PS4's thermal engineering is hilariously bad.

[minervx]

When I realized every single one of these factors combined together, I think it was a contest to make the worst cooling system in a machine without having a Note 7 crisis.

 

• The sides have no ventilation
• The bottom has no ventilation (would it have been a hassle to poke some holes it and give it some feet)?
• The top has no ventilation (but it does have a crevice so that the "water damage" argument is null and void)
• The front has no ventilation (unless you count USB ports as vents)
• It has exhaust vents in the back and no intake vents (negative airflow)
• It has one tiny fan that spins very quickly for maximum screaming-baby noise.
• The CPU cores are designed to turbo boost at the slightest loads.
• The parts are so densely packed together inside there's little room for airflow.
• The plating in the interior doesn't have much ventilation.
• The internal power brick is good for form factor but probably increases temperature further.
• The chassis shell doesn't conduct heat (which would be fine if everything else weren't messed up)

[Vigilante505]

I didnt have any problems with it overheating. So...

[PlayStation 2]

The PlayStation 4 doesn't need to vent out its heat from 72 different directions. It's not a particularly hot running machine, so it wasn't necessary to accommodate for that like Microsoft did with the original Xbox One design.

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

1 minute ago, Vigilante505 said:

I didnt have any problems with it overheating. So...

Just because som1 learned how airflow works doesnt mean they are cooling experts...

 

Everything he mentioned could be part of a design that actually cools well :b

[PlayStation 2]

5 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

Just because som1 learned how airflow works doesnt mean they are cooling experts...

 

Everything he mentioned could be part of a design that actually cools well :b

You don't need to design a console where you can design down to the tee as you need to design a PC with off-the-shelf parts.

[minervx]

It is energy efficient and at no risk of overheating.  But at the same time, the fan is loud and the CPU has a low turbo boosting threshold.  Need a system screech while playing Lumines?

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

6 minutes ago, minervx said:

It is energy efficient and at no risk of overheating.  But at the same time, the fan is loud and the CPU has a low turbo boosting threshold.  Need a system screech while playing Lumines?

stop placing it inside a box then coz i dont even hear my ps4

[TacoSenpai]

My slim seems to work perfectly fine and to be honest is pretty quiet the loudest I've ever heard it was while exploring around the world in FFXV.

[Vigilante505]

23 hours ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

Just because som1 learned how airflow works doesnt mean they are cooling experts...

 

Everything he mentioned could be part of a design that actually cools well :b

What does that have to do with me?

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 10/5/2017 at 6:03 PM, minervx said:

The sides have no ventilation

Both sides are lined with ventilation holes:

Quote

• The bottom has no ventilation (would it have been a hassle to poke some holes it and give it some feet)?

It does have little feet. But otherwise considering the bottom is almost covered by the motherboard, you're kind of asking for dust be sucked in there.

Quote

• The top has no ventilation (but it does have a crevice so that the "water damage" argument is null and void)

The top is also mostly sealed too:

Quote

• The front has no ventilation (unless you count USB ports as vents)

The front's probably the same way.

Quote

• It has exhaust vents in the back and no intake vents (negative airflow)

But it does have intake vents :3

Quote

• It has one tiny fan that spins very quickly for maximum screaming-baby noise.

I haven't heard this on my PS4 or PS4 Pro.

Quote

• The CPU cores are designed to turbo boost at the slightest loads.

The CPU and GPU don't turbo. Also the CPU is basically a netbook processor.

Quote

• The parts are so densely packed together inside there's little room for airflow.

That's because the only really hot element is the APU, which already has a heat sink attached to it and a fan blowing on it. Otherwise the entire motherboard has an metal plate that I'm presuming is both an RFI shield and a giant heat spreader.

Quote

• The plating in the interior doesn't have much ventilation.

Because the other, non-APU parts don't need it.

Quote

• The internal power brick is good for form factor but probably increases temperature further.

It's likely efficient enough for this not to be a real problem.

Quote

• The chassis shell doesn't conduct heat (which would be fine if everything else weren't messed up)

If that makes a really hot spot, then that's an even worse thing to have in consumer electronics.

