How Long Can PS5 Stay On?

PS5 is literally a gaming PC (a mid-range gaming PC to be precise by current standards) and given its size and the daunting cooling vents that you see all around it, that can make you wonder, is PS5 prone to overheating?

If so, how long can PS5 stay on? Would it get damaged if you were to game on for too long or if you were to keep it on for multiple days?

Well, in short, if you have taken adequate care of providing sufficient ventilation to your PS5 gaming console, you should have absolutely no worries about it overheating and you should be able to keep it on for multiple days if not weeks.

In the following text, I will talk about the PS5’s cooling mechanism and how you can easily keep it on for many days.

Heating = Power Consumption

For starters, you should know that the amount of heat generated by the PS5 depends on how much power it consumes.

There are generally two states for the PS5 when it is on.

The first state is when you are actively gaming on it. In this case, the PS5 can consume as much as 350W of power. This would generate the highest possible heat.

The second state is the rest mode state. In this state, the game can charge the controller and download the games and their updates in the background while you catch some sleep. In this state, the PS5 consumes only about 1.3 watts of power.

This is less than a fraction of the maximum power consumption of the PS5.

As such, the important point to note here is that when in rest mode, the PS5 has very low chances of overheating if at all.

Now the intrinsic cooling design of PS5 is actually built to dissipate heat generated by as much as 350W of power consumption.

PS5 Can Handle 350W of Power And Heat Generated

The cooling system of a gaming device such as a PC or a gaming console like PS5 is perhaps the most integral part of keeping the console intact, particularly during intense gaming sessions.

The large form factor of the console and vents that you see on the PS5 are not there to intimate you. The larger form factor of the PS5 IN FACT promotes a much better ventilation and cooling solution as compared to PS5.

PS5 also has ingenious ways to tackle the heat generated. For instance, it uses a liquid thermal compound, instead of the traditional thermal compound, in making sure that the heat is quickly passed on to the heatsink for effective dissipation.

You can read about the details of this technology here.

So How Long Can PS5 Stay On?

Essentially, PS5 can stay on as long as you want so long as you take proper care of its ventilation.

While no one has tested the exact maximum number of days that PS5 can be left on, anecdotal evidence on Reddit and Quora points to the fact that it can be left on for days if not indefinitely, again if you have provided it with adequate ventilation.

Although it is highly advised that you do not leave your PS5 on unless you have a good reason.

If you are downloading a game or an update, then there should be no issues in keeping it on for as long as you want.

But if the console is not in use in any form or manner, it is recommended to turn it off for good measure.

How YOU Can Overheat Your PS5?

So I have been stressing a lot about the ventilation aspect of this topic because that is all that matters when it comes to leaving your PS5 on for prolonged hours or for having a long gaming session.

There are a lot of mistakes that many gamers make that can relate to overheating and permanent damage and most of it has to do with blockage of the cooling vents.

Here is how you can damage your PS5 due to overheating

Playing in Hot Environment

The ambient temperature of the place where the PS5 is placed plays a critical role in how hot it can get.

Remember, if it feels hot to you, it is certainly too for your PS5.

Keeping a PS5 next to a kitchen stove, or placing it in the sun with scorching dessert heat is certainly a recipe for disaster and you are thoroughly to be blamed if it gets damaged due to heat.

Not Provided Ample Ventillation

Are you planning on placing your PS5 in a cabinet? or perhaps you want to place it on a carpet with no room underneath it for it to breathe. You may have even decided to place your PS5 in a corner or right next to the wall.

All of these are recipes for disaster again.

YOu have to provide ample margins from the side and make sure that the PS5 is placed in a good breathable environment to save it from overheating due to bad ventilation.

Keeping it Dirty

If you are a complete knob, you would literally give no head to the dust that is accumulated in and around your PS5.

How would you feel, or rather breathe, if your nose and your mouth were to be covered by dust completely?

Well, that is exactly what a PS5 would feel if you did not pay attention to the dust accumulated around its vents on its cooling fan.

Not only would accumulation of dust heat the console up drastically, dust is also an electric hazard as it can release static discharge and damage the delicate circuits in your PS5.