In Which Moth Has The Firstiest Of First World Problems · 7:04pm Nov 25th, 2017
So I put a new hard drive in my PS4 today, hoping a fresh install of everything would fix the problem I've been having.
Naturally, it didn't.
On the bright side, the install went perfectly, and since the problem does seem to be 100% a wi-fi network incompatibility problem in the end after all, all this means is when I go home and get my original equipment all set back up (or a new modem/router combo since my modem's wearing a little thin), everything should be fine plus I'll have an upgraded PS4 with 1TB of storage instead of 500GB.
Worst case scenario, the PS4 itself has a bad network chip or other mobo issues, in which case it'll need to be replaced...and I'll still have a brand new 1TB hard drive to install in the new PS4, and the only worm in THAT apple is whether or not Sony will replace the unit if I swap the original HDD back into it before I send it off.
Bottom line, I'll be without a PS4 for another month or two, but given my ridiculous backlog of PS3 games & anime plus Steam games...I believe I can survive that long.
Maybe you can answer a question for me. I've been thinking of eventually upgrading my PS4 hard drive too. I've found a lot of videos that show the process but do I need to backup my system before hand or anything? If I wanted to upgrade it to 6TB with some special equipment would I just need to follow a video that shows how to install it and it would still have all my saved data and downloaded games on it, or are their extra steps where I need to back it up and reinstall it later?
Thank you in advance.
I feel like this could be considered an attempt at one-upping you, but I feel like it fits: Speaking of the firstiest of problems, I ran out of space on my Vita memory card, and better ones are like $100 bucks or some shit.
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When you install a new hard drive in a PS4 you are starting over from scratch. Completely. You have to reinstall the system software from a USB flash drive (so be DAMN sure you can download it via a PC from Sony and follow their instructions TO. THE. LETTER.) You have to reinstall EVERY. GAME. YOU. OWN. Either from a backup device via USB, or by redownloading them from PSN.
Don't use videos that show you how to do it--use the instructions Sony provides on their website. They are detailed enough to get you through the process and spell out everything you need to know.
If you want to back up your system completely beforehand so you can just plug and go, you'll need an external USB HDD or a VERY LARGE USB drive, and you can use the internal Backup features from the system's menu. The PS4 user guide and Sony website tell you how to do THAT too.
Basically, there's three ways to go about this:
1. Back everything up via USB, install the new hard drive, and restore the system from USB. It'll be exactly like you left it (more or less), but it's going to take a very long time to reinstall everything depending on how much you copy to/from the USB device.
2. Back up just your save game data to the same drive you put the update software on (I'd use a 64GB or 128GB USB flash drive for this), and restore it from the USB once you're all set up and back in business.
3. If you've got PS+, just install the new drive and run the system software install/initialization, then once the system is connected to PSN again, restore your content from the cloud.
Also, it depends on whether you're talking about upgrading with an internal hard drive or an external USB hard drive. If you're just adding an external hard drive via USB to your setup, then that's a completely different process, all you have to do is format it for the PS4 once you connect it to the console and the actual system software et. al. is still on the internal hard drive. But if you're installing a new internal hard drive? That's the one that's the longer install and involves removing the old hard drive and reinstalling everything. Also, I'm not even sure a 6TB internal SATA would FIT in the PS4 because the height of the drive has to be under a certain size--I think it's 9.5mm? The one I installed today (1TB) is 7.2mm.
The actual physical installation of a new PS4 hard drive takes about 3 minutes. It's ridiculously easy. But the initialization, system software install, etc. takes a good 10-15 minutes, then setting your system configuration up is another 10-15 minutes. And then your games/data, well...for that, you're gonna be leaving it on in rest mode all night.
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Based on Moth's comment I'd suggest going for a Laptop style internal HDD. (Or just getting an external drive)
Yeah, it did sound like there was something else wrong beyond the hard drive, but I was hoping the hard drive swap would fix it. Good luck with Sony.
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Thank you very much. I'm hoping to eventually upgrade my PS4 with the Nyko Data Bank, I've heard good things about it and I heard it is able to support 6TB like I'm hoping for. So I'm guessing that's an external extension. I was also planning to subscribe to PS+ eventually, mostly for the huge discounts from PSN, free games monthly and cloud storage for backups. If I do all that would the only other thing I would need is a usb to download the system from online and reinstall it later? I'm kinda trying to figure out the safest way to upgrade it to ensure I save all my data, but without getting anything I don't need for the process.
Thank you once again and I am sorry to take up your time with this, I'm sure you have better things to do. But I really appreciate your advice.
