Bought an 80GB phat PS3 and she's still running, no issues at all (knock on wood).

I replaced it's 80GB HDD to an 500GB 7200rpm HDD, but now I only have 10GB left XD

Its funny, I remember my PS3 heating up the table it was on so much it worried me, so I bought this passive aluminum laptop cooler stuck it on to an active 2 fan slim profile laptop cooler and after a couple of test runs it seemed to keep the base of the PS3 cooler. Right now my PS3 is fairly loud but I crank up my amp and the speakers drown out the fan sounds.

I also set the PS3 to auto turn off after 1 hour, so after a heavy gaming session I DON't turn off my PS3, instead I let it idle for that hour, so the internal temperature drops down closer to the average room temp before the auto timer turns it off.

Since heat is the enemy of electronics component, I figured I could extend their life by doing what I did and do above. So far so good (knock on wood)

Mine died for no reason. I installed data from a game and that was all she wrote. It was an 80GB phat. It doesn't even power on. It's not even the YLoD. I power up the console, a red light comes on and then the console turns right off.

I got a slim but all of my movie purchases are gone forever. You can't re-download them once they are gone.

That was most likely your power supply if you didn't get the YLOD. You should be able to send it to SONY to get that replaced.

mine died early 2011. considerering that it was a day 1 PS3 i assume it was a pretty good model. can't say that i played every day but approx 10 hours a week on average for sure.

Have the 60GB model from early 2007 (couple weeks after the European launch). With the four USB-connectors and the backwards compatibility.

It started making noise after the third year or so, but didn't do anything about it since little over a year ago. Opened it up and took out every component and thoroughly cleaned it. That helped. Still makes a lot of noise, but it doesn't seem like it's about to take off anymore and the noise is now consistent.

Never had to replace any component, the original HDD is still in there (it's only half-full even) and the Blu-ray lens is still good.

I sold mine in 2011 because it was always freezing up on me.
My nephew still has his X360 fat running :o

NIICE signature!

--

OP - You should have added a pole. I used to have a 60GB fat, I bought it used in 2009, got like a year out of it, and then it broke.

Recently bought a 320GB Slim, I missed Sony.....

Have a 2008 80gb fat, still running fine with no cleaning or maintenance whatsoever.

I'm still on my original 40GB MGS4 launch bundle. Hasn't missed a beat.

so glad they made a slim model, the original ps3 was an eyesore.