Why I’m still going to stand my PS5 vertically, despite the alleged risk

You may have seen reports warning you not to place your PS5 vertically, saying you could damage and even permanently seal your console. But there’s good reason to doubt these claims, and I won’t change how I use my console, for example.

We’ve seen reports that the PS5 can run into problems after standing for extended periods. For instance, @68Logic (opens in new tab)who runs a repair shop in France, says that while repairing consoles, they have seen a few cases where a potential seal break between the cooler and the APU resulted in liquid metal leaking through the case and onto other components, causing the console broke.

They are not alone in claiming to have seen this error. YouTube DeCod3r (opens in new tab) opened a PS5 Digital Edition console that he needed to repair and said the console wouldn’t boot. He discovered a metal leak from the APU and says the leak was due to a design flaw.

Another thing to consider is user-caused damage as well. The consistent movement of a console can cause internal damage and movement of parts, so switching your console from vertical to horizontal on a regular basis could potentially put your console at risk, but even then a PS5’s cooling and CPU can pack tight enough to prevent liquid from falling or spilling onto other parts.

But even if these PS5s broke because they were standing vertically, I’m not going to lay my console horizontally. Reports of this error are so rare that it doesn’t appear that the problem is widespread. The PS5 has been on sale for over two years now, with presumably a large number of people standing it upright (as it was designed). If this was a common problem we would see a lot more reports like when the Xbox 360 suffered from the red ring of death.

In that case, the risk of reputational damage was so great that Microsoft issued a general free return and repair policy. And in that case, the failure rate was reportedly between 3 – 5% (opens in new tab). If PS5s failed in large numbers, we’d hear about it.

We have reached out to Sony to ask if it is aware of the claims and if it would like to comment but has not yet received a response. We will update this article with a statement if we receive one.