My PS3/40GB has slowed down a lot... (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

For whatever reason, my PS3/40GB seems to have slowed down a whole lot w/ loading certain titles (both for Blu-ray and DVD, but more so w/ DVD) and sometimes even gets stucked for so long (like a few minutes) that I give up and reboot the thing. It used to be quite fast, but now tends to be sluggish at loading discs.

And on occasion, it would also get stuck trying to shutdown (ie. go to standby mode) and require a hard power-off w/ the hard switch. I've also had a couple times where it just locked up when simply navigating the menus (even just from a fresh startup). And there were a couple times when it lost certain settings like the display and audio settings (but not the network settings, etc) and then booted up at 480i, etc.

Anyone else running into these problems?

It seems to be behaving a bit like when a PC installed something and got flaky *or* there was some system crash that left it a bit unstable. I'm guessing that's likely what it is -- maybe something went wrong during a shutdown cycle or something. I'm also wondering if it's not something to do w/ the WiFi networking and how it likes to download some small pieces of data (like promo/advertising info) off the internet, eg. from the PS website. No, I haven't downloaded any software updates since when I first bought the PS3 nearly 4 months ago -- still running v2.1(?) from December -- so that's probably not the problem. No, I also haven't used the other media hub features and only used the web browser a handful times earlier on, but not recently, so I doubt there's any hard drive fragmentation issue or disk space issue or the like.

Any ideas? I'm thinking maybe I should just download the latest update for Profile 2.0 and DTS-HD/MA, etc. even though I don't really need any of that right now. Maybe that will fix the problem just by going to a freshly updated system state.

Thanks for any help you can offer...

_Man_

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I'd try downloading the latest system software. Maybe the OS got corrupted somehow.

I had a problem once where my DSL modem got incredibly slow (like, dial-up speed). Once I figured out that the problem wasn't the PS3 or the wireless router, I simply power-cycled my modem and that solved the problem. You might try that too.

Good luck!

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I believe there is a restore option in the settings menu that will send it back to factory default? ( I know there is the option, I'm just not entirely sure what it restores to) I'd back up my data, I'm pretty sure it gets erased, and use the restore. Then update to the latest profile.

 

[Edwin-S]

I have the 60GB model. I haven't noticed any slow down in loading. However, I have had the problem noted above. For awhile I kept having to reset the display settings. The system would reset from 1080i/p to 480i. The problem seems to have cleared up, since I haven't seen it crop up for quite awhile now.

 

[Romier S]

That's more than likely not an issue with the system but with you pressing and holding the power button on the console itself when you power it on. If you hold it for 5 five seconds it will beep a second time and will auto reset. I've done it many a times accidentally.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Well, seems that my PS3 got corrupted beyond hope (short of a reformat) after I tried updating the system software and got stuck. And now, I'm having a hard time getting it to even reformat completely/successfully over the past couple days. It's gradually gotten upto 99% complete (after many retries), but seems to be stuck at 99% now. Certainly seems like I have a bad HDD (maybe w/ a bunch of bad sectors that get hit at around 99%) that might be causing the reformat to get stuck.

What a bummer! And I just started up Blockbuster's online rental service too w/ some Blu-ray discs. :frowning: Oh well, have to switch to DVD priority for my queue until my PS3 gets fixed. Maybe I'll see about just replacing the HDD w/ something bigger now, instead of waiting til later. I guess I could also lug it to the local Sony store in Manhattan to see if I can just get it replaced outright for a quick "fix", but that might be more hassle than I care to go through, if a quick HDD swap fixes it.

Too bad the ROM(?) system doesn't seem to allow repartitioning of the drive during its formatting process or I'd try that to see if I can't isolate and separate out the bad part of the drive for the reformat and system rebuild. If anyone knows how I can get the reformatting process to do a repartition first, please do let me know so I can try that. Thanks.

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Well, I decided to just buy a 120GB HDD on my way home from work (for ~$65+tax) and get my PS3 fixed (and upgraded) quickly rather than wait for whatever fix I can get from Sony under warranty. Swapping the HDDs was quick-and-easy, and seems the 120GB HDD was already formatted in the way that the PS3 needed, so the PS3 "formatting" was a breeze (taking maybe less than 1/2 minute, probably just running quickly through the drive to verify the format and maybe write a few needed system files). Applying the latest v2.3 system software update, OTOH, took a good while over my WiFi network much like the first time I did an update (and it failed on 1st try), but everything seems to be working nice and smooth again now. I guess the original HDD probably did go bad or something. Also, the new HDD -- a Western Digital Scorpio -- seems to run quite a bit cooler than the original one -- a Seagate Momentus I believe -- even though performance should be very similar. If you're looking for a HDD upgrade, definitely give some consideration to the Western Digital Scorpio.

BTW, oddly, swapping in the new HDD didn't lose most of my settings or even the v2.1 system software. Only thing I noticed losing was some bookmarks from the web browser -- but other settings for the browser, etc. seem to still be there, including the homepage I set for it. I really thought I'd lose all settings plus the v2.1 software -- I think it originally came w/ v1.6xx something. I guess all that stuff must actually be stored somewhere else in the PS3, not on the HDD.

Anyhoo, now that I have bigger drive in the PS3, maybe I should start looking into running Linux off it too, LOL.

_Man_

 

[Matt Hough]

Thanks, Man, for your detailed account of your solution to this problem. Those of us with PS3's appreciate knowing a quick fix should one be necessary.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

What's the easiest way to swap HDs while preserving one's game saves and such?

 

[Jari K]

I guess you have to move them to the memory stick or something? My friend is coming over at some point, and the game saves for "Uncharted: Drakes’s Fortune" are in his PS3 (we´ll continue the game in mine). So I would like to know also...

Full games and demos you have to download again (which you can several times, once you´ve paid for the game once), you can´t move them from "HD to HD".

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... I didn't check for game saves, but I'd think Jari is correct. I guess I can check my son's game saves for the only PS3 game I bought (for him), ie. PotC3, later tonight. But even if certain games *might* save data somewhere in the PS3 other than the HDD, you can't guarantee that all games you care about will do that.

Basically, you should save/backup everything you can before swapping HDDs. The PS3 has a "backup" feature for that I believe though I didn't use it in my case (mainly because I didn't feel I had anything important enough to bother).

But yes, again, swapping HDD is very quick-and-easy. If you've ever done it for your desktop PC (or even a well designed laptop), this is quicker and easier than that, especially since you don't need to do much to get it up-and-running after the physical drive swap (vs having to install OS, your favorite apps, etc. after the physical install for a regular computer). I didn't try to restore additional data (like game saves), but I imagine that's probably pretty painless too.

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

BTW, I forgot to mention that you need an SATA 2.5" HDD for the PS3, if you want to swap the HDD. Apparently, they still make the old style interface versions of the same HDDs, eg. Western Digital Scorpio, Seagate Momentus, etc., so if you do this, make sure you get an SATA 2.5" drive. I chose the WD 120GB Scorpio mainly because it was the cheapest (for a tried-and-true maker) and seems to be the coolest running (or at least WD touts this aspect), is "whisper quiet" and still should perform just as well as the original built-in drive. I coulda gotten an extra 40GB for ~$15 more, but decided to keep it simpler (and possibly cooler running) -- and thought if I actually needed more space than 120GB, then I'd probably need a ton more space (maybe for video downloads), not just 40GB, and would probably want an external USB drive (or even networked storage) for that.

_Man_

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Thanks, guys. I'll look into the backup feature.

I assumed that any sort of large file would have to get re-downloaded.