Yep, apparently it has been causing the PS3's equivelant of the RROD, which shows itself by the power light blinking red when you try to switch the system on.

It is however fairly easy to fix for anyone with the right equipment and patience. It is due to the heat in the system making the solder connections brittle and cause system errors. Doing something called reflowing fixes over 85% of dead PS3s. This involves applying a hot air gun at 350 deg C for 15 seconds to each of the PS3s main chips to make the solder reflow, reseating their connections to the motherboard. It obviously requires a complete strip down of the PS3 to do this. A 6 part video is on youtube detailing it if anyone ever has this problem. BTW, a paint stripper gun can be used in substitute for a hot air rework station.