Technical Help

[kawasaki_kid_55]

i am having the same problem like when i start my 120 gig ps3 up it goes slow and takes forever to load then while in games online and offline they will freeze the load then keep going it gets really annoying and i was wondering if there was a way to mabey solve this or if i needed to go have something done has anyone figured anything out about this ?

[Shaoken]

Huh, this is sounding a lot like what happened to my new PS3 slim. My running theory was overheating, which would explain why it still freezes even after I reformated it and started trying to reinstall it.

[FireSnake999]

Me too i'm currently having super slow boot time anything between 10 secondes to 4-5 minutes slower. i really should open up my PS3 and deep cleep it because right now on boot some cooling fan make lots of weird noise them get normal & boot occurs. 

From what i've read slow boot could be a heat issue on start up. proccessor cpu or gpu getting overheated for a seconde & cooldown take time?!?!?! plossible!?!?!? 

i own a 2 &1/2 year old PS3 refurbished after first 11 months for BD disc drive who lost sight of game disc inserted (caused by DUST & SMOKE it slowed down or freezes  while loading from disc during game. Also not helping the processor via the motherboard freaks out beacause it doesn't get response from BD disc drive.)

Like any well ''oiled'' computer Hard Disk should never be 90% full preferably 50% or less for optimal performance. Always dust  or filter away dust, hair, lint, smoke, (humidity, grease) from kitchen cooking for smooth running fans & BD disc drive. HDD is seal no contamination problems there!

[FireSnake999]

PS3 optimal Speed up tips: 

1) like you wrote : cleaning3 clearing : Cookies, cache, predective... bla bla bla from your web browser is always good

CLEAR = all old messages (press triangle) sent & received

CLEAR =  empty all names from block List

for optimal log in have less PSN friend on your list ( some games ex: GTA4 cant see past 50 friends in the ingame invites. less friend = faster log in

[KanGaIdog]

guys i gotta same problem what should i do ? plz need help ... even when i try to turn it off it take a while till show the msg of turning off .. tried to format it but it take 7 hours and already done the quick format still same very slow

[TTDegs]

safe boot mode, option 3 - see link below, but be sure to read about the implications of choosing the wrong option.
http://faq.en.playstation.com/cgi-bin/scee_gb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?locale=en_GB&p_faqid=4545&...

Note that occasionally, a second safe boot may be required, choosing option 4 this time.
Option 4 WILL remove some (less vital) stuff - see above link for details.

Backup of game saves are always a good idea though, just in case.
You have 2 options - individual saves to usb stick, or a full backup to external usb HDD

[SouthTNDeathride]

I'm having this problem now as well... It takes about 5 minutes from the time I power it on to where I can access the menu.  Prior to the menu displaying the image that floats across the screen is real slow.  The news messages in the upper right corner are no longer smooth but choppy like it pauses for a split second.   When a game actually loads (I'll use Resistance 3 for this example) I was running through the environment and all I can see is my escort and the enemies.  The floor was gone, the walls were gone, the rooftops were gone.  Then I could only control the movement straight and sideways... I wasn't able to look around my view was stuck on straight ahead.  Obviously the system wasn't keeping up with the game... I fear that it's on it's way out... this is number 2 and there will not be a number 3. If this system goes I'll be gaming on my PC.  Too bad because I love Sony products.

By the way, the link above regarding safe boot is not working... I keep getting a Site Unavailable message.

Any ideas?

[KyronR]

Hello Everybody,

I found the problem at least for me and it may solve problems for a lot. It is the Harddrive. I guess Sony got a bad batch for years since i'm seeing a lot of complaints. My HD is a Toshiba and what got me was that the PS3 slim was purchased brand new 7 mths ago.

Going into a week, i found that saving data and game startups was running slow. Eventually the PS Menus were running slow and shutting down took longer than usual. I realized all this was happening whenever the Hard Drive light on my PS was just on with minimal blinking, meaning that the HD is attempting to write something but it is very slow. Rapid blinking means that data is being written very fast. No blinking/no light means no data is being written at that moment.

I saved all my data onto a flash and then I took out the HD following an excellent guide on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APtkJHWbWX8

I took my HD and connected it to an external enclosure which i then connected to my Windows 7 PC. Now it's like i have an external HD. I went into the drive and formatted it. After, i ran the check disk tool to scan the HD for errors. (On Windows, go to "My Computer" right click on the External Harddrive, lets say the drive letter is "E", click properties, click the tools tab and under error checking, click "Check Now". I chooze both "Automatically Fix File System Errors" and importantly, "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". You can try it out on your "C" drive to know what i'm talking about. You can also check the link below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Check-your-hard-disk-for-errors

After checking, the windows program found bad sectors on the Hard Drive! I don't know how Windows does do it but i think the program will "seal" the bad sectors so no data would be written there anymore but it is still there. In other words, when writing data, that area would be ignored.

I downloaded the PS3 update and saved it on my flash:

http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/pc_update/

I put back my HD into the PS3, switched on and followed the onscreen instructions which will ask me to put in my flash to reload the PS3 with the update. After going through everything, the PS3 is running FAST! But i'm sure i am on borrowed time with the HD since more bad sectors would be created for whatever reason. If you want, get an "SATA" hard drive from a used laptop and switch it with the one on the PS3 and see what happens. (Make sure you run checkdisk on that HD also before using).Back up all your data before you do this. I'm confident this will help many. Cheers!