# Question about Bolt and heat.



## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

I have an original Bolt 4 tuner cable/ota. Bought brand new when it first came out. Over the years I have seen and read all the hub bub about the heating and cooling issues with various Bolts. Mine has not had an issue the whole while I have owned it. Today I checked and the ODT was 64. I put a fan behind it and lifted it a half inch. Temp dropped to 57. My question is ... Will the drop in temperature have any negative effects? It seemed to be quite happy chugging along at 64 with no cooling. I can't imagine lowering the temperature could be bad but I'm just looking for opinions.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

mattyro7878 said:


> I have an original Bolt 4 tuner cable/ota. Bought brand new when it first came out. Over the years I have seen and read all the hub bub about the heating and cooling issues with various Bolts. Mine has not had an issue the whole while I have owned it. Today I checked and the ODT was 64. I put a fan behind it and lifted it a half inch. Temp dropped to 57. My question is ... Will the drop in temperature have any negative effects? It seemed to be quite happy chugging along at 64 with no cooling. I can't imagine lowering the temperature could be bad but I'm just looking for opinions.


Cooler certainly won't hurt. But, I think the heat was blamed for the HDD failures that probably failed regardless of heat. After my first drive failed I put a fan underneath and cooled it down, but the drive still failed again. I simply went to external drive after that. The drives that were failing were 3tb. You have a a 1tb or smaller, right?


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

Correct. I have the original 500gb drive. This unit has been trouble free since purchased.


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## JandS (Oct 1, 2010)

It'll be fine until it isn't. Listen to lesson from the great unwashed (me, me! pick me!). Backup anything you want to keep, so you can replace HD or get a WeaKnees external or whatever.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Plenty of us have been running Bolt and Bolt+ units from their release days without additional cooling and they have been fine, but mine aren't locked up in cabinets, mine sit on another device or by themselves in the open.


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## DouglasPHill (Feb 10, 2005)

Just removing the cable card door will drop the temp 5 degrees. (on mine anyway)


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

Mine is all by itself out in the open. Like I said no problems but these forums can make you worry when there's no need!!


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## Doc Holiday (Dec 31, 2016)

Mine was 67C stock and I didn't like how warm it felt. Almost immediately, I bought a single fan laptop cooler for it to sit on. I also replaced the fan with the Noiseblocker XS-2 and placed a capacitor on the fan. Someone in the forum recommended the cap to reduce the fan clicking, but it also had the side effect of increasing the fan speed. My Bolt runs at 44C now and I much prefer it. I have almost 4 years on a 2 TB Toshiba drive and have never had an issue (knock on wood!).

In general electronic components wear out faster with increased temperature. Some are more sensitive than others, but something like 2X the lifetime for 10C is pretty typical. Lower temperature isn't an issue unless you are cycling the system on and off repeatedly or forcing the temperature very low (think 0C or lower).


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