I've always found the cooling aspects of consoles very interesting in terms of how they are engineered. As the specs have gotten more powerful, and the designs of consoles have become more like highly specialized gaming PCs in some sense, it's been a lot of fun seeing how methods of cooling have evolved with the consoles as well. Thanks to YouTube, it's now possible to watch tear-downs of the consoles delve even deeper into how these systems work. Gamer Nexus has some really well done videos on the topic for those also interested.
Historically, the concept of home video game consoles and cooling was never a topic of discussion simply for the fact that while these consoles did generate some heat, they were nowhere near powerful enough to have to come up with ingenious ways to cool them more effectively.
That all changed with the release of the Xbox 360 original model.
While the console itself was an impressive display of technology on the home console market at the time, a higher-than-comfortable number of consoles failed due to overheating. This became known as the Red-Ring Of Death or RROD, as many of you I am sure already know.
With the power of hindsight, we know now that the cause was primarily due to poor engineering - putting too weak of a cooling system into a console that was quite powerful. Microsoft and to some extent the industry, learned an important lesson. The issue was quickly fixed in subsequent models like the Xbox 360 S which had an improved design with better cooling mechanics, thus greatly reducing the failure rate.
This is where things also kind of took a turn in terms of people becoming interested - sometimes morbidly so - in the cooling aspects of consoles. With this new concern seemed to come a wave of muddled misinformation, confusion and myths.
I'd like to state that I am by no means an expert - most people here probably have a more proficient understanding of technology than I, which is why I was interested to open this discussion on a tech forum, so people with perhaps more expertise could weigh in as well. I do have a slightly higher than average understanding of how consoles are built as I have taken many apart and put them back together to do basic repairs, cleaning and replacements of components and thermal paste. I also feel there is just a lot of misinformation flying around out there about console cooling and what people should be doing, and shouldn't be doing and I'd greatly appreciate anyone's input, opinions, findings and thoughts on the topic!
Here are some examples:
Console Cooling Fans
After the RROD era of the Xbox 360, the market seemed to become flooded with 3rd party cooling fans that attach to the console which are supposed to provide aid in keeping the console cool. The funny thing is, a lot of these are highly reviewed on Amazon with people claiming they keep their consoles running cooler and performing better. I have a very hard time believing this. From all my testing, they seem to at the very least do nothing, and at the very worst could interfere with the console's build-in cooling performance, or overall function if they draw power from the console itself to run. I strongly recommend not using these, but have gotten flack from their defenders claiming I am wrong.
Thermal Paste Re-Application
This is a tricky one, and I have had quite a few people attack me online for it - but I don't think this is always all it is cracked up to be. Hear me out!
Yes, thermal paste does have a lifespan, and replacing it can help, but in most cases I don't think it is the cure-all people seem to act like it is. I noticed this the most with the PS4 during the end of its lifespan on the market. As games were getting more graphically intense, later generation games were really pushing the hardware to its fullest. Many PS4s (which essentially had the processing power of a budget gaming laptop by this point in time), had 'developed' very noticeable fan noise, which while I agree was a minor annoyance, was mostly due to the fact of it running games that were now a little more ahead of what the PS4 was designed for and not so much an overheating issue. I had first hand experience with this, when my PS4 really began to chug with newer games coming out. I took it all apart, cleaned it out, applied new thermal paste in the proper fashion, and...well, not much really changed. When I replayed games that came out closer to the PS4's launch however, the fan noise was not as much of an issue. However, much like the reviews online of 3rd party cooling fan, there are thermal paste replacement videos all over YouTube with comments like "I repasted my PS4 and it went from sounding like a jet to being whisper quiet!" and I just seriously have my doubts as to the validity of some those statements.
Time Of Use
This is another curious one. I've read many articles about console cooling across the internet, and one piece of information that I see popping up time and again is that you can prevent cooling issues from cropping up by reducing your play time. I feel this is partly a throwback to the Xbox RROD times, when a buildup of heat in a under ventilated console could be detrimental to the internal components - but nowadays I just don't feel that risk is the same. The number that keeps appearing in these articles is usually something along the lines of 'after five or six hours of gameplay, you should take a break to avoid console heat buildup issues,' but I can't for the life of me understand what that number is based on. Granted, for personal reasons, you absolutely may want to take a break after a six hour gaming session, but in terms of technical reasons...why? Normally, I don't spent six hours in a row on a game, but look - as gamers we all have had those times when you're really enjoying a new title and you're on that new game grind - I put four to six hours of game time on my PS4, PS5, Nintendo and Xbox consoles before to no apparent ill effects. They weren't suddenly running any hotter than during any other point in their use or anything else that would spark concern. Consoles today are designed to be on for a long duration of time with no ill effects, and are stress tested far beyond normal use patterns.
These are just three major points I see come up often when it comes to people concerned about the cooling efficiency of their consoles with lots of arguing as to what's best and I just get the sense that a lot of these things are either myths of just born from misinformation. I've personally never had a console overheat on me, and even during those times pre-PS5 when my PS4 was chugging away at more graphically intense games, yes, the console may have been working harder but there was never the sense it would overheat and fail as a result of it.
So - please feel free to discus! Do you agree? Disagree? What are your experiences? Do you feel like there is a lot of misinformation surrounding this topic? I'd love to hear from those with a larger technological background than my own as well! For the sake of keep the replies on-topic, I won't talk about failure through misuse (example: improper ventilation due to being crammed in an enclosed entertainment unit, clogged air vents etc).
