Can you describe the current symptoms in more detail? I was playing Eternal Sonata last summer one time and it got stuck on a load screen. It didn't crash, so I let it sit there. Even after five minutes it never left the load screen. I turned off the ps3 and wiped the disc off (just because?) and it played fine. A month later with Batman it got to a load screen and just sat there. I turned it off and put the game in, and there was nothing. It would no longer read the disc. It wouldn't read any discs at all of any type. Turned out my blu-ray diode was bad and I had to order a replacement laser assembly. It's pretty easy to put in and it's a common problem. You can test for this problem by starting up the ps3 with a disc inside and then eject the disc to see if it spun at all. If it did not spin then that is probably your problem. The next step would be to take the unit apart, remove the top from the drive (very easy to do all this) and get it to think a disc is inside (use one of the clear pieces of plastic that comes with a cd spindle) and upon power on look for three flashing lights. There should be a bright purple, then two red flashes (one is a byproduct of an IR pulse and is a very faint red). If you are like me, you will not see the bright purple.
It could be that with intermittant read issues your diode is on its way out.
