PS3 freezing at xmb menu and during games

[Ant Davis]

I'm new here, and I've found threads talking about similar issues but not exactly the same thing.

I got this fat 80 GB ps3 (CECHExx) two weeks ago and immediately swapped in a 500 GB hdd. I've installed kmeaw 3.55 and have been using rogero for backups with no problems until yesterday. I ripped star wars force unleashed and GOW III to my hdd (GOW III is big and took over an hour). Went to play star wars, then the game froze during the first level--had to hold the power button on the front to shut it down because even the ps button on the controller wouldn't work to go back to the xmb menu.

Now the ps3 freezes within the first few minutes of starting it up or even less, often while I'm still in the xmb menu before I've even started a game, and sometimes it'll have graphical glitches. Freezing happens even if I'm trying to run a game off the disc. I went into recovery mode and tried restoring the file system, rebuilding the database, and restoring the ps3 system (wiping everything and starting over). I reinstalled 3.55 ofw. I even tried out the original 80 GB again. No luck.

My guess is that my ps3 is done for--I'm still under warranty, so it's not the end of the world--but if the problem is a somewhat easy fix, I'd rather just not deal with the hassle of shipping and waiting. At least for the future, it's be great to know if this was preventable. The system sits on top of my desk in an open area and I just lightly vacuumed it out a week ago, but I'm wondering if maybe the system still got too overheated while ripping those games or if it's just too hard to say what caused the problem.

[chesh]

Tried any of the HDD options in the recovery menu? Could just have HDD corruption.

[d0zs]

Now the ps3 freezes within the first few minutes of starting it up or even less, often while I'm still in the xmb menu before I've even started a game, and sometimes it'll have graphical glitches. Freezing happens even if I'm trying to run a game off the disc. I went into recovery mode and tried restoring the file system, rebuilding the database, and restoring the ps3 system (wiping everything and starting over). I reinstalled 3.55 ofw. I even tried out the original 80 GB again. No luck.

i've had similar problems on my slim, but i resolved it by reinstalling the fw. and since you've tried all that, i would say it's a hardware issue. it might be a precursor for a classic YLOD case, especially since it's a FAT, which is normally caused by cpu overheating when the thermal paste burns out.

[Ant Davis]

Wow, that was a fast reply. Thanks.

I did try Restore File System, Rebuild Database, and Restore PS3 System from the recovery menu. I forgot to mention before (probably pretty important) that when I restore the file system, it says that there's corrupted data and that it will fix it. But after the "fixing" is over, the freezes still happen. If I try restoring the file system again, it goes through the same thing. Is there something else with the hdd I can do from recovery that might work?

I put the original 80 GB drive back in there to see if it was just a hdd issue, but it had the exact same freezing problems. I didn't try running any of the recovery mode stuff with the original drive in there, since I was thinking that this experiment confirmed the problem isn't with the hdd, but I could be wrong.

[Ant Davis]

i've had similar problems on my slim, but i resolved it by reinstalling the fw. and since you've tried all that, i would say it's a hardware issue. it might be a precursor for a classic YLOD case, especially since it's a FAT, which is normally caused by cpu overheating when the thermal paste burns out.

I was thinking something like that, too. Thanks.

[chesh]

Yeah, if it's still happening while you've got your original HDD back in there, I'd say it's a sign that something else is about to happen. Go get your warranty