2 things that people do without knowing. Vacuum and blow dryer both produce static field that fry your electronics.

If anything, you should be using an air can to blast the dust out.

Well I have done it dozens of times and never had a problem,  still have a working launch 60gb.  

Isn't that one of the solutions that Sony says you can do to clean your system? If you use canned air, is that really going to get all the dust out? I mean, wouldn't it just be blowing the dust around inside of the system? I would think the best way to clean your system is to take it apart (only if out of warranty) and clean off all the parts, but if it's still in warranty, then I guess the vacuum or canned air would be the best option.

Sony doesn't tell you this, but PS3's, especially launch PS3's (because their 90nm Cell Processors and 90nm RSX GPU's get very hot) require maintainence.  Around the 3 and 4 year marks, The PS3 launch paste dries up and/or stops working as well.

So as various people have told you, you need to change the paste.....much the same way people do it for their PC's.

From what I've read, Spire, you'd be throwing away $150 to have Sony send out another unit when you can easilly do it yourself in under an hour.   But, if you like giving your money away.....have at it then.  :)

Good luck.

Looks like i'll have to do neither. A relative won a raffle contest though his Rotarian International group and one of the prizes was a 120gig PS3 Slim which he chose knowning mine had broken down. Perfect timing and i've cancelled that Sony service order

Glad you got another PS3. You could always still fix the old one by replacing the thermal paste. There are plenty of videos of doing that on Youtube, plus Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound is quite cheap ($10 at most online).