Electronics make a strange squeal...

Well, after braving the cold for a day and a half, and then sitting on the damn thing (not literally of course) for a month until Christmas, I finally got to get our PS3 setup. Now, being a total, complete, and unapologetic computer nerd, my first thought was, "Where can I hook this thing up where it won't overheat?".

After about an hour of fighting with my wife over whether or not the unit was going to go on top of the entertainment center (where I wanted it), I was forced to settle for it going in the bottom of the entertainment center (where she wanted it). It's not a bad choice since there is still enough room for adequate ventilation, just not as much as on top. My main concern was that the bottom of the entertainment center has two small doors on it that can shut. If this were to happen, and the PS3 was on, well, it *may* lead to overheating. I instructed everyone to make sure the PS3 was off when not in use, and to not use it when the door was closed, since the door has a tendency to sometimes fall shut on it's own due to some slightly uneven flooring.

I think you can see where this is all going.

One night, I needed to return some crappy coax cable to the store that didn't work. Before leaving though, I wanted to rip my new My Chemical Romance CD to the PS3 so I could listen to it upstairs, and keep the CD in my truck. I ripped the CD (which is just stupidly fast on the PS3) and left. My understanding was that my son was going to be playing the Motorstorm demo after I left. He never had any intention of playing it, and assumed that I had shut it off, and he went to bed. Some definite miscommunication there.

I returned the cable, came back home and went downstairs to mess with my computer. It had been a good four hours or so, and I decided it was time for me to go to bed. On the way up, I happened to hear this odd noise. I can only describe it as a cross between a tea pot whistle, and the crying baby from the movie Eraserhead. So I followed the noise to my entertainment center, and then the sudden, stark, cold and terrifying realization of what that noise was (and more importantly, what it meant), hit me.

The entertainment center door had fallen shut, and the PS3 was on. For hours no less. I opened the door, and the horror only grew worse, as the PS3 was smoking. Yes, literally smoking.

My first thought was how disappointed my son was going to be. The PS3 was a gift he never even asked for, because he had convinced himself that we were not going to be able to find one, let alone afford it. Needless to say, he was beyond excited to see that he had gotten one for Christmas. But here it lay, smoking in the entertainment center.

The TV was on as well, and I noticed that the XMB interface was still visible, although faded because the screensaver had dimmed the picture. I picked up the controller, and hit a button. To my surprise, the console responded. I thought, "Well, I should at least try to shut it off the right way.". So I hit the PS button, the option pulled up to shut the system down, and I did.

I left it off for about an hour to give the system (and the entertainment center) time to cool. I picked up the controller, and hit the PS button to power the system on. Let's just say that orchestral warm up music never sounded so good. In fact, the PS3 has worked fine ever since.

Definitely a close call in more ways than one. My wife and I have since settled on a solution to buy a rack that will sit adjacent to the entertainment center for the PS3 (among other things), and the entertainment center door has been "fixed" so it does not fall shut again. Christmas dreams saved and a house fire successfully averted. I'm not in any hurry to have that much "excitement" again any time soon.