The apocalyPS3 ends in global resurrection, ARM chip at fault
By Vlad Savov 
posted March 3rd 2010 4:17AM
posted March 3rd 2010 4:17AM
posted March 3rd 2010 4:17AM
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Imagine if hadn't fixed itself.
Millions of consoles bricked.
I bet Sony were "bricking" it on 1st March :P
@DaveyJam
Hmm..Stating the obvious with a slight sense of amusement..funny\\\
@DaveyJam At least it's only one day............ not like the RROD that affected more than 5 million since launched
@DaveyJam
sony would have been forgiven if they all crashed on april the first instead.
@DaveyJam: imagine that then... new ps3 slim would have less sales then...
Good'ol ARMs!
hey I herd, apple is using its own ARM based processor on its newest little gadget....cant wait to read the article on that breaking down in a few years
lol
...or maybe Apple will learn from Sonys mistakes...time will tell
@abedinthehouse You do realize just about every phone you read about here uses an ARM processor, right? This obviously doesn't affect all ARM processors. This is most likely a dedicated timekeeping chip of some sort that apparently has really badly written firmware. (Why would it think 2010 is a leap year anyway?)
This really doesn't make much sense. Surely it wasn't the ARM chip that was the issue but some software running on the chip?
A dodgy line of code calculating the date wrong makes sense, followed by Sony then not patching the PS3 code after the Zune issues... but a chip doing it wrong!? I'm struggling to believe it.
@NeToU The chip runs embedded code which the ps3 then calls upon. It's the chip at fault.
@ratchetnclank Of course the software was to blame. Who wrote the software, and who's job it was to check that software are different arguments. Do you have any idea just how widespread the use of embedded ARM processors is? Trust me, it was the software not the chip.
Of course ARM don't actually make chips, they make IP. I don't know who made the chip and it's dodgy firmware, but you can be damn sure it wasn't ARM.
@ratchetnclank missed Home did ya?
@ratchetnclank ARMs aren't embedded processors, they're general purpose. They run software.
Wow this could have been a catastrophe for people with no life who never leave the house.
...But then again, they usually play PC games.
Well, I hope my PS3 is fine, I bought it not too long ago, mostly use it to watch Blu Ray and Netflix. For everything else, there's the 360.
@mtnDewFTW
You're Cool! /sarcasm
I'm just trying to figure out why these chips thought 2010 was a leap year. The last one was in 2008, and when they happen every four years.....Who is doing the math here?
@Aybara Texas instruments :P
@ratchetnclank
no wonder american high school students can't do math. the TI83s they're using give them wrong answers.
Unless this chip thinks leap year is every two years, won't the opposite happen in 2012 when March 1st is delayed by February 29th?
@ColonelKernel in 2012 it IS A LEAP YEAR. Sony's got 2 years to make sure this bug is squashed forever....
@ColonelKernel
No. If anything were to happen two years from now, it would have also happened two years ago. Nothing did and nothing will.
Four years ago, the PS3 was introduced. But that was in November... so after the leap day.
@NHAnimator
Okay, I didn't realize the console was that old.
Does that then mean that this chip thinks Leap Year is every two years?
I thought PS3 used a Cell processor never knew it also used Arm chip as well
@OCEAN CLAK
It uses lots of microprocessors just like computers and other game consoles.
@OCEAN CLAK ARM doesn't make their money on big powerful CPUs.
They make their money on tiny embedded CPUs that you don't think about.
There might be an ARM in your SATA controller. And another ARM in each of your hard drives. And SD cards often have an ARM in them. And your cell phone usually has two or three, unless it's a dumbphone or a BlackBerry with no SD card (BlackBerries sometimes run "on the baseband processor," which means the OS and the radio are run by the same CPU.)
Unless this chip thinks leap year is every two years, won't the opposite happen in 2012 when March 1st is delayed by February 29th?
@ColonelKernel
What is the opposite of your console going down for 24 hours?
@NHAnimator
I don't know, but I'm guessing that it is something AMAZING!
@Fritz
Okay, poorly phrased. Opposite problem with likely the same result.
But, I was wrong anyway. See above.
