How to Turn On or Off The Xbox Series X / S?

I’ve finally got one. 

After hounding online stores and hunting around the high street, I am finally, mercifully, in possession of an Xbox Series X. 

On getting home, I folded open the box and out slid the Series X in all its monolithic glory. 

My gaming shrine was ready to welcome its new member: a place was picked out, space was cleared, wire management was ready. 

The Series X was placed, plugged, and TV was switched on. 

Then my partner, as eager as me to get the next-gen party started, leaned toward me, and asked a question that I really hadn’t considered before:

“Nick, how do you turn this Xbox series X, Y, Z, whatever, on anway?”

Shocked, I suddenly realized there must be loads of other people out there, sitting with controllers ready, unsure what to press to ignite the power within Microsoft’s monolith. So I thought I’d jump on here and answer the question, How to Turn on or off the Xbox Series X / S, once and for all. 

This is what I found. 

How do I turn on or off the Xbox Series X / S? To turn on the Xbox Series X or S, press the Xbox button, the one with the Xbox logo on it, on the front of the console. This will power up the system. Pressing this button will also wake the console from the instant-on mode. You can also turn the Xbox series x/s on by pressing the Xbox logo button on the Xbox Controller. To turn the console off, simply press and hold the power button on the console for 10 seconds. To put it into instant on or energy-saving mode, simply press and release the button. 

Ok, now you know the basics of how to turn on and off and put it into sleep mode, let’s have a look at each situation in more detail. 

The difference between completely off, Instant-on, and Energy-saving mode.

First before you learn the intricacies of turning on and off your Xbox Series X or S, you need to know there are multiple off states the Xbox can be put into. They are:

• Instant-on mode 
• Energy-saving mode 
• Completely powered off

Let’s look at each.

Instant on

Instant-on mode on the Xbox Series consoles is effectively a fast start mode that doesn’t actually shut the console down.

The machine places itself in a very low power state. But this power is still enough to keep the RAM, CPU, and other components active.

In this mode, the Xbox Series X can update itself and download games. Plus, the machine can instantly boost up to normal power levels letting you jump into a game nearly instantly the moment you press the on button. 

Instant-on mode on the Xbox Series X requires 28W of power for every hour. To give you a point of comparison, the machine uses around 150-165W of power when gaming. 

That means a typical Xbox if kept in the instant-on mode for 20 hours a day, uses 560W of power. Just sitting there doing nothing. 204,400W of power every year. 

Based on average USA electrical costs, it would cost about $27.20 to keep the Xbox in instant-on mode.  

The Xbox Series S on the other hand uses around 50% less energy for both gaming and Instant-on mode. 

But it’s still a lot of power. 

Which leads to the negatives. All that power is being wasted.

Not only is that bad for your wallet, but it’s bad for the environment. That energy is being created by power plants across the world and needlessly being turned into waste heat by your Xbox Series X/S while you sleep.

Energy Saving Mode

Energy-saving mode on the Xbox Series X and S is like the Sleep option on a PC. 

When you turn off the Xbox and put it into energy-saving mode, everything in the RAM at that moment is copied to the SSD and saved. The Xbox then completely powers off using as little as 1W of power per hour on average. That’s 28 times less than what the Xbox uses in instant-on mode.

When you then turn the Xbox back on, it can take 45 seconds to boot up. During this time, the OS is loaded. Plus, the RAM dump that was performed on the last shutdown is reloaded into the RAM from the SSD. 

This means you can then carry gaming from where you left off. It just takes longer to do than the instant-on mode. 

Completely Powered Off

The Xbox Series X and S can also be completely shut down. This can be done 3 ways:

• Unplugging the console after you’ve put the console into Energy saving mode
• Pressing and holding the power button for 10 seconds
• Shutting the machine down in the settings

In this mode, the console uses the least electricity as it is completely disconnected from mains power or is electrically inactive.

How to turn the Xbox Series X On 

If you are starting up your Xbox for the very first time, I recommend you first check out the step by step guide to turning on the Xbox Series X / S on this help page from Microsoft.

However, if you just want to know how to turn your Xbox Series X on, it’s the same for instant-on and energy-saving mode, but a little different for a completely powered off console. 

For instant on and energy-saving mode simply press the power button, the button with the Xbox logo on it, on either the console or the controller. 

The button will light up once the console is on. 

To turn the console on in a completely powered off state, you must press the power button on the console. 

The reason for this is, the console is not listening to the “ping” from the controller’s power button which tells the console to wake up. 

