Root Repair or grin and bear it?

[SimonM123]

I have been concerned over the heat eminating from my Desire (processor heat, I think) since I got it, but can't decide whether to send it to HTC for repair and risk being phoneless (or stranded on an ancient spare phone!) until it's fixed, or to accept this as normal.

I've read so many forum posts etc on this, and there seem to be two camps. Some people say "they all heat up, it's a 1ghz processor with no fan or proper heat sink, just deal with it and don't worry too much", and then others who say something like "Mine is as cool as a cucumber, never heats up" or "mine heated up until I sent it back for repair/factory resetted it/tapped it three times and said 'hallelujah', and now it's perfectly cool at all times".

I phone HTC and was told to remove the battery whilst the phone was running. Apparently this forces a more comprehensive restart than if you switched the phone off before removing the battery. They thought this may help.

It did not.

So now I have to decide whether to consider this normal or not. It gets warm in almost any moderately intensive task, including listening to music (main music player, Spotify and Mortplayer Audiobook version), playing games (2d, not just 3d), internet browsing and if I muck about with widgets and homescreen stuff (which I do a few times a week, life's all about variety!). If I use the phone in bed for browsing the web whilst it is charging, the heat gets more intense.

It has never burned me or become painful, and it has never restarted itself due to that heat. It's just a bit unpleasant and makes the device feel less solid to me, I dont associate excess heat with quality engineering, which is odd because the phone is so commendably solid, well constructed and pleasant to the touch.

If this is 'normal' heat then I will deal with it, its not ideal but I can adjust. But if everyone else has lovely cool phones that don't warm up like this, I would like to join them, really.

Opinions would be highly valued.

Thanks in advance,

Simon

 

[SUroot]

Would need to know the temperature it heats up to to comment.

 

[SimonM123]

Hi Dan

I agree that would help, but the phone only gives battery temperature, not processor/core temp.

I looked for a free app to do this but couldn't find one in the market, does anybody know of a free app that gives processor core temperature? Does the processor even have the ability to measure its own temperature?

 

[SUroot]

As you stated above, there is only a battery temperature sensor on the desire, however the CPU is right next to it.

Although this won't give us an exact temp for the CPU core, it will give us an indication of the temperature of the internlals of the phone.

Residual heat from the CPU will affect this temperature so if your sensor reads higher than mine for example, we can surmise that your CPU is running hotter.

I use a paid app called set cpu that also reads this temp.

Battery droid widget from the market will give you the temp. It is also a very good battery % indicator to have.

My phone runs between 30-40 Degrees C, which is normal.

 

[SimonM123]

Ah right, well I do have Quick Battery which is a good widget for the homescreen, and when clicked is a good shortcut to the *#*#4636#*#* menu, which includes temperature and all the other advanced stats.

The temperature does not go above what you have said, I've never seen more than 40 degrees. But when the phone does feel hot, I've felt the battery and it isn't particularly hot itself, so perhaps not an entirely reliable indicator?

 

[SUroot]

No its not reliable but the CPU and the battery are next to each other. If the CPU gets hot, it will alter the temperature the sensor reads.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

i get heat on the phone when gaming or browsing due to the screen being on and the cpu being used due to semi intensive tasks
people that say it doesnt get hot are either using a case or have no feeling in their hands. its impossible for a cpu to be in use and not to get hot especialy in such thin capacities.
thing is though theres a line, in some cases people have seen the phone get too hot in trivial tasks and its rebooted itself
in most cases though people see the reboots when the cpu is in use in conguction to charging and screen heat meaning the cpu is not able to cope with the surrounding heat and restarts.
alot of people see this with sat nav as they have it plugged into the cig lighter and permanently on
I had a samsung galaxy before this and it got redhot, proble was the cpu and usb charger was at the earpiece so when on the phone your ear got excessively hot aswell.
this is hot at the bottom.

Ive never had it get hot listening to music with screen off though or using lastfm so if its getting hot there then i would think about getting it replaced

 

[SimonM123]

Thanks, that's interesting. I do feel like people claiming no heat EVER are probably less sensitive to heat or something.

That's a good point about the screen though, the heat tends to happen when I have music on and regularly change tracks, therefore turning the screen on and off. But why would the screen cause the processor (or something around that area of the chassis, near the bottom of the phone) to heat up?

This is normally with auto-brightness settings.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Thanks, that's interesting. I do feel like people claiming no heat EVER are probably less sensitive to heat or something.

That's a good point about the screen though, the heat tends to happen when I have music on and regularly change tracks, therefore turning the screen on and off. But why would the screen cause the processor (or something around that area of the chassis, near the bottom of the phone) to heat up?

This is normally with auto-brightness settings.

its an already hot area, couple that with the cpu using cycles to process the information you are requesting and displaying it on screen for you.
the cpu will have a small amount of heat with music, hardly noticeable but if you put something warm over something else warm you get a hotter spot. as it could be seen as double the heat.
i cant really explain it, for me when im changing tracks often with the phone on its only marginally warm not "hot" like when im playing games or browsing.
I think the antenna and gps chip is there too

 

[SimonM123]

Thank you, that is useful info. When you say "when im changing tracks often with the phone on its only marginally warm not 'hot'" I can go along with that, its not at the same level of heat games or browsing bring about.

At a 'heat peak' after playing some games over lunch it didn't exceed 38 degrees. So perhaps this is normal and I'm just fussy, I really don't know!

On a slightly different note, I'm sorry for placing this thread in the wrong area - I meant to place it in the main area for the HTC Desire, not in the 'All Things Root' sub-forum, could a mod please move it? Thanks!

 

[sookster54]

38C is the highest mine has gone on both Desires, someone somewhere (probably XDA) said 49C is the highest the sensor will read and stops reporting temp after that. SystemPanel is a good way to see CPU usage but the battery is almost always the source of heat, even playing Last.fm or a radio station in flash in my browser heats the battery up but when it's idling it sits as low as 23C.

Don't forget that when you have it plugged in and charging and you're using it at the same time it can build up extra heat.

 

[EddyOS]

Have to ask...

Why is this in the rooting forum??