Thanks!
Historically, the concept of home video game consoles and cooling was never a topic of discussion simply for the fact that while these consoles did generate some heat, they were nowhere near powerful enough to have to come up with ingenious ways to cool them more effectively.
That all changed with the release of the Xbox 360 original model.
While the console itself was an impressive display of technology on the home console market at the time, a higher-than-comfortable number of consoles failed due to overheating. This became known as the Red-Ring Of Death or RROD, as many of you I am sure already know.
With the power of hindsight, we know now that the cause was primarily due to poor engineering - putting too weak of a cooling system into a console that was quite powerful. Microsoft and to some extent the industry, learned an important lesson. The issue was quickly fixed in subsequent models like the Xbox 360 S which had an improved design with better cooling mechanics, thus greatly reducing the failure rate.
This is where things also kind of took a turn in terms of people becoming interested - sometimes morbidly so - in the cooling aspects of consoles. With this new concern seemed to come a wave of muddled misinformation, confusion and myths.
I'd like to state that I am by no means an expert - most people here probably have a more proficient understanding of technology than I, which is why I was interested to open this discussion on a tech forum, so people with perhaps more expertise could weigh in as well. I do have a slightly higher than average understanding of how consoles are built as I have taken many apart and put them back together to do basic repairs, cleaning and replacements of components and thermal paste. I also feel there is just a lot of misinformation flying around out there about console cooling and what people should be doing, and shouldn't be doing and I'd greatly appreciate anyone's input, opinions, findings and thoughts on the topic!
Here are some examples:
Console Cooling Fans
After the RROD era of the Xbox 360, the market seemed to become flooded with 3rd party cooling fans that attach to the console which are supposed to provide aid in keeping the console cool. The funny thing is, a lot of these are highly reviewed on Amazon with people claiming they keep their consoles running cooler and performing better. I have a very hard time believing this. From all my testing, they seem to at the very least do nothing, and at the very worst could interfere with the console's build-in cooling performance, or overall function if they draw power from the console itself to run. I strongly recommend not using these, but have gotten flack from their defenders claiming I am wrong.
Thermal Paste Re-Application
This is a tricky one, and I have had quite a few people attack me online for it - but I don't think this is always all it is cracked up to be. Hear me out!
Yes, thermal paste does have a lifespan, and replacing it can help, but in most cases I don't think it is the cure-all people seem to act like it is. I noticed this the most with the PS4 during the end of its lifespan on the market. As games were getting more graphically intense, later generation games were really pushing the hardware to its fullest. Many PS4s (which essentially had the processing power of a budget gaming laptop by this point in time), had 'developed' very noticeable fan noise, which while I agree was a minor annoyance, was mostly due to the fact of it running games that were now a little more ahead of what the PS4 was designed for and not so much an overheating issue. I had first hand experience with this, when my PS4 really began to chug with newer games coming out. I took it all apart, cleaned it out, applied new thermal paste in the proper fashion, and...well, not much really changed. When I replayed games that came out closer to the PS4's launch however, the fan noise was not as much of an issue. However, much like the reviews online of 3rd party cooling fan, there are thermal paste replacement videos all over YouTube with comments like "I repasted my PS4 and it went from sounding like a jet to being whisper quiet!" and I just seriously have my doubts as to the validity of some those statements.
Time Of Use
This is another curious one. I've read many articles about console cooling across the internet, and one piece of information that I see popping up time and again is that you can prevent cooling issues from cropping up by reducing your play time. I feel this is partly a throwback to the Xbox RROD times, when a buildup of heat in a under ventilated console could be detrimental to the internal components - but nowadays I just don't feel that risk is the same. The number that keeps appearing in these articles is usually something along the lines of 'after five or six hours of gameplay, you should take a break to avoid console heat buildup issues,' but I can't for the life of me understand what that number is based on. Granted, for personal reasons, you absolutely may want to take a break after a six hour gaming session, but in terms of technical reasons...why? Normally, I don't spent six hours in a row on a game, but look - as gamers we all have had those times when you're really enjoying a new title and you're on that new game grind - I put four to six hours of game time on my PS4, PS5, Nintendo and Xbox consoles before to no apparent ill effects. They weren't suddenly running any hotter than during any other point in their use or anything else that would spark concern. Consoles today are designed to be on for a long duration of time with no ill effects, and are stress tested far beyond normal use patterns.
These are just three major points I see come up often when it comes to people concerned about the cooling efficiency of their consoles with lots of arguing as to what's best and I just get the sense that a lot of these things are either myths of just born from misinformation. I've personally never had a console overheat on me, and even during those times pre-PS5 when my PS4 was chugging away at more graphically intense games, yes, the console may have been working harder but there was never the sense it would overheat and fail as a result of it.
So - please feel free to discus! Do you agree? Disagree? What are your experiences? Do you feel like there is a lot of misinformation surrounding this topic? I'd love to hear from those with a larger technological background than my own as well! For the sake of keep the replies on-topic, I won't talk about failure through misuse (example: improper ventilation due to being crammed in an enclosed entertainment unit, clogged air vents etc).
Thanks!
The reason was an electronics-industry wide EU enforced removal of lead solder. The new lead free solder was untested and it turned out prone to cracking. Once MS and Sony got to grips with the new material, they could design around it.
