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All video output from my PS3 has strange lines around the edges of shapes/around contours/along gradients.

The lines look almost like the outlines you get in Photoshop when you use the magic wand tool.

This happens everywhere; menus, DVDs, Blu-rays, games, etc. I have checked all my other equipment, I know it is definitely the PS3 at fault. (And yes I rebooted it, flipped the switch, unplugged it, etc).

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before? And is there any known way to fix it?

My PS3 is the old 60GB version, warranty is long expired. I would love it if this did not mean paying for repair/replacement.

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I had this problem with a sketchy component cable - are you using component or HDMI? – agent86♦ May 7 '12 at 2:13
HDMI, however I checked all cables/other components. Everything is fine but the PS3. – zeel May 7 '12 at 2:27
Did you try replacing the HDMI or using composite instead? What about on another TV? – Christopher May 7 '12 at 4:56
Did all of the above. Checked all the wiring, all components. Everything. Whatever the problem is, it must be inside the box (of the PS3). – zeel May 7 '12 at 5:10

1 Answer

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I've never heard of this problem, nor can I find information regarding this specific issue. However, after reading through the PS3 hardware specifications, I'd be almost certain that you have a bad RSX 'Reality Synthesizer' GPU.

The RSX chip was co-developed developed by Sony and NVidia and is proprietary to the PS3. The only way that you can get your hands on another one is to canibalize another PS3 for the component. Even that isn't realistic though. The pins are connected from the bottom of the chip, onto the system PCB. In other words, you're not going to take that component off of the board in one piece and, if you did/could, it'd be nearly impossible to get it back on another board without some top end manufacturing equipment.

This particular GPU is responsible for handling some of the floating point mathematics and shader operations for the system. I'm not exceptionally well versed on this type of hardware but if I had to venture a guess, I'd say you are having problems with the parallel vertex pipelines. I would assume that this could mean that the chip still operates but with odd results, as you are seeing.

Considering the above information, it looks like your best option is to find a replacement system on a resell site if you really want to keep an older model PS3, or upgrade to a newer model.

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