How to Cool Down Your PS4 and Avoid Overheating

With the amount of stress that can impact a PS4 game console throughout its lifespan, it’s critical to understand how you can keep your PS4 cool. Maintaining your game console’s overheating temperature is a key part of maintenance and a great way to get the most out of your investment.

Anybody who has spent a few hours gaming on a PS4 knows that the biggest problem that PS4 consoles have is that they run too hot. It’s a frustrating problem, and it can take a toll on the hardware in your PS4, too.

Fortunately, there are many ways to avoid a loss in functionality over time, and most of them focus on avoiding the excess heat that can wear on individual components.

All solutions are simple and low tech. We’ll go through each to help you keep your PS4 cool so you can stay productive.

1. Get A PS4 Cooler

Due to the compact design of PS4 consoles, its not uncommon for them to overheat. The compact design on PS4 consoles limits the amount of cooling they can have. So, if you can add more cooling to your PS4, that is going to help your PS4 run cooler.

Fortunately, there are a lot of PS4 cooling stations on the market, and they work simply enough: a PS4 cooler is, in essence, a fan built into a small PS4 stand/tray. You place the stand on whatever surface you’re using your PS4 on, then you put your PS4 on top of the stand and turn it on. The stand’s fan starts to direct air to the bottom side of your PS4, thus cooling it down.

Cooling stands are, thankfully, fairly inexpensive—and they usually do a solid job at keeping your PS4 cool during those hours-long gaming sessions. This comes as no surprise, as you’re essentially adding an extra fan to the outside of your PS4 to promote good airflow.

But if you don’t have the money for a cooling stand, you can always just invest in a regular stand—a tiny little block that you place your PS4 on, thus giving it space to let air flow more freely. Many stands are even made of material that acts as a heat sink, like aluminum.

2. Use Your PS4 on A Flat Surface When Possible

Seriously, PS4 placement is everything. When it comes to “where,” your best bet is to set your PS4 on a hard, flat surface—and not on a softer surface.

Floors, even hardwood, aren’t ideal locations for PS4 placement—mostly due to the excess of dust particles floating around where you put your feet. Using your PS4 on a desk or table is ideal, particularly one that’s set up in a nice, cool room. Sure, using your PS4 wherever you want is one of the biggest perks of owning one, but if you’re gaming or doing some CPU intensive tasks, then you’re going to need all the help you can get.

3. Keep Your PS4 Clean

Surely this goes without saying, but if your PS4 is clogged up with dust and other unmentionable debris, the exhaust fan just isn’t able to do its job. Even if you don’t live somewhere where there’s lots of dirt or other particles in the air, every square inch of earth is covered in some sort of dust. If you aren’t a diligent home cleaner, especially if you’ve got pets, your whole home is filled with dust. That dust is making its way into your PS4 through its vents and clogging the whole machine up.

The easiest way to get this job done is to buy a can of compressed air, turn your PS4 off and take it outside, then spray short bursts of air into the vents. You can also take off the panels off of your PS4 to get better access to the dirtiest areas, but be aware that his might void your warranty, and if you are too aggressive with the compressed air, you could damage components inside of your PS4.

Once you’ve cleaned out as much dust as possible from your PS4 overheating, you can always come back with some dry cotton swabs to get the last little remnants of gunk out of those hard to reach spots.

4. Change the thermal paste

Overtime your PS4 CPU’s thermal paste can begin to breakdown or change in viscosity for a variety of factors. However, this does not necessarily mean that it has lost its effectiveness. I advise taking a look at your CPU’s temperature to better identify whether or not it needs to be changed. You can only know that when you complete cleaning the inside and outside of PS4 very well and you find no reason for overheating related to dirt/dust, especially while your PS4 CPU fan seems to be working very well.

If your PS4 CPU is running hotter than it should be, you may want to consider applying some new thermal paste. But, as a general rule of thumb, only change it if you strongly believe it will lower your PS4 CPUs operating temperature.

There may be other factors that can contribute to higher temperatures as well. It could be caused by an insufficient CPU cooler, lack of overall PC airflow, or even higher ambient room temperatures. These are important factors to consider as well.

5. Routine Maintenance

Like any electronic devices, PS4 consoles just aren’t built to last in the way that other products might be. As such, everything inside your PS4 is working with a limited lifespan. So, routine maintenance on your PS4 is a must. And, while cleaning out your PS4 on a regular basis is a part of good PS4 maintenance, there are other things that you might want to check on a regular basis to help keep your PS4 running as cool as possible.

If your PS4 has only recently developed issues, you might just need to replace a faulty fan. You can usually tell if a fan’s gone bad by the noise it’s making. Rattling or grinding is a sure sign of a problem, but a complete lack of noise is just as bad. If your system isn’t idling but your fans still aren’t working, they may be broken.

You’ll also want to make sure that you don’t abuse your PS4’s power supply. One of the easiest ways to break your PS4 is to subject it to power surge or short circuits. The best way to avoid that is to make sure your PS4 power cord is intact and overheating undamaged. Also, consider investing in a good power strip and surge protector.

Conclusion

Ultimately, if your PS4 is and you are looking for ways to help it run cooler, the four methods listed above should help you out. If you have an older PS4, though, it might just be time for an upgrade to PS5.