Playstation 2 Load Problems

[hypernova]

My PS2 is having problems.  Here's what's happening:
I'm playing FF8.  Got about an hour in (Dollet mission) and things start happening.  I'm powering up using only Seifer (so as to not gain levels with the playable characters.)

1.  During one fight, background graphics screw up.  Fight continues with no problems.
2.  Next day, when fight starts, enemies don't show up, and ps2 "freezes."
3.  When restarting, I load the file from memory card, but after completing the load, sometimes nothing happens, and it "freezes."
4.  Sometimes the enemies will load, but it takes a good 10 seconds for my characters to load afterwards.  (Enemies load first, party second.)
5.  Once or twice when moving to a new screen, the new screen wouldn't load, and it "freezes."
5.  Playing today, tried something new.  When enemies didn't load, I ejected the disc, then waited a few seconds, and loaded it back in.  Enemies loaded.  Whenever they load, the party always loads, even if it takes 5-10 seconds.
6.  For about 10 fights (every fight,) enemies wouldn't load, so I used my trick above, and it loaded each time, always within a second or two, and my characters right after in normal time.  So apparently it was never actually frozen.
7.  Been playing for about ten minutes now.  Ejecting/Loading seems completely random.  It'll load a few fights no problem, then need help a few times at various points.
8.  NEW:  Just had the PS2 completely freeze.  Disc tray won't even eject now, nor will it reset or even sleep.

The disc is practically flawless.  Nothing even close to a scratch on it, other than the hairline stuff that accrues over the years somehow.  So I'm thinking one of two things.

Laser?
Drive motor?
Other?

Based on the occurrences above, which sounds more likely?

[hypernova]

OK.  This almost seems to be based on the situation.  I don't think this game likes the player leveling up Seifer that much.  I can't duplicate this on a disc four save.  I had this problem originally on another save, and restarted, and didn't have any problems until around a few hours into leveling him up (around the time monsters are about level 20, and gain the -ra spells.)

Great...now this is making even less sense.  I loaded up my Dollet save after resetting the system from my disc four save.  The game has so far played fine.  Now this wouldn't bother me, because I'd figure that something was left in the memory that bypassed whatever problem there is, but I reset the console, so didn't that clear the RAM or whatever?  Or could there be a leak?  This just makes no sense whatsoever.

Update:  Just spent another couple hours doing it, and I had no problems.  Something happens.  It's indicated when the graphics glitch.  After that, the loading problems occur.  And playing a game on disc 4, resetting, and loading like normal somehow fixes it.

Sure...