Hi,
I've always felt my DG834GT runs too hot, and after acquiring another unit I have found the difference in temperature between the two has been very distinct. I've located the source of the excessive heat to be coming from the BCM5325 network chip near the network ports. On my old router, the chip gets too hot to touch, where the new one is much cooler.
I set about replacing the capacitors on the old router with better quality versions, and after fitting I tested continuity across capacitors to check for short circuits. All were fine, apart from 'C107' at the bottom of the board. This cap showed a short circuit / resistance reading of about 20ohms, but the cap was brand new so I'm thinking the problem lies with the mainboard or some other component.
Testing the other DG834GT, this cap showed no such short (as you'd expect) and the BCM chip runs cool. Hmmm I thought, perhaps the old routers' original cap had gone faulty, causing a short circuit and damaging the BCM chip enough for it to run excessively hot, but not enough to stop it working completely. While testing, I accidentally bridged the cap connections rendering my router useless while the BCM chip temperature soared, AND now we're left with a short circuit across the cap!
It looks like any issues with that capacitor that could result in a short circuit across its connections causes permanent internal damage to the BCM5325, resulting in extremely high running temperatures and sometimes, but not always, router death.
It would be interesting to see measurements across the capacitor of those who consider their routers to run hot, perhaps it's possible to prevent overheating of the BCM5325 by replacing the capacitor BEFORE it goes faulty. Anyone here handy with a multimeter and feeling extremely bored, feel free to give it a go :p
Thoughts / comments?
