Thanks for the help, appreciate it! I just switched my Ps3 on again & it says my hdd is corrupted, so it's re-building it at the minute. Will see if this makes any differnce, if not I will return it & get a new one.

Did it freeze with the original HDD it came with? try it.

Even if it was a 7200RPM, it wouldn't be freezing. I'd actually recommend a 7200RPM drive, some games load a lot faster.

Doing that now! My 500GB HDD is now corrupted, Ps3 can't seem to restore it!

You should try to see if you have these problems with the stock HDD. I have a feeling that's the problem.

Late, I am.

Just wanted to let you guys know that I changed the HDD back to the original 160GB and the PS3 is now working fine! Glad that I didn't have to return the machine, slightly disappointed that I've had to downgrade from 500GB to 160GB, but I will purchase a bigger HDD somewhere down the line!

Thanks to everyone who responded.

PS3's failure rate is still something like 1-2%. Your just unlucky. Swap consoles asap, some retailers offer a limited 1 month exchange policy, maybe the place you bought it from will exchange it for you and ship your PS3 back as a defect.

My 360 broke after warranty, and I was still able to get an HDMI model. Just learn to bitch.