Dark Souls: I cannot win

Being a fan of Demon's Souls I purchased Dark Souls when it came out.  Excited to play, I slid it in to my aging PS3 and began. I put alot of time into it, much of it playing around with PvP, rang the second bell, was climbing Sen's Fortress and then I could go no further.

My PS3 beeped and turned off.  Turning it back on, the console only beeped some more and gave me the yellow light of death.  So ended my first attempt at playing Dark Souls.

Last month I decided to stop being lazy and took apart my PS3, retrieved my Dark Souls disc and put a heat gun to the chips.  The PS3 came back to life.  So I started a new Dark Souls game and began the adventure again. This time I was going to go miracles.

About 20 hours in, I had again rang the second bell, acquired the Crescent Axe down in Giant's Tomb, and began climbing Sen's.  But then for some reason my one and only PS3 controller decided to die.  It wouldn't turn on, it wouldn't take a charge.

I attempted to take the controller apart with plans of replacing the battery but I fumbled and ended up just breaking it.  So again my Dark Souls adventure was foiled.

Today, itching to play, I went and purchased another controller.  Took it home, plugged it, synced it, and it started charging.  About 30 minutes later the PS3 beeped and shut off.  The blinking yellow light of death had returned.

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Dark Souls is really hard to play.