PS3: extremely noisy fan

Sit your PS3 up on something to let the bottom ventilate. Instead of standing it up, lay it down and prop it up on a couple of tuna cans or something...anything to get it up off a surface. That should help quiet it down some.

Take it apart and clean it with air compressor. I just cleaned mine due to loud fan, now it's quiet as can be!

Usually it sounds loud because it is overheating dust is clogging it so the fans are to cool them I recommend that put some cool air conditionar near it and put it above the floor with something soft.

I encountered the somewhat same problem with my ps3 only after 10 to 20 minutes of operating time the fan would go into high blow mode sounding like a jet engine. Proceeded to feel the air at the back of console and the temperature was very warm. I then unplugged all cords and used compressed air from my air compressor with 2/16 inch rubber nozzle on air gun and began flushing all dust from every angle and every open port including taking off the sanp hard drive door also. Continued flushing with compressed air for about 10 to 15 minutes until no more dust debris came out. Plugged all cords in and turned on waited for the fan to kick into high and didn't also temperature of air coming from the back of console seemed alot cooler also. Sidenote using compressed air in can might damage componets by coating essential components with frozen nitrogen hindering porcesses and doing permanent damage.

Honestly a major factor in fan noise is the position of the console to the surrounding material. So if the PS3 case touches a solid surface, it will sound much louder. If the PS3 is near a wall or solid surface, it will reflect sound waves more efficiently and make your PS3 fan much louder!

You can dampen the noise by moving it away from solid surface and raising the console a few inches on something soft (paperback).

After reading all the posts and knowing that my fan is not faulty it's just running full speed, I realized I have never blown the dust out of it. I turned it on and my fan ran for a few seconds and immediately goes full speed for about 3 seconds and then calms down. I unplugged it took it down to the shop and blew it out with my air compressor at all different angles in every whole back and forth and even when one side seemed clean I blew the other side out and realized it was blowing dust back and forth inside you must go back and forth between all of the ports many times until no dust comes out. If your fan is not faulty it is obviously a heat problem especially on systems like mine which is the 80 gig first generation with almost full backwards compatibility with PS1 and 2. This unit was the first of its kind and I had to special-order it. The later units had the backwards compatibility removed and some processor load reduced in order to lower power consumption. This is very common on the first generation. I would not suggest taking your PS3 apart if you ever plan to have it fixed by Sony they will not touch it even if you pay them. No one has ever opened my system except Sony for a hard drive replacement many years ago. I agree not to use canned air because if any liquid comes out of the can if it does not damage the board it could cause the heat sink paste to become brittle and not conduct heat away from the processor and the fan will always run fast. Blowing the unit out has made a huge Improvement but be careful and do not blow air near the disk slot or you can get dust on the laser and your Blu-ray will not work correctly and don't hold the air hose directly on the vent holes give it 5 or 6 inches in case there is some water condensation in your airline I suggest using an airline with a dryer on it. This has fixed my problem. I have done some temperature test and this unit does run cooler if laid flat because then there are no vents on the bottom. This unit is going to be louder than the later version because it is a power monster. Also suggest you hang on to this unit they are getting rare if you have one like mine with the door and all the slots and 80 gig hard drive and full backwards compatibility. I was offered more for mine than I paid for it which is very rare for a game console so take care of it. Hope this helps.