Why does my PS3 make loud cracking sounds?

Whenever i turn it off it makes random loud cracking sounds. The same sound itd probably make if you tapped it with the nail of your finger. Is this bad? I have it on a hard wood floor. Is the PS3 Slim.

Most likely just the plastic cooling down.dk00111

I find its only my slim that does it. My 60 gig just gets loud on highest fan speed.BlackendV

Yeah, its most likely what the previous posters said, if its just a "random" crack sound or tap, its prolly your system just, for lack of a better word, "settling". My does it from time to time.

Thats good. i was afraid my PS3 was having some sort of problem. Thanks for the feedback !

It's normal, mine does the same thing.

Mine does the same thing man, it's annoying when I'm trying to sleep...

All slims do it. It's absolutely normal though. You shouldn't worry.

My slim did it randomly for the 1st month and hasn't since. Hope the SOB didn't crack! :P

Yeah, mine does the same, it's the plastic cooling down. Perfectly normal.

I had the same question when I got the PS3 slim when it came out. It may be normal but it could be a bad design. Also last fall all of a sudden the game started to only read blu ray discs some of the time. Still does it, I'll eventually try and get it repaired.

Is your PS3 relatively new? If it's less than like 2-3 months old, I'd say that it's just the plastic settling nothing to worry about. It's not like it's a grinding noise coming from the CD drive or something like that. That's one of those things that happens to new electronic items--it happened to my flatscreen LCD when I first bought it and my laptop, then it happened when I got my ps3. Wouldn't be too concerned.