Why does my Thunderbolt feel like is't on Fire

[bvitale]

Why does my thunderbolt feel like I am holding molten lava when I use the navigation? I thought that maybe it would go away with new updates or something but it is always like this. Is it just the heat generated by the screen? Or is it a combo of everything running. I know if I some how turn the camera on while putting it in my holster and I don't use it for a while that it will get just as hot. And when I go to my HTC battery widget it will say overheat. It also seems to get to this fire point faster when charging.

Any thoughts or old posts that will explain this? I did a search and nothing popped out at me.

Thanks,
Brandon

 

[z71kris]

Sounds like it could be a defective unit to me...

 

[bvitale]

I would think defective but 2 cousins and 2 friends have thunderbolt and all of us have this issue. Can't imagine its 5 out of 5 defective units. This was discussed a lot right after launch. Didn't know if a solution was found.

 

[bjboucher]

The only time my phone gets super hot is when i'm outside and its really warm out. If I'm inside in the A/C I can run all kind of apps and the phone doesn't get hot.

 

[bed269]

The only time I notice my phone getting real hot is when I'm at work on 4g streaming. But when I'm at home streaming on wifi it doesn't seem to get as hot.
When it gets hot though the phone feels like the inside of it should be melting.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[willdogs]

Its a smartphone, they all do this to some degree.

if you are using the 4G andtenna, the GPS, and have your LCD on.... something is gonna get warm

Its a computer in small form factor. Its gonna get hot just like a laptop.

Most likely have nothing wrong IMO. Mine gets warm if I leave the screen on, or stream a movie, or use GPS. I got my TB on launch day and still runs great. Nothing to get worried about.

 

[Jude526]

Brandon, you can call or email HTC directly. That's one thing I like about them over RIM. They are very accessible to their phone users.

sent from my Thunderbolt via tapatalk

 

[willdogs]

Things that cause the battery/cpu to get warm are

- Constant Data use 4g/3g streaming (audio or video) or using navigation (data streaming for directions)
- Active GPS Connection
- LCD On (especially with brightness way up)
- Processor intensive apps such as Games

Now mix two or thee of the above together at the same time and its gonna get warm to hot (depending on the temp of the room you are in) No way around it.

Another reason why it may get warm if the phone seems to just be sitting there doing nothing is a stuck app. Sometimes an App will not fully terminate and will sit running even while the screen is off. Even worse if the app uses GPS to find your location or is Data intensive. It will keep banging on your data and gps connection sometimes for hours before you realize something is wrong.

Only way to fix this is to see which apps are actively running using your favorite process monitoring app, or simply reboot.

 

[bvitale]

Thanks for the replies. Im not really worried about it. Just wondering if there was a way to avoid it.


Brandon

 

[dragonsamus]

I've had this happen. I used navigation and when I arrived at my location I forgot to exit navigation. The phone continued to use GPS and when I finally noticed it was really warm and my battery went from full to 30%. It was my fault.
If there is a rogue app in the background, a battery pull can shut it off.

By the way, how hot did your phone get?

 

[Mortiel]

Something else few people consider: Extended periods of touch input to the screen will heat the screen up more, as touching the screen creates what known as a Dynamic Capacitance Field on several capacitors in the screen. The more inputs and the longer continuous inputs are detected, the more heat is generated by the capacitors in the screen.

@the OP: GPS is a direct-to-satellite connection. It requires about 15 times the raw voltage that even a 4G radio uses, as it needs to reach outside the atmosphere, not just a couple of miles to a tower. Electric current creates heat as a by-product. The more powerful the current, the more heat.

 

[Small_law]

This just happens when you push the phone hard. When I'm in the car, using navigation and streaming music over bluetooth all while charging the battery, it warms up pretty good. My original Droid and Droid X did this too, except the 4G radios in the T-Bolt probably draw even more power. It's nothing to worry about.

If the phone is doing it when you're not running anything taxing, however, you might have an issue. But if it doesn't heat up otherwise, you should be fine.