Well, we all know about how faulty the first gen Xbox 360s were, and the communities pooled together to understand WHAT about that system was faulty and as such found a way to fix it and share their findings.  

Well, The PS3 is getting pretty old too, and I'm sure there are some people out there who still have their launch systems in perfect working order and want to upgrade them, or perhaps they suffered the Yellow Light of Death and want to repair them.  Well, this thread is for everyone who is looking for a fix, or knows how to fix it and wants to help. 

Me, I made this thread becuase of my weird situation.  I have two PS3's at the moment.  My first PS3 was an 80 gig, backwards compatible model with 4 USB ports and a multimemory card reader.  PRetty awesome stuff if you ask me, but the system has failed.  See, the actual console itself works perfectly, all the memory card ports work, the online works, and any download titles work, the only thing that doesn't work is the disc drive.   it'll suck in my discs, but the system acts l ike there's no disc.  It's not a disc read error or anything, it just doesn't come up. 

My second PS3 is an 80 gig NOT backwards compatible model with only two USB ports and no multimemory card reader, but there's nothing wrong with it.  My eventual plan is to wait until the new PS3 super slims come out (I recall hearing there's going to be a500 gig model) and getting one of those to play my new games, but then also pulling a Fallout 3 and duct taping my other two PS3's together and repairing them.  What I want to do is take the disc drive from my current PS3 and put it in my backwards compatible PS3 and then upgrade the hard drive to a 500 gig, that way I have a de-facto model of the backwards compatible type as well as a new slim sleek model.  

If anyone knows how to do this, let me know.  Also I'll be keeping links to any tutorials people post in the original thread.  So yeah, have at ye! 

My (2008) 40GB PS3 still works fine throughout daily use. I am worried about it though, it whirrrrrs like crazy during the startup of some new games (Starhawk and Twisted Metal) every now and again. I back up my saves regularly.

I think it's just dust build-up on the fans though, so I'm planning on opening it up and cleaning it.

Sorry, I don't know how to solve your problem, I just thought I'd share my story :(

yea, sounds like a good plan to put the newer br into your b/c ps3 and should be pretty easy, as the br drive is the first thing you'll see once you open up a fat PS3

My PS3 slim was shutting itself down after a few minutes of use and it wasn't overheating.. it turned out there was something wrong with the powersupply.. Repair shops calls it "Power Supply Calibration" They guys at the shop said it was a common problem.. I did it myself and spend 5 bucks to get the right Torx Screwdriver with a small hole in the middle.. I used this youtube video for instructions:

which basicly is adjusting 2 trimpots (the 2 white things with the green line) that protect the Power Supply (model APS-250) inside the PS3 Slim, the  OCP (Over Current Protection) and PFC (Power Factor Correction) and turn them 10 degrees to the left...

anyone got a link to a video of how to upgrade a PS3 Phat hard drive?

I've taken the HDD from a slim and put it in a phatty. Its really easy, you just need a screwdriver.

The only complication is that the "case" that holds the HDD are different for the phat and the slim. So you need to take the whole case out of each, swap the HDDs in the cases, and then put the cases back into the PS3s

I'm trying to find a video but I don't have a good one yet. I had no experience when I did it and it worked out fine.

Yes I do know actually. I've had the same problem on my 60 gig backwards compatible PS3. Your lens is dying. You just have to crack open your PS3 and replace it. It takes about 15 minutes to do. Lens cost 60 bucks.

Anyone know how to fix your ps3's(original 80gb) disc reader to work again, mine has broken and will not read discs

shit son, where can I get a lens?  I'd love to just learn how to replace it rather than sacrifice a fully functional PS3 that I could hook up in the living room or something. 

That's the same problem I have.  gonna find out how to fix it soon, I hope.