Why does my PS3 turn off after the lights flash?

I would suggest you open up the ps3 and clean it out, as well as put new thermal paste on. This was helpful for me http://vkrepair.com/ps3-flashing-red-lig...

Your PS3 is suffering from the YLOD (Yellow Light of Death) It signifies hardware failure, and can be caused by a number of problems. What happened prior to this? For more info about the problem, look at the answers to this question.

i repaired my console and it worked but only for 45 mins then ylod again i used arctic silver thermal paste as it states it better than ceramic. now after reopening my console a suprise was waiting not what i was thinking. i could see where i had spread the thermal paste on it and in some places it had connected and in others not even touching. i will definately be doing it again with 1 thing in mind........ make sure the thermal paste is thick enough to be joining both surfaces. which confuses me as one guide said a grain of rice of thermal paste another said a pea sized amount and im thinking an after 8 could fit in the gap. about 1.2gram on each which is about a third on each should do it if not im selling it for parts

Yea sounds like yellow light of death... give this a shot.

Well what u have here is called the yellow light of death or also called (YLOD). Here is a couple ways to tell if it is a power failure or the motherboard malfunction. If you listen carefully well you turn on the system if you hear the fans turn on then the system turns of after a couple seconds that is a motherboard malfunction the system will realize that the system is broken. But if you turn the system on and the fans do not spin and turn on then you have a power failure. That could happen when your power cord/the AU 3 pin power cable gets damaged. Another way a power failure could happen is when the power from the power cable can't pass through the system and reach the main power circuit. But you got lucky there is a way you could fix this. You could get the PS3 repair kit or you could bring it to Gamestop or a system repair place and they will take a look at it.

go on youtube and watch how to fix it thts wat i suggest xxx

Just go to GameStop and and ask them to look at your PS3. Then tell them that you have been having the YLOD problem. And then they will look at your PS3 and they should tell you that your PS3 has been over heated and that your PS3's motherboard is fried. If your motherboard is fried than you just need a new power transfer.

ylod or overheating can be cause by a few variables such as dirty fans and dusty heat sinks or solder joint cracks or an improper flow but seeing as how you'll never know about the improper flow or solder joint cracks its best to assume that its dirty.

so the process of elimination begins get a few cans of air remove cover and all the essentials and spray the heavens out of it wait for about 30-45 mins and spray again wait for another 20 min then power on if all is well then resume playing if not then we have eliminated the dusty inside.

reflowing the mother board can be quite tricky to do applying the proper heat to properly flow the solder joints together again can be a timely and costly repair if done wrong so I would suggest to carefully review about 4 youtube videos about reflowing ps3 mother boards and take the average time they say in all videos total example if video 1 says 15 min video 2 says 25 min video 3 says 20 min and video 4 says 15 min then the average time would be 17-20 min

but once again nothing you are attempting to do is gonna be a guaranteed fix for these systems depending the year they were made has a life expectancy of 8-10 years.

My red light is on and when I press it it gose green for a few seconds then gose off any idears

Replace the old NEC Tokin capacitors with aftermarket ones. It should work like new and will breed new life into your ps3 phat. But, you need soldering skills.