Gamestop refurbs (wtf!?)

[jimmyco2008]

Hey all,

I've owned a couple of Gamestop-refurbished PS3s, all phat, and I thought I'd start a thread to collect and share info to help determine exactly what it means that a Gamestop sticker replaces the Sony warranty sticker, and just how good these refurbs are (yes I know threads exist for this already...)

The first refurb I purchased was in 2011, a 60GB CECHA phat... The front panel was just a black plastic panel, no indents for the "Playstation 3" font, no letters in the indents... It also ran really, really hot.. Like "afraid of a fire if kept in the entertainment stand" hot... To this day, the hottest CECHA and overall PS3 I've owned... I returned that on the 7th day thank God, whoever bought that next probably got YLOD within the month. :/

I ran into a second Gamestop-refurb CECHA (I don't buy them, I get them from friends and such) a couple weeks ago that I have now.. It's very comparable to the CECHA I jailbroke and traded off last month, only the blue disk LED is considerably dimmer than the green LED...

Share your Gamestop PS3 experiences!

Also, anyone know if Gamestop actually bothers reflowing YLOD consoles customers bring back via warranty? I just read an article on their refurb facility....Doesn't look like it.

[jimmyco2008]

So I took apart the Gamestop refurb CECHA here and found that Gamestop did literally jack shit to "refurbish" it... It was full of dust, rocking the default thermal paste... But there are these small foam pads on the control PCB that sort of block the LEDs, making the blue LED dimmer than I've seen in other CECHAs... Not sure if that's Sony's doing or Gamestop.

Well there you have it, folks, if you didn't figure already, Gamestop does jack shit to the consoles they "refurbish", except taking the top shell off to make sure everything is in there or whatever (they do remove the Sony warranty sticker and stick a paper clip or the like in that screw cover/pad, but all the default white tape and such was in-tact, all screws present).

[soratheultima]

Have you tried actually ordering one online? As in not getting it from the store. Gamestop (the stores) usually just test the console to see if it turns on and then put it in a box. Try ordering one from their website and see how different it is. I don't really trust Gamestop with a sensitive system like that.

[jimmyco2008]

Well it had the Gamestop refurb warranty sticker as opposed to Sony's, would they do that in-store? Pretty sure Gamestop execs think Gamestop employees and a majority of its customers are low-lifes, capable only of working at Gamestop, so why would they trust those very people with a sticker?

I'm not kidding.

But you're right, ordering online will get you a Gamestop-refurb every time I bet.