What Happens if You Put Your PS5 in Rest Mode? (Explained)

As of 2022, the PlayStation 5 represents the latest in Sony’s line of home entertainment consoles. Although gaming is its primary function, like many consoles on the market today, it can do other things for its users. The PS5 is part of the ninth generation of home game consoles in the industry overall, and Sony put it on the market in November of 2020.

Consumers can get a base model with its own optical disc drive, or they can opt for a digital version that forgoes this feature in order to lower the price point. For hardware, players can enjoy a solid-state drive for high-speed data transfer actions, a graphics processor that can handle resolutions up to 4K, excellent framerates, and special ray tracing technology for realistic visual effects.

Along with all of this, the console has some standard, less flashy features, such as its rest mode. Some PS5 owners wonder what happens to the data on the console when they activate the rest mode, and this is part of the topic that we will focus on today.

We’ll discuss the power state of the PS5 when it enters rest mode, whether it is supposed to turn off completely, and how a user can enable the rest mode for later. Furthermore, we will cover leaving the unit in this mode overnight, noise levels one might expect from the console in rest mode, and how long you should be able to leave it like this.

What Happens if You Put Your PS5 in Rest Mode?

Rest mode is the official name for the low-power state that the PlayStation 5 supports. Most modern consoles have some form of this, although you may see different titles listed between models and manufacturers. Whatever they might be called, these states have a few settings or use cases.

What the mode does might vary from one console to the next, and players can probably tweak the settings that they want to use the most. However, in the case of the PS5, here are some of the main things you can expect from this mode:

1. By default, rest mode should use less energy that a console that is fully on. All the hardware needs to operate at the full level if the console is active, and this requires more energy.

You can save a lot of that by choosing to put your PS5 in rest mode instead. This doesn’t use as little energy as the PS5 being off completely, but there are advantages to it staying on in the background.

2. The console still draws a bit of power, so it can charge controllers while it is in this mode.

3. Furthermore, the processor is still performing some background calculations. This means that the unit can still look for game updates and other things that it might need to download in order to make your overall experience the best that it can be.

4. Similarly, rest mode means that the console can get instant awareness of any changes to the firmware that helps to instruct the hardware on how the latter should function. This might be particularly useful to some gamers who might not have a lot of time to wait for the system to start itself. A firmware update typically includes making an entire system update.

If the PS5 is off, you won’t be aware of this kind of thing until you turn it back on. Once you do, the whole system might need to update itself before you can even get to the home screen. These updates may have several steps, and each one could take a while.

Does the PS5 Turn Off in Rest Mode?

As we mentioned, the console does not shut itself off fully when one activates rest mode. However, it does limit which functions are active and running for the duration of the mode. It might be possible for the console to shut off completely when it does enter rest mode, though.

1. If this happens to your PS5, problems may occur. Although there were early problems with rest mode, Sony put out updates that the company intended to address the issue sufficiently. Unfortunately, rest mode issues were sporadic, the effects were different between groups of users, and the problems with the mode did not seem to impact all players.

All of the factors included in the problems that people associated with rest mode meant that it has been difficult for Sony to fix the issue fully for every single PS5 owner. Many of the problems seem to have gone away for many players, but we would be remiss if we did not mention them here. If you are fortunate, nothing may happen at all.

There are a few common problems that gamers have experienced, though. We will list the ones that the gaming community talks about the most here.

2. The PS5 has to go through a particular procedure in the background when it shuts itself off. If this process has any interruptions, the hardware doesn’t know what to do. It will still shut everything down, but it treats this whole thing as an improper process. You would get an error message the next time that you started up the console.

3. On a related note, having this error means that you cannot turn on the console conveniently. Most gamers would prefer to boot their consoles using the controller itself. This means you don’t have to approach and activate the console manually every time you would like to start it up.

However, any kind of improper shutdown procedure means that the PS5 cannot boot from the controller. This means that you’ll need to boot it from the start button on the front panel itself at least once. If you clear up the error, you can start the process from the controller again.

4. In worse scenarios, a shutdown of this nature can mean that system or game files have data loss or corruption. Whichever of these happens, it could mean that you lose system settings, need to restore the whole OS, or lose game save data that you haven’t backed up.

Even though Sony has taken big steps to address the issues with the rest mode feature, there is still a chance that it could happen with your PS5 console. The sporadic nature of this effect may mean it is less likely as time goes on and more patches become available, however.

How Do I Enable Rest Mode on My PS5?

You can follow these steps to enable the rest mode on the PS5 console:

1. Go to the general Settings section in the console’s menu.
2. From there, you should see a Power-Saving submenu that you can select with the controller.
3.  Inside this menu, you can activate the rest mode feature.
4. You can return here to disable it if you would like to. Although there are several benefits that Sony intends for players to use, it may be wise to disable rest mode again if you have any of the kinds of issues that we talk about above.

Is It OK To Leave a PS4 in Rest Mode Overnight?

As long as everything is working correctly, there should be no issue with your leaving the console in this mode all night long.

Sony has designed rest mode in the same way that most other manufacturers do for their consoles. That is to say, rest mode is something the developers have designed to be the default low-power choice for gamers. Should it work properly, it can help you keep the console in its most current state.

It also makes starting it up and getting programs ready quicker than if the device would need to do this from a completely shut down position. Although it does consume some power, it is minimal enough that it should not need to be a factor in your decision to leave it in this mode indefinitely.

Is It Normal for the PS5 To Make Noise in Rest Mode?

The console should make less noise in this mode than when it is on fully. However, some noise is also normal for the rest mode state. In this setting, the device may still have to use the fans at various intervals in order to keep some of the parts cool.

They should not need to run very loudly, but some soft humming would not be uncommon. This can be particularly true if you are close to the console.

Additionally, some of the coils may need to pull some power when the console enters rest mode. If this is so, you may hear louder noises that you can attribute to the whine of these coils while they are active.

For the most part, coil whine should not play a major role in the noise levels that the console produces, although this can happen more if the device is running a game. If you do notice such a whine that seems far too loud for the amount of power that the PS5 draws while it is only resting, you may need to find a technical professional to deal with the issue.

How Long Can You Leave Your PS5 in Rest Mode?

Unless you are experiencing any of the issues we’ve discussed, there is little reason not to leave your console in rest mode as long as you would like. It can keep things updated, ready for you, and in a state of low power usage for as long as you need it to do so. The only other thing to make sure of is the power supply itself.

Because of improper shutdowns potentially damaging the system or save files, you’ll want to make sure that there are no problems with the PS5 getting the power it needs in order to keep rest mode active. On a related note, if you think that there is any possibility of losing power overnight, it may be best to shut down the device completely.

Following that, you can also unplug it to save it from any voltage spikes if the power does go out and return when you are not there.

Conclusion

Rest mode is a useful thing that allows modern consoles to keep things in a suspended state. Typically, they can do this while needing or using only a fraction of the power they might take when they are fully on or running games.

This makes rest mode a great option for keeping games and system files current. However, if you experience some problems with the PlayStation 5 and its rest mode specifically, it may be wiser to shut it down fully.