hey scotty sounds like some corruption on your ps3s hard drive check this out
watch the video one of the features will fix the corruption i'm sure
Also for extra cooling invest in a laptop cooling stand like this one, i have one and it make a big difference
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cool-Horizon...tp_s2_edpp_url
For extra cooling you will need to change the thermal paste on your ps3s CPU and GPU; the thermal paste is what bleeds the heat from the processors to the heatsink. The paste that comes with a ps3 will start to dry out after a year and a half (convienent as this is after the warrantee runs out), this in turn will cause the processor to heat up and acumulate damage. The operation taking apart your ps3 and cleaning off the old thermal paste and apply new thermal paste (i used artic silver) is easy though it does require a t14 screwdriver (for one pesky screw) and there are numerous youtube videos to help
For the lazy inclined there are also fine companies out there who will diagnose and fix your ps3/xbox for less than sony would charge
one UK company i would recommend is consolewerks as this company fixed my dead bluray and also is the company we send our broken debugg consoles to to get fixed.