 

The fact that the PS4, when operating under reasonable conditions, doesn't overheat even after extended periods of play means that the engineers did their job in thermal management. The only thing I find questionable is that the exhaust air from the APU cooling is going directly over the PSU caps. That's going to degrade their lifespan by quite a lot.

[Unimportant]

25 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The only thing I find questionable is that the exhaust air from the APU cooling is going directly over the PSU caps. That's going to degrade their lifespan by quite a lot.

Even that is not so clear cut.

 

SMPS caps have a serious ripple current to endure. That, combined with the parasitic ESR that every capacitor has, results in heat dissipation within the capacitor. Depending on how hot the capacitor gets on it's own, the APU airflow might actually be cooling the caps.

[chilicheeseburger]

Reminds me that I wanted to take my PS4 apart and clean it out. Damn thing is starting to sound like an airplane taking off.

[aconfusedpcgamer]

my ps4 gets very hot and i think this is in fact a valed point

[minervx]

It could've been better if the left/right sides and the bottom of the PS4 had ventilation holes and the bottom of the PS4 had rubber feet to increase its air intake.

[PlayStation 2]

1 hour ago, minervx said:

It could've been better if the left/right sides and the bottom of the PS4 had ventilation holes and the bottom of the PS4 had rubber feet to increase its air intake.

Again, that would do little as you'd more than likely just get dust buildup below the motherboard, and you really don't want that.

[kirashi]

On 05/10/2017 at 6:03 PM, minervx said:

When I realized every single one of these factors combined together, I think it was a contest to make the worst cooling system in a machine without having a Note 7 crisis.

--SNIP--

I too question cooling design. Like the new iMac Pro - cold air sucked in from the bottom recirculates into the chassis via fans... then blows the hot air DOWN and out the tiny vent at the back? Um, I don't know about you, but last I checked hot air RISES so I don't understand the logic here...

[Mira Yurizaki]

28 minutes ago, kirashi said:

I too question cooling design. Like the new iMac Pro - cold air sucked in from the bottom recirculates into the chassis via fans... then blows the hot air DOWN and out the tiny vent at the back? Um, I don't know about you, but last I checked hot air RISES so I don't understand the logic here...

Considering the fans are at the top, sucking up cooler air through the rest of the components before being vented out, I don't see a problem with this system.

 

And it's not like the air being sucked in isn't going to spread around or the air in other places of the system will not be drawn to the fans. Natural convection doesn't contribute much in a forced convection cooling system anyway. (EDIT: Someone's probably going to go YouTube commenter on me and say it does matter, but it really depends and I don't think most computer systems generate enough heat to make natural convection a major contributor of cooling)

 

EDIT 2: Really what's more important in air cooling design is that air inside is being circulated throughout the system. If for example you have an intake fan right next to an exhaust fan, that won't really help much getting air circulated through.

Edited October 8, 2017 by M.Yurizaki

[kirashi]

52 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Considering the fans are at the top, sucking up cooler air through the rest of the components before being vented out, I don't see a problem with this system.

 

And it's not like the air being sucked in isn't going to spread around or the air in other places of the system will not be drawn to the fans. Natural convection doesn't contribute much in a forced convection cooling system anyway. (EDIT: Someone's probably going to go YouTube commenter on me and say it does matter, but it really depends and I don't think most computer systems generate enough heat to make natural convection a major contributor of cooling)

 

EDIT 2: Really what's more important in air cooling design is that air inside is being circulated throughout the system. If for example you have an intake fan right next to an exhaust fan, that won't really help much getting air circulated through.

Keeping the air circulating is definitely the most important thing, so the design itself isn't inherently bad. It's just that I'd instead put more venting along the bottom for cool air, and push the hot air out the top so that natural convection helps as much as possible and reduces the amount that the fans need to be running. Why design something that throws hot air out closer to the cold air intakes when you could just put vents on the top to begin with, right?

[Mira Yurizaki]

49 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Why design something that throws hot air out closer to the cold air intakes when you could just put vents on the top to begin with, right?