@Fritz
Okay, poorly phrased. Opposite problem with likely the same result.
But, I was wrong anyway. See above.
If this is the same chip as the Zunes (as stated) why wait for 2012 to Stringer Howard? Seems to me they had two years to prepare for this fiasco.
Not the ARM to blame here. Even if this was a hardware fault, it will be the clock hardware on the SoC that is at fault not the ARM processor. (It just happens that the clock hardware is on the same chip as the ARM processor). Or it could just be crappy software that someone didn't test.
PS3 has period now
10, 12, ......
2 years an error
it need a iPad
I dont believe this is a "processors" fault. If anything, its a software issue. But that would make sony look twice as dumb: 1) for making the mistake and 2) for QA not catching it.
If you blame it on a chip not made by sony, they only look dumb for not catching the flaw... its anyones guess what they'll say.
@Bahumbug Do you have any idea how hard it would be for QA to catch a bug that appears for one day, once every 4 years?
Got the bug and now my disk drive no longer works.
Sony says it's just a coincidence and since my unit is over a year old by a few months I have been told to buy a re-furb off them.
So have now started a U.K Sale of goods act claim against the supplier.
Even if it were a coincidence the unit has proved to have an inherent manufacturing defect that will cause it to fail in certain leap years.
Plus any re-furb is likely to have this same defect.
@oAmadeuso
As in the hard drive failed or the blu-ray drive? Might be easier to just spend the little money to buy a hard drive if that's the issue.
By the way, if the media is circle, it's spelled disc. If the media is square, it's spelled disk. ;)
@EM1
The spelling of disk or disc seems to have a loot of meanings.
Personally I use both for no good reason.
It's the blu-ray drive. It's not longer recognizing any type of media put in it. I get the spinning icon by nothing else happens.
@oAmadeuso If you believe it is not a coincidence, then why hasn't anyone else had their Blu-ray drive stop working? Why would your console behave differently than everyone else's?
Wouldn't this have been better suited for April 1st?
My PS3 says its March 2nd. It's not. It's March 3rd you div
@(Unverified) Then go into settings and reset the date.
ARMs are RTCs? What ISA was I reading?
Actually, they have 2 years. The next leap year is in 2012..........
Seriously, TI cant do the math for their processors and that bad-math infection is moving to Engadget? I hope you send me a present for my birthday in the right year, February 29th 2012......
I haven't switched on my PS3 since I read the ApocalyPS3 news. Just wondering if I will have any issues if I switch it on now. Any idea?
@JQuB3 I stopped playing my launch 60GB fat to watch Canada win Gold, mid-afternoon (EST), and just powered up again last night. No problems, and all unsync'd trophies were still there (and sync'd properly).
You'll only have to reset the date. (Everyone has to, AFAIK.)
The only potential issues involved people using their systems after midnight GMT (7pm EST) on Sunday until midnight GMT (7pm EST) on Monday.
Reports of game saves being 'lost' are false and unrelated to the problem. Some people might have to re-run certain games for which they had unsync'd trophies in order to retrieve them, however.
@Arkham
Switched on my PS3 today n works fine. No confused / lost trophies. :)
This is just the first attempt. The rise of the machines will happen. We are all doomed
I dont know if it's related, but my PS3 stopped working on 3/1/09 , it was an original 60gb fatty, and im wondering if this PS3pocalypse is what caused it.
The Zune bug occurred during the end of the year, not end of February. So the correlation between that failure and this one is not clear - though it may simply be in how the internal clock is accessed/used. I'm interested in whether or not Sony learned anything about the ARM chip (and Freescale's driver). Surely they would know that they were using the same chip and that there were issues.
I doubt this, but is it even remotely possible that there was NOTHING they could do but wait? (Knowing this, however, they could have promoted Kevin Butler to Director of Mandatory Sunshine Exploration Day or something and had some fun with it.)
" the villain in this story was an ARM chip inside the console -- the very same one, in fact, that led to a few Zunes losing their minds back in 2008."
The Zune problem was caused by a poorly written piece of code in the Zune's clock driver which was subsequently patched in a firmware update; nothing to do with "an ARM chip" or any other chips, where is the correlation? Am I missing something?