Citroen C5 Tourer Exclusive - 2008 X7 - Warning on screen - "unit will shut down to prevent damage"

[Mantisman]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help with this problem:

On a long journey, after about an hour, I get a warning on the sat nav screen that the centre console will shut down to prevent damage because it's too hot. It then shuts down, meaning the screen goes blank and the sat nav and the radio go off. It then comes back on after about 10 minutes but proceeds to turn itself off every 8 minutes after that for the rest of the journey.

I presume it's because there's a cooling fan in the console that has stopped working. There definitely used to be the sound of a fan coming from inside the console but it got louder and louder until it eventually stopped.

I rang my local Citroen dealer and they said the whole console had to be replaced and the cost of the console was over £1k! This isn't an option!

Has anyone ever replaced the fan inside the console? I'm just wondering if a small computer cooling 12v fan would do the job.

Regards,

Ian

[Jay-Bruce]

I don't know what specific headunit you have, but certainly for the RT3 the fan module is on the outside, so is pretty easy to replace. The fan will be a bought in component, so if you open the stereo, and get to the fan, you should be able to buy replacements. I'm curious why it's getting so hot as to need the fans, it could be the thermal paste has gone bad and lost it's thermal conductivity? I'd say it'd be worth stripping the unit, cleaning the old thermal paste off, applying new paste, and following the guide that Marc "GiveMeABreak" posted in the audio section to upgrade the hard-drive to a CF card. If you need some more info on changing the heat sink thermal paste and or a link to marc's guide, let me know I'll look them up for you.

[mickthemaverick]

Just as a hint. I had the same issue on my much older Mk1 and I fitted a pair of laptop cooling fans to the drilled outer case. One was connected to blow and the other to suck to give a crossflow and it worked fine
No more trouble at all!!

[GiveMeABreak]

I've moved this to the General Telematics Forum as you haven't told us what unit you are referring to but for a 2008 C5 X7 I suspect it will be the RT4. If you can confirm this or provide your VIN it will save posting a lot of irrelevant information.

If an RT4 then that's a small standard DIN unit with little room and a lot crammed in, so if the fan has packed up, that will start to damage the internals through over-heating. We'll know more once you updated us.

[Mantisman]

Thanks for all your help so far.

Can you let me know how to determine which head unit my car has?

[Mantisman]

The VIN is VF7**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff].

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok, thanks, so you do have the RT4 as I suspected.

You may want to try Karim at Autronics. He has plenty of testimonials from people internationally - testimonials are shown and the contact form is at the bottom.

https://www.autotronics.eu/2012/02/peug ... r-service/

He is listed on one of the repairers for RT* units on our thread here:

viewtopic.php?t=60781

[Mantisman]

That's great! Thanks so much for your help. It's greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Ian