With a blog title like that, I'm going to assume you knew someone would post this song sooner or later, so it may as well be me.
I have a 4tb external drive that I pretty much run all my games off of,except for FFXIV. I’m actually tempted to do something a bit odd and go with a smaller SSD for the system drive.
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That's kinda what you have to do since that's the only kind of internal HDD a PlayStation console takes. :P
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Sending it back to Sony is only if moving back to my own apartment doesn't fix the problem, which at the moment appears to be a network incompatibility issue. If trying it on a completely different network/wired when I go home doesn't fix the problem, then yes, the final option (Sony). The hard drive swap/reinitialize was even a thing I did because it seemed like the 5.0 firmware upgrade buggered something. Which I now know to not have been the issue.
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See my PM. You were about to do something SUPER STUPID. Don't do it. >.<;;
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I wouldn't. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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What Moth said: This will not work! Although the drive size is “correct,” the 2.5” data bank style drives are a few millimeters taller than other drives and will not fit inside the console without a warranty-voiding physical modification that involves removing part of your console. This is not recommended.
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The performance gain from switching to an SSD is, in this case, negligible: As long as you have at least a 7,200 RPM drive, this is not bottlenecking your console. For the same reason, hybrid drives are also not recommended.
Going back to the original issue... well, I missed what it was! Network incompatibility? Possibly. What else can you tell us about the network (or where is the original blog, if all the relevant info is there)? If it’s a 5.0 GHz radio, that’s the problem right there: 2.4 with PS4, or your NIC is SOL.
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It generally seems to be a basic wifi latency/connection issue. My PC is having similar problems, and even my phone and PS3 are tetchy on this wifi (although this week is the first time I've had issues with Crunchyroll on my PS3). Basically, router's in a stupid place, there are about 8 overlapping wifi networks on this block and all are putting out a 2-bar signal. My PC stutters, lags, and times out frequently because of this, and since the 5.0 firmware upgrade to PS4, my PS4 has been unable to connect to PSN.
Having ruled out every conceivable problem, I'm down to two: It's the network itself, which SEEMS to be the problem, or it's my PS4's network card, which does NOT seem to be the problem as it does pass the connection tests for this router consistently--it's just not making the connection to PSN. Which seems to be about the same problem my PC is having with FiMF, the Microsoft XBox Live servers (for my Microsoft Mahjong, Solitaire, and Word Games), etc.
If it's the actual PS4 itself having some kind of NIC/motherboard problem, then yeah, I'm screwed and have to replace the whole thing, but it's looking more and more like the problem is the house wifi and the ridiculous level of wifi overlap in this neighborhood.
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I can’t speak for the PS4, but the PS3 had a unified NIC, so if the WiFi capability failed and it wasn’t due to a damaged antenna, the Ethernet would fail also. I suspect the PS4 is the same way, so if you can reasonably hardline it to the router, that may tell you some more.
From what it sounds like, though, the NIC is most likely fine and the issue is the local network topography: With that much noise, it’s kind of a wonder that anyone can reliably connect at all, so again, if you can reasonably connect it closer to the router, that might help to rule out some possibilities.
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Yeah, and I doubt this router is broadcasting any 5GHz bands at all, it's kind of a clunker. So EVERYTHING is on 2.4GHz...and the signal is obstructed AND overlapped. It's wreaking havoc on everything connected to it to varying degrees--my phone's connection to the WiFi is reasonably stable but drops off from time to time, my PS3's connection is almost perfect--almost. My PC is spotty as hell on this bastard, and my PS4 can BARELY download non-PSN mandatory patches that get shoved down the pipe regardless of account status. So odds are the problem is simply bad network topography and not a bad NIC in my PS4. In which case, moving back to my apartment and going back to my old setup should pretty much fix everything.
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This is sort of a basic question, but have you tried power cycling the network router where you're staying? I looked over the thread and didn't see it mentioned, so apologies if you've already attempted that.
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Yes, of course. Again, the problem is network topography, which I can't do anything about, and the physical location of the router, which I also can't do anything about as I am not the owner of the router and am not going to rearrange my uncle's computer hutch for my own convenience.
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I'm not sure if you can do this, but have you considered changing the band in which the router's Wi-Fi is broadcasting? Changing the band to a less congested one should improve the signal.
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I've lost the password to the router and I'm the only one who ever even KNEW it in the first place. :/ I'd have to completely reset the router to do that, and the only time I could do that without anybody noticing is when they're at church or something. I mean, it's a thing I might do, but I don't know enough about networks and settings and stuff to even know what to change the settings to, so I'd prefer not to screw with it.