Playstation 3 Broken? Games not loading?

I can relate. Correction, I used to be able to relate. I've finally fixed my PS3. It's as good as new. Did the Maxell lens cleaner do it? Unfortuantly, no. It did make a cool sound, but I think my problem wasn't dust. More on that later.

The Problems...
First, I must say that the problems were sparatic far before they became constant. It would be anything from loading games slow, to not recognizing them at all, to skipping/freezing during game loads and/or play, as well as sound skipping/looping/going out during play, and last, just a blank black screen. Sadly, I put up with this for atleast 2 months or so.... sometimes wasting 30-40 minutes to get the damn game to load.

Anyways... I had purchased the Maxel Blu ray Cleaner from Amazon and hoped for the best. It didn't work, but it definitly improved something a little. I bought this because I didn't want to take apart my PS3. I work on computers a lot, but sometimes I seem to fry things and didn't want to risk it, but I had no choice now with my Playstation 3 all but broken.

I spent hours on google trying to figure out the best thing to do and finally came to the conclusion I had to take it apart. I followed this youtube video (warning: it plays some cheesy music during the whole thing but the video itself is solid) which is a perfect set of instructions to disassemble, reassemble, and clean the lens.

Now, a lot of things on google and even youtube (there's lots of videos on there for this topic) say to not use ethyl (or whatever) alchool, but the rubbing alchool I used to clean the lens with had 70% of it and worked fine. I definitly recommend a q-tip and to be careful while cleaning the lens because you might dislodge it. It wiggles a lot on springs. I only went around it for around 15 seconds and that seems to be more than sufficent. Give it 30 seconds-1minute to dry before reassembly. Don't wipe it clean it will dry fine.

After completing the process and wiping out random clumps of dust (recommended while you're at it) I hooked it back up and for the first time in months my game was not only recognized but loaded all through without a hitch in record time. It's like brand new. The culprit ...? well, I found a pretty big piece of hair in there. I'm not sure how it got in there but I really think this was the issue. It'd also explain why it worked fine sometimes, but most times not. Perhaps blowing in to it a few times moved it around enough to let it read properly. I don't care because it's finally fixed!

So, I hope anyone with this problem can fix theirs too. It's like night and day. Of course you know what this means now ... I can go back to Resident Evil 5 and Call of Duty! Woo hoo