Testimonials multiply on the web lately about the excess sound of the PS5 which would ultimately not be as quiet as we were kindly made to believe. We now know the explanation for the problem. These are our colleagues from Digital who shed light on the problem. After noticing that their machines were more or less noisy, they got down to dismantling the fans, in order to notice that they are quite different. Sony has therefore integrated several different types of fans in its consoles, with a blade profile that has nothing to do with, and sound levels that vary. According to the measurements of our colleagues, we go from 39 to 43 db, and if a difference of 4db may seem minimal, remember that the sound level doubles every 3 db.
The worst part is that there is no way to know which fan is on your machine, the serial numbers being the same. It will therefore be a matter of pure chance. Our colleagues thus analyzed 5 machines, 2 of which had the silent option, and 3 the noisy fan. We can imagine that Sony therefore had to call on several suppliers for this important component, probably in order to be able to maintain large production volumes, and thus limit shortages at the exit of the machine. We also imagine that COVID has not really helped matters. Worse, when we look carefully at the official dismantling of the machine by Sony, we see that the fan displays an even different blade profile, which means that there are at least 3 models.
It remains to be seen if Sony will correct the situation, or if the problem will be considered minimal. Note in any case that it is quite simple to disassemble the fan (to clean it for example, this does not invalidate the warranty of the console), which could prove useful if these famous silent fans appear on the spare parts market.
