Diagnosing Hardware Problem with PS4 (CE-34878-0)

Whenever I try to play a game (any game) I get CE-34878-0.

I know that deleting and reinstalling the system software and the game is supposed to fix this issue, but in my case it does not.

I suspect there is a hardware problem, but not sure how to go about identifying it.

If I could verify the component causing the problem, I could decide if I should try to fix it myself or send it to Sony.