I get where you’re coming from but unless they’re like right next to each other, the hot air has enough space to dissipate into the room such that it doesn’t really matter.

 

And at the end of the day you’ll have a space heater anyway.

[Skanky Sylveon]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

And at the end of the day you’ll have a space heater anyway.

I could use one of those right now...

3 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Natural convection doesn't contribute much in a forced convection cooling system anyway.

It contributes basically zero.  Your nose "beats" natural convection, and even the worst of fans is many times better than a human nose.

[Nedkely]

Put it horizontally, not vertically 

Problem solved. 

 

• Quote

  The bottom has no ventilation (would it have been a hassle to poke some holes it and give it some feet)?

   Why on earth would any engineer decide to put airflow below or over the fan? Its not working this way. The kind of fan installed in the console push airflow horizontally, not vertically, it is a different design comparing to fans you are using for CPU for example, if anything you would only make it working worse with those extra chasis holes. 

•  

• https://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/PS4_ifixit_teardown_02.jpg

[Nedkely]

On 10/9/2017 at 1:34 AM, kirashi said:

Keeping the air circulating is definitely the most important thing, so the design itself isn't inherently bad. It's just that I'd instead put more venting along the bottom for cool air, and push the hot air out the top so that natural convection helps as much as possible and reduces the amount that the fans need to be running. Why design something that throws hot air out closer to the cold air intakes when you could just put vents on the top to begin with, right?

Because that way, it is also cooling a PSU of the console, it is sturdy and well designed, but still needs a cooling to help it maintain correct voltages and extend the lifespan of it.

Also you dont have a fan that will work correctly horizontaly. 

With this type of fan and airflow coming from the sides, there is actually more air flowing through the entire console, than you would do it with air coming underneath and going out on the top. 

That would be a disaster.

 

[kirashi]

37 minutes ago, Nedkely said:

Because that way, it is also cooling a PSU of the console, it is sturdy and well designed, but still needs a cooling to help it maintain correct voltages and extend the lifespan of it.

Also you dont have a fan that will work correctly horizontaly. 

With this type of fan and airflow coming from the sides, there is actually more air flowing through the entire console, than you would do it with air coming underneath and going out on the top. 

That would be a disaster.

 

My comment was about the cooling of the iMac Pro, not consoles, just so you know.

[Kawaii Koneko]

Well, the engineers seem to have done a good enough job to prevent the system from overheating as I have never had that happen. 

 

Does anyone know what the max safe temp of the CPU is and how close the system comes to reaching that temperature? I'm wondering if perhaps the CPU has been throttled so it never overheats. Basically, is there any proof that the cooling setup has limited the potential of the CPU performance wise? If not, then the engineers definitely did there job. I'm honestly asking though. I don't know.

 

The fan on this thing is pretty loud though. It seems to get drowned out by my surround sound most of the time but there are times I can really hear it. A friend of mine was complaining about it to me as well.

[Nedkely]

2 hours ago, Kawaii Koneko said:

Well, the engineers seem to have done a good enough job to prevent the system from overheating as I have never had that happen. 

 

Does anyone know what the max safe temp of the CPU is and how close the system comes to reaching that temperature? I'm wondering if perhaps the CPU has been throttled so it never overheats. Basically, is there any proof that the cooling setup has limited the potential of the CPU performance wise? If not, then the engineers definitely did there job. I'm honestly asking though. I don't know.

 

The fan on this thing is pretty loud though. It seems to get drowned out by my surround sound most of the time but there are times I can really hear it. A friend of mine was complaining about it to me as well.

I dont think overheating will be a problem with ps4 chip, especially ps4 pro. 

Unless the cooling system stopped suddenly to work or you will get dust inside.  

Console is running low power consuming HSA chip integrated GPU and CPU, which architecture significantly decreases the heat waste for a computing power it delivers. 

My ps4 pro is way more silent playing witcher 3 for several hours than my gaming yetfueled laptop running gta 5. 

 

Practically, there should be no problems with the console as long as you will keep it clean. Keep it horizontally and it will be fine playing games for many many many hours.