Loud PS4 - Any tips?

Hi,

I bought a PS4 a few days ago second hand from an ad I saw on gumtree and am having a bit of a problem with the loudness of the fan. When Playing 'The Last of Us', the fan started to get very loud - however it was easy enough to ignore so I didn't think too much about it.

I then downloaded 'Everyones gone to the Rapture' and the noise of the fan rose to almost jet level proportions. To the point when I thought the PS4 would explode! I got a can of compressed air and cleaned out the vents, but this didn't make much of a difference. After reading some tips on the net, I decided to take the PS4 apart and reapply the thermal paste. This took a few hours and the old paste was pretty much solid. I replaced it with a pea sized amount of artic silver 5 after removing the old paste and ws pretty proud of myself. However, it doesnt seem to have made any difference at all.

Below is a youtube video with the loudness of the fan in its current state. I've tried positioning the console horizontally and vertically, and its even louder if it is horizontal! Wondered if anyone had any suggestions - any chance the fan is faulty and would replacing it help? Or anything else I can try?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUCEl6jAmZQ

Cheers

The thing is pretty loud, just ignore it.

Mine can get quite loud when when the fans rev up, but is usually calms down after a bit. As long as the console isn't shutting down you're ok.

Not a great fix but headphones might help take your mind off the fan noise.

on the plus side, the loudness of my fan really adds some extra atmosphere when i'm in the helicopter in mgsv. makes it sound like its right there in my living room

Now that is funny !!!

Problem is when you are playing games where stealth is important ( like Thief ), they hear you coming !

@Thirtydeadfoxes: There shouldn't be any reason why the fans are that loud. The highest I even heard them were just little more noise then quiet when my room was close to 28 degrees Celsius during the hot summer days and even then it was minimal noise at best.

You said you got the system second hand and I' am almost positive the previous owner had issues with it as well either by damaging the PS4 itself or just had a problem with the internal fans which required to be looked into and fixed.

Personally, I would take it to the local electronics, some of them would open the system up and see whats wrong, it will cost you money unfortunately but I don't think it will be nearly as bad as buying the new system.

You could ignore the fans but I believe eventually you will do more damage to the PS4.

Well, I ain´t no fanboy and I say: PoS4 is loud no matter how much you try to disguise it, not as loud as a PS2 Fat and perhaps just a little bit less loud than the original X360; can it become annoying ? that depends on how loud you have set your TV/ sound bar/ home theater, if you have to play at minimum volume then I think that you may find it annoying, somedays I find it annoying, other days I don´t care.

Mine gets pretty loud too when I boot it up but then it calms down after that..

Maybe we have different PS4 system because in a completely quiet room, at the evening time, my PS4 is extremely quiet with a low cool fan sound that I have to put effort to hear. There is no disguise, it's a quiet system with normal temperature room environment.

exactly. i blame it for all those times i've been discovered on a mission.

i think it's a fairly common problem. all my mates who own ps4s have mentioned it at one time or another. weirdly it seems to only happen in certain games at certain points for me

Mine may make some noise, sometimes. It's not often or loud either. Mind you, it's perched in a 4ft square space.

Mines been like that since I bought it day one. Seems most are like this, or most people I've spoken to anyway. Since its been doing it for over a year now im pretty sure its not going to die anytime soon.

Yeah just set up a custom fan profile and adjust it so it really spins only at high GPU usage.

Oh shit lol. You're on PS4. My bad. Thought you said PC.

Wait a second, I'm sorry but the people who're saying the PS4 fan is loud must either have defective PS4s or it's clogged with dust and debris! I'm serious, I barely hear the noise on mine. And I have played over 10 hours sometimes.

You just have to make sure you open it up and clean it every month or two. Check the video below on how to do this...

Try this video for cleaning, replacing or repairing parts or thermal paste. Obviously the previous video is for those who feel uncomfortable with disassembling their PS4s but this is for those who are familiar with the practice and welcome the thorough cleaning and tinkering.

I seriously doubt my PoS4 is defective or dusty, it's been noisy right out from the box.

Only happens for The Witcher 3 for me. But it only lasts a couple minutes max.

