There’s a moment every PS5 owner hits eventually, usually in the middle of a boss fight or some packed Warzone lobby, where the console suddenly screams like a leaf blower fighting for its life. The fan ramps, the room heats up an extra five degrees, and the PS5 gives you that terrible, stomach-twisting warning: “Your PS5 is too hot.”
Or sometimes it doesn’t even warn you. It just shuts off. Total betrayal. The kind that makes you stare at the blank screen for a few seconds wondering if this is… temporary? A glitch? Did the power go out? Did I accidentally kick the plug?
No. It overheated. It cooked itself. Or tried to. Consoles don’t shut down gracefully. They panic. They give up. They collapse under their own temperature.
And here’s the thing almost nobody wants to admit: overheating is the most preventable PS5 failure on the planet. It’s also the one people screw up the most, either by ignoring the signs or by “cleaning it” in ways that absolutely make things worse.
Let’s go through the real reasons these consoles overheat, what’s actually happening inside the case when the temperature spikes, how we fix it in the shop, and what fan cleaning really means (spoiler: it’s not just blasting it with an air can while praying).
This isn’t the usual “wipe the dust” nonsense. This is the honest, gritty, technician version.
Why PS5s Overheat in the First Place (And Why It Gets Worse Over Time)
People think overheating is a sudden event, like lightning. Nope. It’s slow decay. Like your PS5 slowly turning into an air fryer without you realizing.
There are a handful of culprits. None of them glamorous.
Clogged Heatsink Fins — the silent killer
The PS5 sucks air from the sides, throws it across the massive heatsink, and pushes it out the back. Sounds simple. And it is, until the fins get packed with dust so tight it looks like someone stuffed dryer lint inside your console.
I’ve opened systems where the heatsink was a solid, matted carpet. You could peel it off in one piece. Florida consoles are the worst — pet hair plus humidity creates this sticky gray paste that glues itself into the fins like cement.
When the fins clog:
- airflow drops
- hot air gets trapped
- fan goes berserk trying to compensate
- APU bakes
Eventually the thermal sensors panic and the console either throttles down or drops dead.
Thermal Paste Turning Into Chalk
Sony uses decent thermal paste… at first. But paste ages. It dries. It cracks. It starts acting more like insulation than a conductor.
Some PS5s arrive with paste dried so hard you can chip it with a screwdriver.
When paste fails, you get:
- hotspots on the APU
- sudden shutdowns
- fans screaming
- system refusing to boot after long sessions
Thermal paste is like sunscreen: when it wears out, everything beneath it burns.
Dust Inside the Fan Motor
The fan isn’t just a blade. It has a bearing, a sensor, a balancing system. Dust sneaks in through the gaps and gums up the rotation until the fan:
- whines
- starts slow
- stalls
- vibrates like a busted washing machine
Sometimes the fan still spins, but weakly. Not enough air. Not even close.
This half-working fan is one of the most dangerous things because it tricks people. “Oh, the fan is spinning so it must be cooling.”
No. It’s barely moving air. Might as well be blowing through a straw.
Bad Placement (hot shelves, cabinets, walls)
The PS5 pulls in room air. If the air is already hot or trapped, the system suffocates.
People shove it:
- into TV cabinets
- behind monitors
- against walls
- on carpets
- next to heaters
- under desks where heat pools
I’ve seen setups where the PS5 sits next to a router, a cable box, and a soundbar — everything blasting heat at each other in a weird tech sauna.
And folks wonder why it overheats.
Florida humidity… again
Moisture + dust = sticky sludge.
Your PS5 tries to breathe through that? Of course it overheats. Every intake becomes a swamp.
What Overheating Actually Does Inside the Console
People imagine overheating as “the console feels a bit warm.” No. It’s more violent.
Inside, the APU is hitting temperatures high enough to weaken solder, warp the board slightly, dry out capacitors, and stress VRM components. You can actually smell overheating PS5s sometimes — that faint hot electronics scent. That’s your warning.
Repeated overheating causes:
- APU solder fatigue
- BLOD failures later
- fan motor degradation
- PSU heat stress
- SSD throttling
- shutdown crashes
Overheating is the root cause of nearly half the “mystery failures” we see. The customer thinks the console died for no reason. The board tells a different story.
What Fan Cleaning REALLY Means (and what people do wrong)
Let me get this off my chest before going deeper:
Compressed air is not “cleaning.”
It’s blasting dust deeper into the console or blowing it sideways so it buries into the heatsink even harder.
The number of consoles ruined by aggressive air-can warriors is unreal. People shove the straw in there, blast full force, the fan spins like a helicopter trying to lift off, bearings get damaged, dust cakes against the fins instead of leaving…
And then they email us saying, “I cleaned it and now it’s louder.”
Yeah. No kidding.
Real PS5 fan cleaning involves:
- removing the covers
- removing the plastic shield
- pulling the fan
- clearing the channels
- brushing the fins
- vacuuming the dust, not shoving it around
- testing the fan bearings
- cleaning the intake vents
- wiping sensors
It’s not glamorous. But it works.
A cleaned fan goes from sounding like a hurricane to sounding like a whisper.
Inside the Shop — How We Actually Repair Overheating PS5s
When a PS5 lands on the bench for overheating, here’s how it usually goes:
STEP 1: Look at the dust pattern
Before opening anything, I look at the dust on the shell. It tells the truth.
- Dust mainly on one side? That fan is struggling.
- Dust clogged at the top rear? Heat is trapped.
- Dust everywhere? The console has never been cleaned. Not once.
