I got a 1st gen 60 gig back in 2006 and it hasn't broke... yet.

Out of the twenty or so PS3s that me and about fifteen friends own, only one has died, and it was given to me, and I got a new power supply for it and it's now functional, only about three of the systems we own are first gen though, I think all the folding we do may effect our rate of failure, but I could be wrong, both of my second gen systems run pretty cool and haven't been off in about a month.

it's not good to leave them on for so long. You should cycle them: on for 2-3 days, off for 1. that's the fastes way to burning out the digital components.

now i kno better.. i had mine on practically 24/7. partially cuz i wanted to keep up on my folding!

Yea... the one PS3 of mine that died was ALWAYS on folding. I dont think that was the REASON the PS3 failed... but I know keeping it on didnt help keep my PS3 working.

well, think of it this way: if gas didn't matter, would you still leave your car running 24/7? no, because other components would start failing. same with digital compentents. let runn too long, and stuff starts to die. it's exactly the same concept.

well since running the machine does just crack into the lifetime hours of the system, and thats when it craps out.. sony's most "powerful system ever" mega expensive machine should at least have a worthwhile lifetime that exceeds a year ffs

I'm not too concerned about mine, I've got another scrapped PS3 in a box somehwhere, Blu-Ray players still good on it if you want it bassem. =P