Overheating, Then Display Dims

[LocrianGroove]

Using GPS, while plugged into the car charger, the Droid Charge automatically dimmed itself (was set to max brightness). I checked the display setting for brightness, and a brightness limit was enforced by the phone "to prevent overheating." I was using the universal car dock, as opposed to something made specifically for this phone. The back of the phone was pretty warm. After pulling off the back, it seemed that most of the heat was coming from the battery. Anyone else have good or bad experiences using GPS with a car dock, display set to max brightness?

 

[whitenessj]

haven't had this happen yet, but doesn't surprise me at all... check the amperage of your car dock if you have a multimeter... then compare it to a official samsung charger i bet your dock it putting a extra kick in the charger to "RAPID CHARGE" see that would look good on a sticker.... but not so much for the actual device...
let me know the results.

 

[imnuts]

haven't had this happen yet, but doesn't surprise me at all... check the amperage of your car dock if you have a multimeter... then compare it to a official samsung charger i bet your dock it putting a extra kick in the charger to "RAPID CHARGE" see that would look good on a sticker.... but not so much for the actual device...
let me know the results.

Even if the dock is capable of supplying more amps than the stock dock, the phone won't actually draw the extra power. The power rating on cables/chargers is for the max safe power draw, not the power draw that the phone will actually pull. If a charger was able to force juice into the phone, what do you think would happen if you left your phone on the charger overnight?

The heat was likely from charging, gps, and data use for gps. Having constant data pulled results in a lot of heat, as would constantly displaying new graphics on the screen. I've heard of the same thing happening on other phones before, even with official chargers.

 

[whitenessj]

but on a DC system the phone may be able to pull more consistently than on the AC charger in the car... Same reason car inverters will cause the screen inverters in laptops to freak out with acceleration in some vehicles..that is why i wonder if the normal DC power charger is made to chage faster than the AC car adapter...

As far as the Data and screen go they def. will create more heat your 100% correct

 

[mboverst]

I had a friend who had a similar issue with another android phone when he was using it for GPS on longer trips. He used one of the universal car mounts that clips into his AC vent and had it blasting cold air on it and out of direct sunlight. He swore it made a difference. Who knows...maybe it's worth a shot.

 

[reflekt2099]

when the battery gets low (like 4% low), the screen automatically dimmed on mine. Even though the screen setting was set to brightest. and I couldn't change the brightness, until i plugged the phone in. I think this is a good common sense feature that saves battery life.

 

[LocrianGroove]

Alright. I did some more testing. The same thing happens when the charger is not used and when it is out of the sun and when it has room for the heat to vent. I've also seen this phone go into this protection mode when just browsing on maximum brightness with the power saving mode disabled. I've found that the maximum brightness level the phone enforces during this protection mode is perfectly acceptable, and I'm choosing to leave it at that level to conserve power, and to make this issue moot.

 

[mike pertz]

try turning off the power saving mode in the display settings.

 

[whitenessj]

It will prob still do it w/ alot of data coming in it will overheat (like very device) but some (not all) devices are smart enough to turn off the back light before hurting our beautiful little AMOLED + ....I dont think this will be a BIG issue for most, but the people i can see affected are those with the big bulk cases