Last night I had a marathon FFXII session on my PS3 80 gig and about 2 hours into playing, the fan kicked it up a notch and reached the point where I could very much hear an audible hum.  It is pretty much the same noise level as my 360's fan is (when the DVD is not running, lol, as thats LOUD).  It's not terrible, but not something I've read a lot about anywhere.  I don't think it is malfunctioning as it just seems to be speeding up the fan from excessive heat.  Perhaps the PS2 emulation software pushes the cell hard and generates a lot of heat?  Thanks for the input....

I have read a couple of posts on AVSforums that mention the 80 gigger being noiser (fan noise as the blu-ray is pretty much silent) than the 40 gig but that's about all I've been able to find.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on the console or wanting to return it or anything -- I just want to make sure it's normal as I've always heard the PS3 was more or less silent.

My 60 gig's fan gets going after a few hours of play time.

I noticed that certain games do it more than others. During Rainbow Six the fan gets going so fast that it sounds like my PS3 is having a heart attack, but during Guitar Hero or Metal Gear Solid I can't hear it at all.

Yeah Normal. Couple hours play and it kicks up a notch.

yeap it happens after a couple of hours

Ok, cool, thx...