If you ever want to know someone’s cleaning habits… check their console.
STEP 2: Disassembly
Sony’s design is pretty manageable, but customers love to over-tighten screws or strip them completely. You can always tell when someone “tried to open it” because there’s a screwdriver scar on the plastic or the plate doesn’t sit flush anymore.
Once we get inside, you immediately see how bad things are:
- thick dust blankets
- hairballs
- fan blades coated
- fins packed like a lint roller
- thermal paste looking like dry grout
Sometimes the smell hits you first. Warm dust has a smell — slightly sweet, slightly burnt.
STEP 3: Deep Cleaning (the real kind)
This isn’t a wipe-and-go job.
We clean:
- the fan blades
- the motor hub
- the intake channels
- the exhaust channels
- the heatsink fins with a brush
- the motherboard surface
- the plastic ducts
- the outer shell
You’d be amazed how much airflow improves from simple mechanical cleaning.
STEP 4: Thermal Paste Replacement
This is where people mess up the most in DIY attempts. They use:
- too much paste
- too little
- cheap paste
- uneven pressure
- paste on the wrong components
When thermal paste fails, the APU cooks itself slowly. Fresh, real thermal paste — not $2 eBay sludge — brings temperatures back to sanity.
We clean the old paste carefully, polish the contact plate a bit, then apply new compound with balanced pressure. The PS5 has a huge die, so coverage matters.
STEP 5: Fan Testing
A healthy fan:
- spins freely
- doesn’t wobble
- doesn’t grind
- ramps smoothly
- doesn’t sound like a helicopter
We test RPM ramping, airflow direction, and listen for bearing noise.
If the fan is shot, you replace it. Simple as that.
STEP 6: Reassembly & Thermal Testing
Once the cleaning and repaste are done, the PS5 gets:
- stress tests
- thermal monitoring
- power draw testing
- performance checks
You want to see temps stabilize under load, not spike.
A badly cooled PS5 will hit 90°C+ and crash.
A healthy one stays much lower even in hot rooms.
The Horrors We’ve Seen (PS5 Overheating Edition)
Every tech has stories. PS5 overheating repair brings some wild ones.
1. The roach fan
Dead roach inside the fan motor. Jammed the blades. Console overheated until it auto-shutoff repeatedly. Customer insisted it “just started doing it.” Sure.
2. The candle console
Someone placed candles on their PS5 “for aesthetic.” The wax melted INTO the vents. The fan tried to inhale wax like a scented lung.
3. The “I cleaned it myself” melted fan
Customer blasted the fan with a heat gun to “make the dust fall out.” The blades warped. Bearings melted. Console sounded like a blender eating a fork.
4. The desert console
A PS5 filled with sand. Real sand. Like someone took it to the beach for vacation.
The heatsink was a sandbox.
5. The lint brick
A PS5 used next to a dryer vent. The heatsink became a fabric lint cube. Stunning, honestly.
Signs YOUR PS5 Is Overheating (even if it hasn’t shut off yet)
People think overheating happens suddenly. It doesn’t. Your console whispers clues for months.
If you notice:
- new fan sounds
- louder ramping
- system slowing down
- games crashing randomly
- the PS5 feeling hotter than it used to
- graphical flickers
- the exhaust blowing hot instead of warm
…you’re on the path to a shutdown.
And if your room is hot?
If you live in Florida?
If you play long sessions?
If the console sits in a cabinet?
You’re accelerating the problem.
Who Should Clean Their PS5 Right Now (no debate)
- pet owners
- smokers
- people with carpets
- people with candles
- people with dusty houses
- people living in humid states
- people who run their PS5 daily
- anyone who bought a used console
- anyone who hasn’t cleaned it in 1+ years
Basically: everyone.
DIY Cleaning — Should You Do It? Maybe… maybe not.
To be honest, people break more than they clean when they try this at home.
Mistakes I see weekly:
- snapping the clips
- ripping the ribbon cable
- stripping screws
- damaging fan blades
- cracking the I/O shield
- smearing the paste into the circuitry
- losing screws
- applying thermal paste like it’s cake frosting
If you’re not comfortable with delicate parts, just bring it in. Cleaning is cheap compared to fixing what goes wrong afterward.
Why Overheating Leads to Bigger Repairs Later
A PS5 that runs hot today can become a PS5 that:
- BLODs tomorrow
- kills its own HDMI port
- warps the motherboard
- weakens solder under the APU
- burns a MOSFET
- shuts off permanently
Heat is the enemy. Silent, slow, invisible sabotage.
What We Recommend at ZapFixers
This is not a sales pitch — it’s just honest advice after seeing thousands of these things:
Clean your PS5 twice a year.
If you run it hard? Three times.
Replace thermal paste every 18–24 months.
Especially in hot climates.
Keep it out of cabinets.
Those things are death traps.
Use a dust-free environment if possible.
And if your fan gets loud? Don’t wait. Loud fans are begging for help.
Final Thoughts: Overheating Isn’t the End… but it’s a warning
The PS5 is a workhorse, but it’s not invincible. Heat ruins everything eventually — consoles, laptops, GPU cards, you name it. Overheating is the PS5’s way of saying, “I’m choking. Fix this before I don’t get back up.”
A proper fan cleaning and repaste can turn a dying, screaming console into a quiet, cool machine again. And honestly, you feel it when it’s fixed — the system boots faster, games run smoother, the whole console feels happier somehow. Machines might not have feelings, but they act like they do.
Take overheating seriously. Your PS5 will last years longer if you do.
