleed off causing cross talk on your cables. A more low-tech solution would be to get something small and metallic to go over your coax input to your TV. Maybe try wrapping it in foil- I know that sounds silly, but you're just trying to block the radio waves from getting to your PS3 cable.

Travis McReynolds, October 20, 2009 22:23

Thanks Travis, I'll give that a try!

Rachel Jagielski, October 20, 2009 22:48

My PS3 enjoys making strange bursts of static... I don't have cable. Hmm. My baby is going to die and it is so out of warranty now.

Jasmine Maleficent Rea, October 23, 2009 20:21