I've been trying every weird solution and remedy on this forum to get the game to work. I turned off auto-save, I cleared a huge amount of HDD space, I left the game running for 10 hours and saved to see if it would reduce the save file size (it didn't, and I just discarded that save.).

Anyway, at this point, I'm 113 hours into my save and the game is truly unplayable. I load it up and for the most part, the game runs smoothly when I start it up (25 fps I'd wager). Then, 5 to 10 minutes into playing, the game freezes. The screen stops moving, and it won't respond to any input. I leave it going for a few minutes to see if it'll recover, but it doesn't. I always have to manually shut down the ps3, which as many here will know, means waiting for the "Checking File System" stuff to finish, which takes about 10 minutes for me. These crashes used to happen much later into playing, to the point where I could live with them, but they since made a huge jump in speed. The crashes, I should note, happen any time. Sometimes during loading screens, sometimes during dialog. It doesn't seem to matter what's happening.

So, long story short, every time I start up Skyrim, it crashes 5-10 minutes into playing. The game is literally unplayable in this state. It's not stuttering. It's not stalling. It's crashing.

Relevant info:
120gb PS3 slim
7.2 gb free HDD space
113 hours played
12 MB save file size
15 Skyrim save files on HDD
Autosaving turned off (not that it even gets a chance to do that before it crashes)

where are you peopel getting 120 gig PS3 slims? all i see is 160 around here.

120gb was the original Slim model. They don't make them anymore.

My friends getting this frequent crashing on his slim, he can never play for more than 45 mins without a crash. I'm using a fat ps3 and having occasional crashes, but nowhere near as often. Maybe it's a slim issue? Are other people on the slim having this problem?

First off, I want to love this game. I have the choice of which platform to play on, I chose the ps3. I chose wrong. With auto save off, waiting a month in game, and the whole slew of PR BS bethesda is spewing, my 100 hour plus character is nothing more then a useless save file, unplayable and broken in every way. Not because of a backward dragon or texture issue or even the frustrating but forgivable quest bug. But because of some design flaw most likley ps3 specific, that I believe bethesda had to be aware of. I also feel that the ps3 version was misrepresented and should not have been released. I too cannot play my main character without a hard lock after five maybe ten minutes if I am lucky. What really hurts is the fact that I spent all my time leveling crafting skills and questing for dragon shouts and the moment that I go out in all my glory to begin the adventure my game breaks, and also my heart. Skyrim broke my heart. I have been a fan since daggerfall and I am angry.

I have an original phattie 80gb and its crashing every 15mins for me

my crashes are slowly getting more and more frequent (my auto saves are off) after turning my auto saves off it crashed maybe once every 3-4 days then it got to every other day now its crashing every other hour there getting more and more frequent and i dare not play it again as i don't want to risk any more potential damage to my ps3 or its files i dont even get lag before it crashes it just crashes and its at completely random points aswell

i have a fat 80 gig playstation 5-6 years in age i think but has never crashed or had any sort of lag issue untill this game all the others still work and run like a dream
13 MB save file
130+ hours

I use a slim 120 GB to. 1 year old.
Game is constently crashing now.
Cant play normal anymore. 1 time when I was restarting ps3, the console said there was some data damaged. So I had to reformat my Hard Drive. Still similar problems and freezes after that.
I did try every tip Bethesda put on the forum. Doesnt work at all for me.
I'm at level 41, 180 hours gameplay. Save size: 9GB
(excuse my english)

try disabling your internet from the main menu (signing out of the PSN doesn't work), it worked for me. i can now play for a 2-3 hours before i start having issues.

Same problem, nothing seems to work. Was already playing auto-saves off, offline, on a brand new 250 GB slim. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do, it now freezes like clockwork after almost precisely five minutes of gameplay. 144 hours in, and totally infuriated.

thanks for the little tip and as soon as my playstation is done backing up so i can reset it to factory settings ( i have this horrid feeling that when save files started getting corrupted due to the crashes in skyrim it may have corrupted some OS files that i can't see call me paranoid if you like but id rather be safe then sorry) i will try this but it does bring me to the question as to why having an internet connection may effect game play on a game that isn't online

Less for the ps3 to do, tested it on new vegas and skyrim and saw improvement on both. figured if it was connected to the internet even if it was signed out of the psn it would still be receiving "pings" from the network / internet for whatever else it does via the internet which means it still needed to process it. so no internet means it can concentrate on the game and nothing else. jsut something simple to try. i had a thread a while ago and others saw improvement too. hope it helps.

ah fair enough that makes sense i guess well will try it my Ps3 is still backing up atm though
never know this reverting it back to factory settings may help out to lol

Freezing started here after patch 1.2 and mostly occurs during the loading screen when entering new areas. It often happens 5-10 minutes into the game, but not always, yesterday I played for hours without freezing. But it's really annoying, it has almost come to the point that it bugs me more than the occasional lag.

80GB Fat PS3
11GB free space
110 hours into the game
10MB file size
PS3 locks up within 30 minutes usually.

I'm thinking of starting a new character to play with reduced file sizes while waiting for a patch to come out.

my 320gb slim ps3 crashes with skyrim all the time DX i got 76 hours gameplay but its not like 5-10 minutes its 5-10 SECONDS!

Bethesda! Y U [censored] UP SKYRIM ON PS3!? ?(?益?)?

Same for me, have only been crashing since 1.2.

Crashes mostly during loading screens on fast-travel, but has occurred while just walking (over-encumbered) through Riften. It has crashed within 5-10 minutes a few times but there doesn't seem to be any consistency with the length of time played.

320Gb PS3 Slim - recently cleaned and upgraded hard-drive (7200 RPM, SSD Hybrid)
~6.5Mb+ Save file (~40 hours)
Autosaves are off

Yep. Same problem here.
160GB PS3 slim and Skyrim is the only game on it at the moment.

Freezes started after the 1.2 patch. Lag wasn't a problem. Barely had any and I haven't encountered dragons flying backwards, but the freezes make it unplayable. I just gave up.

Same thing sort of happening to me. Been getting a lot of freezing within about an hour or two of play. Only since the 1.2 patch. Before that, it crashed once in the time I had played.

Have a "fat" PS3 with a 160GB HD (installed myself a long while ago). Save file is only 5MB or so, and I'm about 20 hours in.

Tried turning off the internet connection. The game still crashed about 3 minutes in.

I upgraded my fat ps3 to have 500 gb, and not even half of that is used. I got a brief period of my game locking up immediately upon loading. it went away, but I still get locked up without warning at random periods of time.

Seemed ot happen right around the time my save file hit 13 mb.