How to Fix PS5 Overheating Issues

One day you might be enjoying your favorite video game, and all of a sudden you see the message pop up on the screen, “Your PS5 is too hot. Turn off your PS5 and wait until the temperature goes down.” This can be quite annoying, especially if you were in the middle of an important boss fight! If you have seen this message before then it is likely that your PS5 is having overheating issues. Thankfully, this can be as easy as a DIY fix at home.

If you aren’t sure if you’re having overheating problems or if it’s just power issues, you can also check out our post Why Your PS5 is Randomly Shutting Off.

Common Overheating Symptoms

Here are some common overheating symptoms that you should look out for:

• Overheating message: Just like we mentioned before, if you get a message on the screen saying “Your PS5 is too hot. Turn off your PS5 and wait until the temperature goes down” then you can know for sure that something is going on that is making your PS5 overheat.
• Loud fan: The fan on the side of your PS5 may sound a lot louder than it used to.
• Screen issues: You may experience issues with your screen when playing a video game, such as artifacts or colors flashing.
• FPS issues: Your games may not run as fast as they used to, which would negatively impact your FPS (frames per second).
• Games crashing or shutting off: This can be a symptom of a bigger issue, but it’s good to keep in mind that overheating can also cause games to crash or shut off randomly.

Common Overheating Causes

If you are having any of the above symptoms, then your system might have one of these problems:

• Poor ventilation: If your PS5 is in a drawer or a small nook in a TV stand, it may prevent the fan from being able to bring in enough air to cool the system down. This can also happen if too many objects are surrounding the PS5 or if objects are put on top of it when it is laying down.
• Clogged heatsink: The metal heatsink inside of the PS5 can occasionally become clogged with dust and debris that the fan brings in.
• Dirty fan: If the fan has a lot of dust or dirt buildup on it, it might not work as efficiently as it needs to to keep the system cool.
• Faulty fan: Sometimes the fan itself can break and not work the way it’s supposed to.
• Liquid metal issues: Inside of the PS5 there is a substance called “liquid metal” that transfers heat from the APU (accelerated processing unit) to the heatsink. It can occasionally pool to one side and cause a dry spot to form, which keeps the liquid metal from doing its job. Since this is a much deeper topic than we can explore in this guide, we recommend checking out our All About PS5 Liquid Metal blog post to learn more about liquid metal issues and how to fix them.

DIY Fixes You Can Do At Home

We all love a good DIY solution that we can do at home! Here we will outline some easy things you can do at home, as well as more intermediate things to do, to both prevent and treat some of your PS5 overheating problems.

Easy DIY Fixes

Here are some easier fixes that anybody can do regardless of tinkering skills.

Put your PS5 on a clean, flat surface

Finding a good, flat, clean space is an important part of deciding where to put your PS5. It also goes without saying that you should put it on a surface that is sturdy and level so that your console won’t fall over. Some good places you can put your PS5 on are the top of a TV stand, a shelf, a bookcase, or any other piece of furniture that is cleaned often and out of the way of general traffic. Some places you want to avoid putting your PS5 on would be a floor, a carpet, a bed, a couch, or an old dusty surface that doesn’t get cleaned often. Making sure that your console is in a safe, clean spot can greatly help prevent overheating by keeping the fan free from dust and dirt.

Put your PS5 in a well-ventilated area

Wherever you decide to put your PS5, you should also keep in mind that it needs a bit of space around it so that air can freely circulate through the fan and around the console to keep it cool. A cluttered space, or a closed space (like a drawer), can act as insulation for the heat. As a rule of thumb, try to keep at least a few inches of free space around your PS5 at all times, and try not to cover the console with anything.

Clean the intake fins

To clean the intake fins on your PS5 you will need a cleaning brush and a can of compressed air. Optional items include isopropyl alcohol, paper towels, a microfiber cloth, and a mini vacuum.

1. Shut down and unplug the PS5 from its power source.
2. Carefully take off the front cover plate and the back cover plate.
3. Locate the intake fins on the rounded side of the console.
4. Use the cleaning brush to brush away any dust or debris that might be stuck in the intake fins on both the front side and the back side of the console.
5. Use the can of compressed air to further clean the fins by blowing off any dust or debris.
6. Check to see if there is any dust buildup on the back side of the front cover plate. If there is, use the cleaning brush to loosen up the dust and then use the compressed air to blow it off. Afterwards you can use isopropyl alcohol with a paper towel or a microfiber cloth to wipe it completely clean if desired. Do the same with the back side of the back cover plate.
7. Optional: If you turn your PS5 to the back side, you will see holes that lead to the heatsink. You can use a mini vacuum to suck up the dust inside, but it will need to have a very small attachment at the end to be able to fit into the holes.
8. Put the cover plates back on.

