My PS3 hangs occassionally (several times a day).

It will hang:

1) sometimes when playing or loading a game (flying aces of WW2 or Call of Duty).
2) it will hang when I am at the PS3 menu and navigate to the Game loaded in the PS3 and select by pressing the X or selecting play from the menu for the PS3 game.
3) it will hang when I am done playing the game and want to exit the game and go back to the PS3 menu.

The only way to free up the unit is to completely powercycle the PS3.

I have download and loaded the latest patches.

Is this a bug? expected? a hardware issue? I have the 20gb model.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Sparkster

I've left it in that stat from 1 to 25 minutes and it "never" comes back.

The hangs occur indefinitely. I've waited up to 25 minutes at times, only way to get to respond is to powercycle system.

I haven't heard back to my previous replies to the question of how long the hang occurs... it hangs until I powercycle, around 25 minutes on one occurance.

I started in an open room, it hung. I do currently have in an entertainment cabinet but have noticed the system does run hot.

The point it hangs is after navigating to the game, I select the game to play, it echo's playstation 3 on the screen then blanks and stays that way. I have noticed when watching the hard drive activity light that it never comes on when it hangs, but obviously flickers when all is working well.

I'll give Sony a ring... Thanks.