It's just the make and model of the PS4 I'm afraid. depending on which region and at what time period it was made, the PS4 is made by many different parts some come with loud fans and some come with quiet, the newer models seem to be the quietest but even at launch different parts were used for different regions

Same here, bought it this January (white model). I've dusted it off pretty regularly, the noise doesn't really bother me.

Hmm, I must be very lucky then, My PS4 is not really all that loud, it is quite a bit less less then the Wii U if that gives the picture.

I would have guessed on dusty console as well, but since so many states the same issue my next question would be "when did you guys get your consoles? might be the fans they used in different builds (mines a launch one). Maybe it is just a case of it being the least noisy one in the household, and it is not really quiet, just everything else that seems loud :\

I would try cleaning it, if that does not help then maybe dragging it to a Sony centre and ask if you can buy a replacement fan? I can not imagine those being too expensive, and they might have them in parts after all, which might be a cheap permanent solution.

Outside of that my guess would be that the fan is crooked or at a slight angle :\

Mine used to get loud whenever I played killzone shadow fall but that was because i found some scratches on the disc so i swapped it for another disc and the fan isn't loud anymore.

That or everyone else has a broken system with fans that don't cool the system properly and they die a slow horrible death.

@Maddie_Larkin: Mine is also a launch model, loud since out of the box, and there's no Sony center in like 250 miles to drag it to.

my PS4 is pretty far away and I store is behind my HDTV vertically, the only noise I had problems with was I noticed that if you stand it vertically without the additional stand it tends to vibrate and it resonates loudly if it's slightly off balance. I fixed it buy putting paper or tape under it which stopped the buzzing noises.

I had a problem with my PS4 being loud for a long time. Did some serious research and I ended up following the steps from this article on how to fix a loud PS4. It worked for me and I haven't had a problem since.

It sounds like you've tried the solution listed in the article and more. I'm thinking your PS4 may just be defective unfortunately. Anyway you can send it for a fix? Is it still under warranty?

Guys, I felt obligated to create an account because of my experience with this exact issue.

I also bought a second hand ps4 pro which sounded like a jet taking off. Was devastated when I realised I'd purchased what could only have been a dud unit (no matter what people said online, there is no way in hell the noise coming out of my unit could be considered normal).

First step, I used some compressed air to clean out the fan (delta fan) and replaced the thermal paste with some arctic silver 5 I had lying around. Put everything back together. No signficant change in noise level. Was appropriately devastated.

Unwilling to accept this outcome, I bought myself some noctua nt-h1 thermal paste, alphacool 11 w/mk thermal pads and a replacement nidec fan. I remembered that when I'd applied the arctic 5, the thermal pads looked pretty crappy and had gathered some dust from my teardown. The nidec fan didnt arrive in time so went ahead and reapplied paste and pads. After reassembly I noticed a 50% reduction in fan noise. Woohoo, my ps4 pro was now useable without waking the neighbours. I could live with this!

A week later my replacement nidec fan arrived. I'd seen some youtube clips that suggested there is no difference in fan noise between the delta and the nidec but what the hell, I'd bought it so may aswell use it.

Tear-down number 3. Replaced the fan, reapplied the paste and kept the alphacool pads as they were. On reassembly I was shattered, I'd been sold a dodgy fan. Even during RDR2 there was no fan noise at all. So I popped off the top cover and BAM, the fan was running!!! Went into the RDR2 map which has unlocked framerates and although the fan kicks up a gear, its still extremely quiet. I cant hear the ps4 at all over the game sound and this is on average volume settings. Very happy with the result.

I will admit that I probably ended up spending as much as I would have if I bought the ps4 pro brand new but I now have a damn fine example of a ps4 pro. If you have a noisy ps4 pro, I cant recommend these mods enough - I cant guarantee it will work for you but mine is damn near silent now. It's worth a go if you dont like your ps4 pro also acting as a flight simulator. Hope this helps.

I have the base PS4, which has always been pretty noisy at times. Still, I've never encountered any problems related to heat, so I've just learnt to ignore it

A can of compressed air can help the loud ps4 problem.

Would a cooling fan help

Hi