Medium DIY Fixes

Here are some fixes that may require a little more skill to get done.

Clean the fan

If you see a lot of dust buildup on the fan after taking off the front and back cover, or if your fan has been making more noise than usual lately, then you might want to try cleaning off the fan with these steps. Although, keep in mind that if cleaning the fan doesn’t fix the loud noise you may need to go further into the PS5 to fix the liquid metal, as liquid metal issues can cause overheating and make the fan work harder than it’s supposed to. You can find information on how to fix the liquid metal in the Additional Help section below.

To clean the PS5 fan, you will need a cleaning brush, a T8 Torx screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a can of compressed air. Optional item is a mini vacuum.

1. Shut down and unplug the PS5 from its power source.
2. Carefully take off the back cover of the PS5.
3. Gently pull up on the intake fin on the curved side of the console and set it to the side.
4. Use the T8 Torx screwdriver to take off the 4 screws holding the fan plate down, and set the fan plate and screws to the side.
5. Carefully take off the black adhesive piece below the fan, and set it to the side.
6. Disconnect the fan from the motherboard by using the pliers to grab on to the white plastic piece of the connector (Note: NOT the piece below which can be either yellow-ish or black depending on which PS5 model you have, that is what is attached to the motherboard), and carefully rock it back and forth and pull it up and off.
7. Once the fan is disconnected from the motherboard, you can pull it straight up and out.
8. Use the cleaning brush to clean both the front and the back of the fan and to remove anything that is caked onto the fan.
9. Optionally, you can use a mini vacuum to suck up any large amounts of dust, or you can just use the compressed air to blow it off.
10. If you look into the hole where the fan came out of you can see the heat sink. Use your cleaning brush to gently brush off any dust from the heat sink grills. If a lot of dust comes out, you can use the optional mini vacuum to suck up the dust. Just make sure to not use the compressed air to blow out the dust, because that can cause the dust to go all over inside the inner parts of the PS5.
11. If you see that there is a lot of dust on the heatsink, you may want to go on to clean the heatsink itself. This is a more advanced fix though which will require more skill and effort. You can find some resources on how to do this in the Additional Help section below.
12. Once you are finished, put everything back together in the same order it was taken off, and put the back cover plate back on.

Additionally, video instructions on how to clean the intake vents, clean the fan, and clean the heatsink like we outlined above can be found in this video:

Replace a faulty fan

Before you get too excited about replacing your fan there are some things to consider. Most often if the fan gotten a lot louder it is not because the fan needs to be replaced but instead because of dirt, ventilation, or liquid metal issues. If your console had poor ventilation or was dirty and you followed the steps above, this should make your fan run quieter. If not, the next step is to check your liquid metal which we talk about more below.

There are two common things that will cause a fan to become faulty and need to be replaced:

1. Liquid damage: Fluids spilled on your PS5 fan can cause the fan to short out and not work at all or to become sticky or unbalanced and not spin normally. If your fan is just sticky but still working you might be able to clean it enough to get it working normally again but it's difficult to clean fans thoroughly because they aren't made to be taken apart. If the fan will no longer spin because it's been shorted out it will need to be replaced.
2. Faulty bearings: The bearings inside the fan can sometimes go bad causing the fan to no longer spin freely. Since the bearings can't be easily replaced, the entire fan will need to be replaced with a working one.

Neither of the above causes of faulty PS5 fans typically cause the fan to be louder. They can make the fan spin slower, awkwardly, or not at all. If your fan isn’t spinning correctly, hasn’t been working as fast, or has been exposed to liquid recently and has liquid damage, you will need to replace the fan itself. You can check out iFixit’s guide on PlayStation 5 Fan Replacements to get a good look at how to do that.

Additional Help

If you have done all the tips above and your PS5 is still having issues with overheating, there might be something else going on that needs to be fixed. You may need to check and replace the liquid metal, which you can find a guide for in our All About PS5 Liquid Metal blog post. You may also need to take the PS5 apart to clean the heatsink, which you can find some great info for in this iFixit post about how to tear down a PS5.

As always, we also recommend checking out our TronicsFix forum where you can find all sorts of posts from the community about PS5 problems and how to fix them. And if you feel the need to send in your console for repair we also greatly recommend checking out ShaneFix who you can trust to fix your broken console, quick!

About the Author

Kirstyn Bahnmiller is a writer, graphic designer, and video editor for TronicsFix who loves to share her ideas and creativity with the world. In her off time you will find her working on various crafts, making digital art, taking photos, and cooking delicious recipes she found online.