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Dead consoles

Sell a console that will not turn on.

Try four things first, because a fair number of dead consoles are not. If it stays dead, it is still worth considerably more than nothing.

A console that will not power on is still a case full of working parts that somebody needs. The drive, the board, the power supply, the shell: those go into repairs for other people's consoles, and that is why a dead one gets a price rather than a refusal.

But work through the list below first, because a genuinely surprising share of dead consoles are a failed power cable, a wall socket nobody tested, or a power supply that needs draining. A console that turns out to be alive is worth several times what a dead one is.

Whichever way it goes, do not have it repaired first. A diagnostic plus a repair on a console you are about to sell almost never returns what it cost, and a board somebody has already been inside is worth less than an untouched dead one.

Every one of these has two numbers.

What it is worth working, and what it is worth faulty. Both are real, both are yours in about a minute, and both depend on the actual console rather than a best case printed on a page. That is why the number lives in the calculator and not in a table here.

No power at all

No light, no fan, no beep

Beeps then dies

Usually the power supply

Blue or white light of death

PS4 and PS5 era

Powers on, no video

Often HDMI, which is a better outcome

Overheats and shuts down

Alive, and priced as a fault

Dead after a power surge

Common here, say so

Upgrading?

Then you are not really selling. You are part-paying.

Most people selling a dead console are replacing it that month. Taking the payout as trade-in credit stretches it 12% further against whatever you buy next.

Take the payout as EpicDeals.co.za credit instead of cash and we add 12% on top. That is us paying you for not needing the money in your account today, and it costs you nothing if you were going to spend it here anyway.

The 12% is only worth taking if you were going to spend it. If you need the cash, take the cash, and we will not make the voucher hard to refuse.

What actually moves the number.

Try a different power cable and a different wall socket

The single most common cause of a console that appears dead, and the cheapest to rule out. Kettle leads fail constantly and they all look fine. Borrow one off a PC or a monitor and try again before you write the console off.

Drain the power supply

Unplug it at the wall, hold the console's power button down for thirty seconds with no power connected, then plug it back in. This clears the internal capacitors and it revives more consoles than anything else on this list.

Try a different HDMI cable and a different TV input

A console that powers on but shows nothing is often a cable or an input rather than a fault. If it turns out to be alive with a dead HDMI port, that is still a much better price than a dead board.

Load shedding damage is a real category here

Surge damage through the wall socket is common in South Africa and it usually takes the power supply rather than the whole board, which is the cheaper failure. If it died during or just after an outage, say so. It genuinely helps the assessment.

Things that do not disqualify it.

Every one of these lowers the offer. Not one of them ends it. Pick the matching condition, say what is wrong in the notes, and the price you are shown already accounts for it.

  • No power at all, no light and no fan
  • Powers on for a second then shuts down
  • Blue, white or flashing light of death
  • Powers on but no picture on any input
  • Overheats and shuts down mid-game
  • Died during load shedding or a surge
  • Fan spins loudly then nothing
  • Makes a noise but never reaches the dashboard

Three ways to take the money.

Cash

Instant offer

Assessed within 1-3 working days of arriving, paid within 5 working days of your offer being confirmed.

+12%

Trade-in voucher

Take it as credit on EpicDeals.co.za instead and we add 12%. Useful if the plan was always to upgrade.

+10%

Consignment

We list it, we sell it, you get 10% more than the instant offer. Most sell within 13 days.

Paid to South Africans for their old tech

R107,547,826

Counting live for Epic Deals, since 2013

Trading since 2014 as Epic Deals, with 2,500+ reviews and 30 people who answer the phone. Not a stranger with a bakkie and a WhatsApp number.

console that will not turn on questions.

Yes, and you can do it without the console. Sign in to your PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo account on a browser and deactivate the console remotely, or remove it as your primary or home console. Two minutes, and it stops your account travelling with a machine we are about to resell.

One minute, one number.

No account, no obligation, no salesperson phoning you at supper time.