Still 60–80 °C With a Cooler: Find What Loads the CPU

1. Open CarCar Launcher’s settings and find the rendering engine options (in the version and widget sections). Note what is selected now.
2. Switch the widget rendering engine to the other option (legacy or stable) and drive the same route as before.
3. Cover your music app with the launcher’s built-in player instead of showing the music app’s own full window.
4. Keep whichever combination gives the lower reading.

An Mstick4 owner whose box ran hot with a loud fan when navigation and music shared the screen switched the rendering engine and reported less heat and less fan noise. A second Mstick4 owner found the legacy widget engine noticeably cooler; after more careful testing the gap was about 5–7 °C, and only when the music player was expanded. A TBox Ultra 2 owner held about 35 °C with the launcher’s built-in player over the music app, though active route guidance still pushed it up.

It did not help everyone. A fourth owner saw little difference from the engine change, because the newest version of his navigation app was running the box at 80–85 °C on its own. If that sounds like you, go to Fix 2.

1. Open a system-monitor app that shows per-core load and watch it while navigating.
2. If one core sits at 100% with the navigation app open, try another navigation app on the same route.
3. If the problem started with an app update, stay on the version that ran cool and turn off auto-update for that app in Google Play.
4. Also turn off 3D buildings and similar 3D map features in the navigation app (suggested in a reply, not tested on its own).

An Mstick4 owner hit 82 °C with throttling and freezes, with one core permanently at 100% under his navigation app, and the box strapped to a cooler that could only blow on plastic. Switching to Google Maps brought it to 38 °C; a third navigation app settled at 62 °C. Another owner saw one version of a navigation app push the box past 80 °C, and the problem went away with a later version; he then stopped updating.

The catch is that a later version can bring it back, as one owner found with the newest release at 80–85 °C. Note the version that runs cool before you update.

1. Open Settings → Apps and list every app that is not part of the system.
2. Uninstall the ones you do not need in the car.
3. For the apps you keep, restrict background activity, then check after a few minutes whether they started again on their own.
4. Drive with the temperature display on and compare.

A TBox Ultra 1 owner found about 15 apps starting by themselves: a radar-detector app, alternative app stores, the stock APK installers, video apps. The box lagged at 89 °C. Extra heatsinks got it to 78 °C; removing half of those apps from the background brought it to a little over 60 °C.

Restriction alone did not hold for him. Apps restarted within minutes after background restriction in their settings and after being disabled in the factory menu, and a task killer only lowered the temperature until they reloaded. Uninstalling worked. Avoid modified or pirated app builds: one of the removed apps was a cracked navigation app.