It froze (w/ vertical white lines) after I played about 20 minutes today.  Fuckin unreal.  The ps3 is 2.5 years old, and I hadn't touched it in the last 6 months except to play The Last of Us dlc which came out this past Friday. 

I waited an hour and tried turning it back on but got nothing but a blank screen.  I tried a new hdmi and resetting the video output to no avail.  Anyone know whats wrong with it?  I've been reading online and it sounds like the gpu is dying/dead.  Is it fixable?

Now I have a delema on my hands.  Dark Souls 2 is coming out in a few weeks and it was going to likely be the last ps3 game I'd get before transitioning into the next gen.  I have a laptop capable of handling Dark Souls 2 but I'd much rather play on console bc of the pvp community.  Also, I have it pre ordered (for ps3), tho I likely can cancel it.  What should I do?

So it actually comes on but the screen looks like your picture? Just a single beep when you turn it on?

When I turn it on its black. There's no signal going to the tv. The picture is what it looked like when it froze, I immediately knew something bad happened :(

Does it beep when you turn it on?

It does beep.  And it is currently working... It'll probably freeze again soon.

reminds me of an Atari2600 game I used to play... Jesus tho I'm really sorry to hear this, saying that you can get a PS3 now second hand for around the 100euros mark so it's slightly less of a downer if you got some spare cash, very unlikely you'll get 2 duff PS3's in your life given their failure rate, you've had your bad luck :)

Sony's complot "buy a ps4"

Ha guess how long my first ps3 lasted...  15 minutes, I had to return it because the fans weren't working.  I wish they made a backwards compatable ps4 which seems perfect for my situation.

I remember when Dark Souls came out and I picked it up as soon as the game store opened, raced home to play it only to find my HD had corrupted :( didn't have the money to buy a new one since I spent the last of my cash on the game lol Mine was an easy fix though I dunno what to do in your situation.

I don't think it can compare.  Dark Souls on ps3 was very active even a year and a half after release.  I hear that on pc it died quickly, plus theres a lot of issues with hackers.