It could be close to dying, it could be just as simple as it getting too hot once. Red light is overheating, something as simple as vacuuming it out could be the fix. It has also been known to be a precursor to the YLOD. Mine shutdown and blinked on me about a month ago, I vacuumed it out and havent had a single issue since and my ps3 is on ALOT. Backup your saves to be on the safe side, give it a good cleaning, and hope for the best!

My 60 Gig launch PS3 died on me and I used this video series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70SgRDVcBo
to get it working again.

Its not guaranteed to work though, and it will cost about $30 in equipment (if you dont have it), and its also only really a temporary solution ha.

If it really wont turn on and your data is worth $30 to you, maybe give it a try?

The cooling paste on a PS3 is "dry" pretty much from new as it is designed to set.  It is true that there are pastes that maintain a "wet" state but such pastes tend to de-nature over time losing their viscosity and hence their thermal trasfer properties.  The paste Sony use as standard is not the most efficient but it is built to be durable and last over time, if you replace the paste with a superior conductive compund then you would expect to have to replace that paste every 12 months at least in most cases under heavy use to maintain the benefits.

There are many different types of thermal compund and they all react differently and have different viscosities, that's not mentioning how the most thermally conductive ones are also generally electrical conductors due to metal content so you should be extra careful to not apply excessively.

I'd personally look at Artic Cooler's MX-4 paste as it is genuinely a great product that lasts a long time and doesn't require any curing time while also providing temps close to the big hitters such as Artic Silver's AS5.  It's also quite cheap which is another feather in it's cap.

P.S.  Even if this does get your PS3 up and running again I would backup your data and sell it on or trade in for a new one as soon as possible as once these issues start they're likely to always be present and you'll never have that same faith you used to have in it's reliability.

Thanks for the information...

Mine died about half a year ago, so I bought a heat gun and thermal paste and fixed it myself, It's been about 4 months now and it's still working.

Thanks for all the imformative responses. Gonna get it repaired via Sony as i'm not sure I could fix it based on the solutions posted here (i'm very hesistant to open up the system). Once I get it repaired, i'll sell it and get one of the new Slim PS3's. Looks like my data is a lost-cause at this point since any Sony repairs involve wiping the HDD. Thankfully i've either completly beaten games I've owned or have barely made any progress so it's a just a matter of downloading patches and setting up Netflix again for the most part.

As some of you may have noticed in the Microsoft forum, my launch unit Xbox 360 also has been giving me some issues as well. Today I replaced that launch unit Xbox with one of the new Xbox 360 slim units [250 gig HDD]. Next up will be one of the new Slim PS3's. May my launch systems rest in piece, it was a good run

RIP

• Launch Xbox 360 with 20gig HDD. June 2006 - September 2011 [with 2 stops into Microsoft due to RROD]
•  Launch PS3 with 20gig HDD. December 2006 - September 2011 [no problems till now] It was a good run launch units but it's time to replace them with the new slim units. May the old systems rest in peace.

both down pretty much simultaneously?

Ouch...that sucks

hopefully it's just co-incidence and not a sign of something more sinister

Yeah, both problems came up within a week of each other. Strange having to replace both systems. My older generation consoles (N64, Gamecube, PS2) are still running strong after all these years (in the case of the N64 that's hitting on 12 years for me).