Stuttering on internal hdd

[oppigard]

The problem with stuttering on some of the games (especially Uncharted 2's cutscenes) has been narrowed down to a problem with the ps3 not supporting sata2 mode, and the drive refusing to use sata1.

For now, I advise everyone to stay away from WD Scorpio drives!
Other drives might work out of the box, and some drives needs to be locked to sata1 mode with a tool.

Symptoms of a drive with these problems
Extremely long installation times for first startup on games.
Stuttering, repeating audio and out of sync in Uncharted 2 cutscenes (Video between missions)
Sound stuttering in Heavy Rain, seems to be more random.
Incredibly slow reading speed over FTP, try to copy something from your PS3 to your PC over FTP, I got speeds UP TO 270KB/s

I hope everyone could just post their results in this thread, remember to include hard-drive make, model and size, and if there was any need for a modification (jumper or pc-tool).

Confirmed working drives
ST9500325AS - Seagate Momentus 500GB (Use jumper)
ST906403N1A1AS-RK - Seagate Momentus 640GB (Use jumper)
ST9500420AS Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200.4, 2.5", SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 11 ms
(missing serial) - Samsung Spinpoint M7 (use ESTOOL)

Confirmed NON working drives
WD5000BPVT - WD Scorpio Blue 500GB
WD7500BPVT - WD Scorpio Blue 750GB

[oppigard]

Also, in heavy rain, it sometimes takes forever to load (when you see a closeup of a characters face). The first time it loaded this way it took like 10 minutes!

If anyone is able to run these games fine on the internal hdd, I would like to know that too!

[m0usju1c3]

I've just backed this game. I'll go give it a whirl to see if any of these things are happening.

[MRDOCA]

happens very slightly here. on most games with good quallity cut scenes

[dragon84]

can these issues be solved using a 7200rpm drive?

[oppigard]

can these issues be solved using a 7200rpm drive?

Lets hope its the code in backup manager that needs some tweaking when it comes to buffering! :P
I've read several places that the blue-ray drive in the ps3 is capable of reading up to 72Mbits/second, thats 9MB/s, and my WD scorpio blue 500 is 83MB/s, so it definitely should be up to the task!
But if anyone with a 7200rpm drive could try one of those games out, that would be great!

[reldas]

i have finshed heavy rain, from playing it on my internal and it works perfectly fine no stutters or anything. maybe your hdd is going bad. i have a seagate 5400rpm 500gb drive. soon to be a 2tb internal.

[oppigard]

i have finshed heavy rain, from playing it on my internal and it works perfectly fine no stutters or anything. maybe your hdd is going bad. i have a seagate 5400rpm 500gb drive. soon to be a 2tb internal.

just bought the damn thing... but if we cant find a solution to this, I will test the drive in my computer!

[eventum]

I've had no problem with this on a completely new, never used before, 250GB PS3 Slim unit. Went straight from retail packaging to jailbreaking!

Might it be a problem with fragmentation? Have any of you guys tried running it after a complete wipe? Same problems?

[Harakiri]

Hi

Anyone else having trouble with stuttering or out of sync audio?
This occurs in the games Uncharted 2, and Heavy Rain.
And only in the cut scenes (I think)
Often starts the cut-scene ok, but starts stuttering and goes out of sync will the end.
The games are installed on the internal hdd.

I have exactly the same issue - in uncharted i get not only out of sync but sometimes they are rapping =p it means they will loop their sentences - the only workaround for this is press the PS button and go to the dashboard, then return.

As for heavy rain - i only played it once but the game crashed, after you talked to the boy who found the dead bird.

Now i have been asking elsewhere about this issue - and i thought it was just me with my PS3SLIM and a 750GB harddisk (i dont use the original one) - they have similar speeds 5400 or 5200 dunno, but way faster than a blu ray. Other users with their original disk didnt have this issue, which i found odd.

My believe is, that this is a synchronization error because the harddisk is actually too fast. Similar to PS2 games, which were emulated on the pc before - there is timing code which expects the DVD drive to be that slow - if you load the game to fast it gets out of sync. SO i believe if you could slow down the loading from the harddrive to similar speeds to a blu ray drive the issue would be resolved - however i dont think you can do this under any unix (or GameOS for ps3).

Also, to anyone saying they are buying a 2TB internal or 1TB - NOT GONNA HAPPEN, there is no existing 2.5" harddisk above 750GB which is only 9.5mm - they are all above 12mm - they wont fit!!!