Stereo possibly overheating..CD skip?

Bruce03Silverado · February 14, 2004

I was just driving home tonight from dinner with my wife and we were listening to a CD whan all of a sudden is stopped playing for a few seconds and started playing again. I thought it was the cd so I popped the cd out to put in another one only to find that the cd was EXTREMELY hot! Then I touched the face of the cd player and it was just as hot! I put in another cd (one I just bought) and it skipped too and the cd got super hot as well? Anyone have this problem with their cd player? The only thing I can figure is that most stereos have some sort of mechanism (fan or whatever) to keep them cool and that must have stopped working becasue there is no way the unit or the cd should be almost to hot to even touch. Any thoughts before I call the dealer?

SnakeEyeSS · February 14, 2004

a few weeks ago this happend with my Eclipse CD player,s never happened before, never happened since. IT was playing for about 2 hours stright, and my heater was on the whole time. noticed wsomething was wrong, when my CD started skipped, so took it out and same thing happened, very hot to touch. I just turned it off for 15 minutes than fired it back up again later and everything was fine.

Shaners · February 14, 2004

They get warm when the lights are on and the heater is running... I've never had mine skip, but they do get hot!!! A "burned" CD is more likely to give you trouble than a Store Bought CD.

Bruce03Silverado · February 14, 2004

They get warm when the lights are on and the heater is running... I've never had mine skip, but they do get hot!!! A "burned" CD is more likely to give you trouble than a Store Bought CD.

Both cd's were store bought cd's. I've never had any cd player get as hot as this one and the cd itself was almost too hot to even touch and I know that's not normal. I'll be calling the dealer to take it in....I think the stereo fan is broken.

Firetiger(MN) · February 14, 2004

Bruce,

Keep us informed on what you find. I have the exact same problem. Only happens on long trips for me. I can put in a brand new CD with zero scratches or fingerprints and it'll either skip or stop playing all together. It also is very warm as is the area around the top of the radio. I know the pre-03's had fans but I've never heard mine run which you usually can when you shut off the key and turn down the radio. I wonder if they deleted that along with the underhood light.

I haven't had time to take it in yet. Please let us know what you find. I'm glad I'm not the only one that has this problem. Just this past weekend my radio locked up completely. Even with the key off it was still powered up with no sound. Had to pull the fuse under the hood to kill it and then it was back to normal until it heated up again further down the road. Can't even get through an entire CD.

NothinButBowTies · February 14, 2004

From my experience, the internal amp in most CD players is what generates the heat. I am running amps for all of my speakers and have a "dead head" Cd player. All a dead head unit is a CD player that doesnt have an internal amp. Even if you have had the CD playing for a couple of hours, the CD is cold to the touch! This also allows for the CD player to only generate a signal for the RCA's and gives a much cleaner sound.

Hope this helps, Nick

Firetiger(MN) · February 14, 2004

It's obvious what is causing the heat.

What I want to know is if there is a fan on these units. Somebody must have pulled a Bose out by now that could shed some light on the issue?

GMINSIDE · February 14, 2004

i have had a cd radio out of a 01 and out of an 04 and neither have fans in them . they are however designed to get a little hot.they where both none bose units thogh

Firetiger(MN) · February 14, 2004

That's odd. My '99 and '02 both had fans and they didn't have Bose in those years either. Just your typical CD headunit in LS trucks.

Now with this new unit (Bose), I wonder if that's something they did away with or if mine is actually faulty.

Wingnut · February 14, 2004

Just curious, but when is the last time you cleaned it?

Aren't they supposed to be cleaned after every 8-10 hours of playing time?

Mine gets pretty hot, but it's never skipped.

.02

Bruce03Silverado · February 15, 2004

Bruce,

Keep us informed on what you find. I have the exact same problem. Only happens on long trips for me. I can put in a brand new CD with zero scratches or fingerprints and it'll either skip or stop playing all together. It also is very warm as is the area around the top of the radio. I know the pre-03's had fans but I've never heard mine run which you usually can when you shut off the key and turn down the radio. I wonder if they deleted that along with the underhood light.

I haven't had time to take it in yet. Please let us know what you find. I'm glad I'm not the only one that has this problem. Just this past weekend my radio locked up completely. Even with the key off it was still powered up with no sound. Had to pull the fuse under the hood to kill it and then it was back to normal until it heated up again further down the road. Can't even get through an entire CD.

I'll let you know how it goes. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get much out of the dealer because the cd has to be playing for a while for it to get that hot and I doubt a dealer will keep playing it that long...I'm pretty sure I'll get the call that they "couldn't duplicate the problem". Either way it's interesting to see that some others have the same problem. I've had many a cd player in my vehicles where I can play them all day and never have them get so hot that they skip. Hell, my wife has a 6 dis cd changer in her Mustang GT and we've been on long trips before where we've listend to all 6 cd's one righ after the other and never had a problem...in fact the cd's were cool to the touch when we ejected them to put 6 more in. This just doesn't seem right but I will admit it takes a while for the player to get that hot, but like you said I probably won't be able to get through a whole cd w/o it skipping. Drove the truck tonight 20-25min each way and had the cd player on the whole time but it never got hot enough to skip...just starting getting hot when I got home...I'm confused!

Bruce03Silverado · February 15, 2004

Just curious, but when is the last time you cleaned it?

Aren't they supposed to be cleaned after every 8-10 hours of playing time?

Mine gets pretty hot, but it's never skipped.

.02

Actually cleaned it a few weeks ago, but that doesn't really account for the amount of heat that the player generates and how hot the cd gets. My wife said it was just about to the point where you couldn't even hold the cd it was that hot..I know that's not normal and I don't believe cleaning the player has anything to do with how it disseminates heat

Bruce03Silverado · February 15, 2004

That's odd. My '99 and '02 both had fans and they didn't have Bose in those years either. Just your typical CD headunit in LS trucks.

Now with this new unit (Bose), I wonder if that's something they did away with or if mine is actually faulty.

I actually don't have the Bose unit either. It's just the standard cd head unit that comes in the LS package..nothing fancy so maybe it is a fan but it will be hard to prove that w/o extended periods of time playing a cd.

03GMCSierra4.8L · February 15, 2004

For what its worth, I have the stk AM/FM stereo head unit in my 03. No cassette or CD, just the base unit and when I run the running lights or headlights the d#@n stereo gets so hot I can hardly touch it around the preset buttons. I have never had a head unit in any auto that I have owned get so hot.....I am a bit concerned of a fire hazzard to tell the truth!

I would assume that this is "GM Normal" nowadays?? Anyone else found a cause or cure to this? I cant seem to hear any cooling fan that may not be working.