Droid 3 overheating in car dock

[southernburke]

Who has cooked their Droid 3 in the car dock.
I ordered the car dock and the charger was missing. Motorola sent me a P513 generic charger. This charger is not the correct charger for the car dock. It is only capable of charging the battery when the phone is idle. The Droid 3 needs to have the P617 charger to work properly. The P617 has 2 power sources running to the phone. One to keep the battery charged and another to run the phone independently from the battery. Even the cord that comes with the car dock shows a picture of the correct charger attached to the end of the cord.
Mine got so hot it burned my thumb taking it out of the car dock and I dropped it, no screen crack. I put it in my pocket then the screen cracked against my thigh, probably from rapidly cooling down. The screen cracked in 2 distinctive spots where I had 2 tiny scratches, it was so bad it looked like someone had hit it with a sledge hammer, hundreds of fracture lines.
After overheating, it no longer recognized my computer, Motorola's remote repair site couldn't recognize the phone. They told me to send it in for repair under warranty. They voided the warranty because of the physical damage to the screen. After complaining that the screen damage was due to the extreme overheating issue they did a heat evaluation in a car dock using the correct charger. Guess what no overheating and the billed me $122 for the repair. Why didn't they test the phone with the wrong charger like the one they sent me?
PLEASE REPORT ANY OVERHEATING ISSUES TO MOTOROLA AND VERIZON
There are a lot of complaints about overheating with the X2 and the Droid 3 with enough complaints maybe Motorola will fix this issue.
Please be careful with what car charger you use. If you have the car dock you have to use the P617. If you don't have the car dock you have to use the P510. Any other charger will cook your phone like it was put in a microwave oven.

Good luck everyone,
Michael Burke

 

[Deniki]

Mine hasn't overheated, but I have had problems with the car dock...mainly, it can't tell my phone is in it when it its and wont charge it or launch the cardock app. I bet I have to put it in, take it out, put it in 10-15 times on average before it "reads" my phone is plugged into it. For the most part I have stopped using it as its not worth the trouble.

 

[southernburke]

I have also had the same issues with the car dock not recognizing the phone.
It does seem to be operating a little better with the P617 charger. It now recognizes
the phone 9 out of 10 times with the right charger.

 

[celtic11]

Mine overheated in the car dock this past weekend traveling to OBX, but sitting in the windshield in direct sunlight for four hours while simultaneously charging and running gps... I can't say im surprised. I have an app called battery indicator that let me know it was overheating and id pull it out of the windshield for a while and it would cool back down just fine.

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[southernburke]

I never had any overheating issues with the Droid 1.
I also never had problems with my Garmin either.
Why can't they just make the processor speed slow down when necessary.
If i'm sitting in traffic it doesn't need to run full throttle, I don't need all that processor speed
if I'm going nowhere. This is turning out to be a very dumb "smart phone".

 

[REMilk]

I encountered a similar problem with the OG Droid, but for me, it was an easy fix.

If you use vent mounts for your Droid 3 and run the A/C, your overheating problem will vanish. However, this greatly reduced the cooling output of that vent as it is nearly completely blocked by the Droid/Droid 3.

I have a Honda Element and I was able to solve the over heating problem very easily. I mount the car dock in the center of the dash right over the center vents. I separated the top vent on the passenger so that it is independent of the remaining vents and I have it pointing up; the remaining vents are controlled together and can point wherever needed. This allows the cool air from that one A/C vent to strike the Droid 3 and keep it cool.

Please understand that if you do this, you may break your vent, so that it is unusable. It is easy to take the Honda Element dash apart (I have done this several time while 'modding' the car) and fix the vent or replace the vent, if I am so inclined, when I sell the car.

Good Luck,
Bob

 

[nmetheny]

I had a friend with that problem, not a tech savy friend by any means so plz excuse the simplicity of my reply. His problem was he did not have the insert one needs to put in the car dock when the phone has no cover. It really was not that loose once it was plugged in with out the dock insert so nothing struck him odd about the extra play instead of a snug fit. Needless to say, he did not know of the insert as it was not included in his purchase (so he says) and as he put it, "who knows where the box and manual are". Just a thought, good luck!

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[nmetheny]

I am sorry, my last reply was aimed at the phone not recognizing the car dock, not the over heating issue. I use A/C also for the hot phone issue by turning my multisetting to Defrost /face/feet. My DROID is suction cupped in windshield under rear view. That cools it enough on the hot summer days at least in mt cars.

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[adam_d_j]

Im not sure of the model number of my car charger, but its the one I got with my DROID 1 2 years ago. I recently took a road trip and was using navigation while docked and my phone slowly ran out of juice, though the battery icon showed it was charging. I brought my phone, dock, and charger into a Verizon store and nobody could figure out what the problem was. What you're saying is that the charger is the problem. Nowhere have I read from Motorola that you must use a specific charger with the dock. The manual shows a charger with a 3.5mm audio cable attached, but it did not come with the dock. This p617, does it require a certain USB cable or will either two that I already have work(mind you one of them is from DROID 1 purchase and one is DROID 3)? This is the first that I've heard of a proprietary cable for the dock, so thanks for posting.

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[REMilk]

Im not sure of the model number of my car charger, but its the one I got with my DROID 1 2 years ago. I recently took a road trip and was using navigation while docked and my phone slowly ran out of juice, though the battery icon showed it was charging. I brought my phone, dock, and charger into a Verizon store and nobody could figure out what the problem was. What you're saying is that the charger is the problem. Nowhere have I read from Motorola that you must use a specific charger with the dock. The manual shows a charger with a 3.5mm audio cable attached, but it did not come with the dock. This p617, does it require a certain USB cable or will either two that I already have work(mind you one of them is from DROID 1 purchase and one is DROID 3)? This is the first that I've heard of a proprietary cable for the dock, so thanks for posting.

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Your description of using the GPS within the the OG Droid while plugged into the auto charger, showing charging and in reality not charging, is a symptom of overheating, though it also be caused may be a low-amperage charger. I have used many third-party car chargers and never had a problem with any of them under charging. I have had experience with the OG Droid not charging when overheating when using GPS and on a hot dash.

Finding a way to keep your Droid from overheating while using it for GPS may eliminate this problem; it did with me. Please see my earlier post about this.

Bob

 

[adam_d_j]

This actually happened with my DROID 3. The charger is from my OG DROID. Sorry for the confusion. I started taking my DROID 3 out of the case when docking and turning the AC on defrost so the cold air hits it. It didn't seem to be too hot when it died, a little warm though.

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