Thought I'd give this a try...

I've had my PS2 slim for just over 3 years. Its worked great until recently - I've had no problems. Here's what is happening:

God of War II would load and play when I first got it. As I was getting into the game, it wouldn't load. I would get to the screen at the beginning to select and load game. Then it would load and load and load and load...nothing. The disc would be spinning, but not loading. I would play another game, like Need for Speed 2, where it would load and save my profile. I would go back to GOW II, and it would work. Now, I can still get to the GOW II menu, select a game to load, but it won't load, even if I play another PS2 game first.

Often, while playing, if I would move into another area of GOW II, the game would load briefly like it should. But now it would just freeze and load and load and load.

I thought it may be the disc. So, today I got the GOW II disc buffed out (there were some scratches), but the same problems were happening.

Recently, I was having problems with GH III too, where it start to load, and then nothing - I wouldn't even get to the start screen. Then tonight, playing Star Wars Battlefront, while loading a new level (Yavin), it would load and load and load. Yavin finally loaded, but there was no sound.

I'm now thinking its the machine, not the disc.

I've cleaned the lens just recently (and several times) - though its not a DVD lens cleaner, but a CD one.

Hope this makes sense...

Any ideas?