How to turn the Xbox Series X off completely

To turn the Xbox Series X off completely do the following: 

1. Press the Xbox button on the controller to open the user guide
2. Select Profile & system
3. Then navigate to Settings, then General, then Power mode & startup
4. Finally, Select Full Shutdown
5. Once you’d done this, the machine will start shutting down
6. Once the power light is off, pull the power plug out. You’ve now successfully completely shut down your Xbox Series X/S 

Alternatively:

1. Turn on your Xbox Series X/S
2. Once the console is completely powered up, hold the power button on the console down for 10 seconds
3. The console will completely shut itself down without saving the RAM contents to the SSD
4. The console is now safe to be disconnected from the power outlet

This mode is perfect for transporting your Xbox Series X or S as you need to completely shut down the console to safely disconnect the electricity. 

How to turn off your Xbox Series X / S into instant-on mode instead

Instant-on mode is great if you access your console daily and for long stretches of time, like most gamers. 

To put your xbox into this mode, do the following this:  

1. Press the Xbox button on the controller to open the user guide.
2. Select Profile & system
3. Then navigate to Settings, then General, then Power mode & startup.
4. When you are in the Power mode dropdown menu, change the setting to Instant-On Mode.
5. Once you’ve done this, press the power button on your Xbox Series X / S to power the machine down into instant-on mode.

When the console is in instant-on mode, please be careful not to accidentally power off the console by pulling the power plug out of the wall socket.

Of course, doing this a few times won’t cause any problems. After all, the Xbox has to be hardened against sudden blackouts and power outages. After all, it’s no good having a $500 console if it stops working the first time it’s shut down incorrectly. 

However, continuously cutting the power to your console while it sits in instant-on mode will run the risk of corrupting the data on the SSD plus it stresses the electrical components in the console. 

You’ll also lose your instant on save game point by pulling the power plug as all the data that was held in RAM will be instantly lost.

How to turn off the Xbox Series X/S console into Energy saving mode.

Energy-saving mode lets you shut down the console to save energy and money while letting you pick up your game exactly where it left off. The console does this by saving the contents of the RAM to the SSD before shutting down. 

To put your console into energy saving mode do the following:

1. Press the Xbox button on the controller to open the user guide.
2. Select Profile & system
3. Then navigate to Settings, then General, then Power mode & startup.
4. When you are in the Power mode dropdown menu, change the setting to Energy Saving Mode.
5. Once you’ve done this, press the power button on your Xbox Series X / S to shut down the machine into energy-saving mode. This may take a little time as the console is copying the contents of the RAM to the SSD. Just leave the console to do its thing. 

Protect your Xbox Series X / S from shutting down unsafely

You want to be sure your console doesn’t get shut down accidentally while in the instant-on mode as this can corrupt the SSD, stress components, and you’ll lose your instant on save.

The number one thing you want to avoid is having the power plug accidentally pulled out from the wall socket or the power plug is switched off. 

Here’s a number of ways to help you avoid the power being cut from you Xbox Series S and X accidentally:

• Label your power cables so nobody pulls the wrong one out
  • You can cheaply label your power cables with velcro power label tabs. I use them and they are superb. You can use them all over the house 
• Make sure to buy a decent surge protector for your console. This way, in the event that your console is shut down unexpectedly in a storm or power outage, the console is protected
  • Here’s a great surge protector that won’t break the bank but will offer protection 
• Keep your power cables out of view if possible. If your power cables are hidden there’s less chance of them being accidentally disconnected 
• Buy an outlet cover for your Xbox Series X/S plug so everybody knows not to pull that particular plug
  • You can by buying baby outlet cover, like this one
• Finally, if you are having any electrical work done in your house, and the electricity needs to shut off, be sure to fully shut down your Xbox series X and S as described above. Also, do the same with all your other sensitive electronics

Conclusion

So now you know how to turn on and turn off your Xbox Series X and S console properly and safely. 

But an article by me wouldn’t be complete without a convenient summary. So here it goes: 

• You can turn on your Xbox Series console by pressing the power button on either the console or the controller 
• There are 3 power modes, completely off, Instant-on, and energy-saving mode. 
• Completely off is great for saving the most power and for transporting your console
• Instant-on uses a lot of electricity but lets you jump into the gaming action quickly
• Energy-saving mode puts the machine into ultra low power mode. It takes the console 40 seconds to wake from this mode, but your last position in the game you were playing was still saved, so you can carry on where you left off
• To shut down the Xbox Series X into different power-off modes, check out the methods above
• You should consider protecting your console from an accidental shut down by labeling your power cable and by buying an outlet cover for your console’s power plug

What next? 

How do I charge the Xbox Series X/S controller? That’s a good question as there are actually many ways you can charge the Xbox Series X/S controller as they both use normal AA batteries for power. But they can also use a plethora of accessories such as rechargeable battery packs and rechargeable AA batteries. For a better explanation of how to charge your Xbox Series X/S controller check out my article on the subject here. 

What is the expansion port on the bottom of the Xbox Series X/S/One controller? Ah, this mysterious connector is used by a number of peripherals including headsets and charging docks. For an in-depth explanation check out my article here.