PS3 consistently freezes after about 45 min

[cybercylon]

Over the past month, my PS3 would consistently crash after about 45 minutes to 1 hr of play time. Since I was playing Skyrim, I thought that in itself was the issue. Other than that, I have pretty much used it for media files and watching Blu-ray movies. No problems there that I could tell.

 

So after giving up on Skyrim, I tried to give FF XIII-2 a whirl until the patch for Skyrim was out. Unfortunately, I have the same problem with FF XIII-2. Crash and boom. Sometimes it will reboot after ejecting the disc, or sometimes it will reboot into a screen full of green and black garbage. More often than not, I have to hold the power button down to turn it off. It will either start up again normally, the screen will be filled with green and black crap, or it will give me an error message explaining that it needs to check for errors on the HD. If that last one happens, it starts normally.

 

One other thing I've noticed... if I try to play a game again too soon, the crash may happen sooner.

 

It is a 40 gig fat model, though I replaced the drive about a year ago with a 250 gig one. My best guess is either the HD is going bad as it gets warm or there is a component that is going bad that causes a failure once the unit gets warm. My suspicion is on the last one since playing movies doesn't seem to stress it out too much. I've read that this could be caused by either a HD problem, a blu-ray drive problem, or a problem on the logic board.

 

I've tried reformatting the drive and installing from the backup (thank goodness I've been doing that!). I'm not sure what rebuilding the database does that slating the drive does not. Maybe I should try surrounding the unit with cool gel packs?

 

And no... the 1.4 patch did not fix the problem.

 

Any of you have any ideas or should I break out my tenor sax and start playing taps?

 

Sigh... in the same week, our router dies and my iPod bit the dust. Don't remember being mean to any old women recently.........

[amiman99]

I think the 7000RPM drives are hotter then 5000RPM ones. When I got my 120GB replacement drive, I made sure is the 5000RPMs. Try to put the original HD and see if this is causing problems.

I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I'm not using my PS3 that much, but so far no problems. I have the original 20GB with full backwards compatibility and with Linux installed.

[madmax2069]

Over the past month, my PS3 would consistently crash after about 45 minutes to 1 hr of play time. Since I was playing Skyrim, I thought that in itself was the issue. Other than that, I have pretty much used it for media files and watching Blu-ray movies. No problems there that I could tell.

 

So after giving up on Skyrim, I tried to give FF XIII-2 a whirl until the patch for Skyrim was out. Unfortunately, I have the same problem with FF XIII-2. Crash and boom. Sometimes it will reboot after ejecting the disc, or sometimes it will reboot into a screen full of green and black garbage. More often than not, I have to hold the power button down to turn it off. It will either start up again normally, the screen will be filled with green and black crap, or it will give me an error message explaining that it needs to check for errors on the HD. If that last one happens, it starts normally.

 

One other thing I've noticed... if I try to play a game again too soon, the crash may happen sooner.

 

It is a 40 gig fat model, though I replaced the drive about a year ago with a 250 gig one. My best guess is either the HD is going bad as it gets warm or there is a component that is going bad that causes a failure once the unit gets warm. My suspicion is on the last one since playing movies doesn't seem to stress it out too much. I've read that this could be caused by either a HD problem, a blu-ray drive problem, or a problem on the logic board.

 

I've tried reformatting the drive and installing from the backup (thank goodness I've been doing that!). I'm not sure what rebuilding the database does that slating the drive does not. Maybe I should try surrounding the unit with cool gel packs?

 

And no... the 1.4 patch did not fix the problem.

 

Any of you have any ideas or should I break out my tenor sax and start playing taps?

 

Sigh... in the same week, our router dies and my iPod bit the dust. Don't remember being mean to any old women recently.........

 

sounds to me like its showing signs that its about to die. It could be a cooling issue seeing as how you can only play it for so long. it could develop into the YLoD, the PS3 is known to show these signs before one gets the YLoD.

 

have you checked to see if the system is free of dust from the intakes and the heat sync, have you put a fresh dab of thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5) between the GPU and CPU and their heat sync. I could be wrong on this and it could very well be another part/chip giving you fits.

 

It does sound like a heat related issue.

Edited February 10, 2012 by madmax2069

[SlowCoder]

I think the 7000RPM drives are hotter then 5000RPM ones. When I got my 120GB replacement drive, I made sure is the 5000RPMs.

This is what I've heard to be a problem also. The drives run hotter, and consume more power, thereby shortening the lifespan of the unit.

 

My 40GB fat PS3 ran fine until we found Netflix. Then the PS3 began running 8hr and longer shifts almost every day over a period of the last 3-4 months before it RLOD'd. I'm sure those long running times without cooldown are just dandy on the hardware.

[cybercylon]

I think the 7000RPM drives are hotter then 5000RPM ones. When I got my 120GB replacement drive, I made sure is the 5000RPMs.

This is what I've heard to be a problem also. The drives run hotter, and consume more power, thereby shortening the lifespan of the unit.

 

My 40GB fat PS3 ran fine until we found Netflix. Then the PS3 began running 8hr and longer shifts almost every day over a period of the last 3-4 months before it RLOD'd. I'm sure those long running times without cooldown are just dandy on the hardware.

 

I'm fairly certain I went with the 5000 rpm drives to avoid that problem. I still have the box for the drive, so I can find out once I get home.

 

From what I've been reading, this sounds more like a GPU problem, and I can't rule out the blu- ray drive even though we have watched a few movies on it. Not sure if games stress the drive out more than just a movie.

[cybercylon]

So the new drive is 5400 rpm. I put the old one back in amiman suggested, and the PS3 seems to be okay for now. No crashes after about 90 minutes. Whether that is enough of a test or just earned a reprieve is hard to say. I've also put the 250 gig drive in a SATA bridge to have a computer bang away at it, and I can't find anything wrong with it.

 

I was pretty certain that something else was going on (e.g., logic board) and picked up a new slim on the way home. Of course, I tried that "one last thing (swap the drive)" just for the heck of it. So now the dilemma... assuming that I have the fat one working again, do I just keep the slim and sell the old or keep the old and return the new. I haven't opened it yet. One is easier on the pocket book, but there is going to be that "when is it going to go bad" feeling for awhile.

[HammR25]

At a minimum you should back up everything you can in case your PS3 does actually die.

[cybercylon]

At a minimum you should back up everything you can in case your PS3 does actually die.

 

I had done that already. Those are one of those lessons in life you learn once.

 

I'm leaning towards keeping the slim, given the age of the Blu-ray drive. I can always sell the older one if I think it is okay. I can't in good conscience sell it off even to a game store if I don't think it is okay. I know people do that, but I feel that is just wrong.

[SlowCoder]

At a minimum you should back up everything you can in case your PS3 does actually die.

 

I had done that already. Those are one of those lessons in life you learn once.

 

I'm leaning towards keeping the slim, given the age of the Blu-ray drive. I can always sell the older one if I think it is okay. I can't in good conscience sell it off even to a game store if I don't think it is okay. I know people do that, but I feel that is just wrong.

I think that's a good way to be.

 

My opinion on selling the old PS3 ... don't. I'm guessing you're going to continue having problems with it, even though your 90 minute test was ok. It's like having the car in the shop. It'll work fine, until you leave the shop and drive 30 miles, only to have it die on you again.

 

If it doesn't seem to have problems, keep it as your backup, and perhaps play LAN games with friends/family when they visit.