SD Card Reader Extremely Hot and No Boot

Discussion Raspberry Pi
1

Has anyone run into an issue where their SD card and reader heat up to the point it burns to touch the metal on the reader? I finally got a project working last night and was going to take a quick video of it so i wanted to move the pi/case to a better spot. I noticed before i shut down the system that the over temp warning was on and the temp was at 85* C. So i let it cool off, and plug it back in where i wanted it and the SD card reader was still very hot to the touch, and was getting warmer the longer it was plugged in. At this point it would not boot, and when i put the card in my laptop it would not read, it just wanted me to format it.

I am planning on getting a new SD card today, but do you think this is an issue with the pi itself, or just something with the card?

I don’t know if this can hurt things, but i did have to reload the image on it earlier in the night after trying to transfer everything to a usb flash drive and rebooting in the process. so maybe that damaged the card?

2

I used over a dozen Raspberry Pi’s over the years and never run into that issue. It sounds like the SD card failed to me. What model PI?

3

Pi3 b

i’m swapping the cards out with a 32gb samsung card that im picking up today. we will see!

4

Ok, 3B friction fit, just make sure it fully inserted. ;)

5

When you say “reader” do you mean the SD card slot on the Pi?

I have heard of cases where shorts can happen within the SD card slot on the Pi and causes issues like this.

6

yup, i pulled the card out and there was a faint line across it, the thing snapped in my hand with very little pressure. have a new 32gb card in there now and all is good.

7

Good to hear the Pi wasn’t damaged.

8

Glad to hear that the SD card swap worked just fine. However, if you are using Pi 3, I would recommend (at least for someone else) that you Check the Pi 3 SD card and use a Pi 3 Heatsink to avoid overheating.

9

funny enough that particular Pi3 ended up dying about a week after from a SD card reader failure.