While a massive heat wave and megadrought plague tens of millions of Americans, beta users of SpaceX's broadband service called Starlink are repo

"Thermal Shutdown" - Heat Wave Knocks Beta Starlink Users Offline

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2021-06-18 19:00:09

While a massive heat wave and megadrought plague tens of millions of Americans, beta users of SpaceX's broadband service called Starlink are reporting their dishes are overheating, which knocks them offline. 

Earlier this week, a Redditor posted an error message that reads "Offline Thermal Shutdown." The dish "overheated" and "Starlink will reconnect after cooling down," the error message continued. 

According to Ars Technica, the Redditor, Martin, reached out to Starlink support team, which told him, "Dishy will go into thermal shutdown at 122F and restart when it reaches 104F." He tried to cool down the dish with water in the hot Arizona heat, though the "fix was temporary."

"When I stopped the sprinkler, [the dish] heated back up and would cycle back on for a few minutes and go back down for thermal shutdown. The overheating started that day about 11:30 am and came back for good about 7 pm... I'm currently headed to a hardware store to get materials to build a solar shade/sail around the dish to see if it doesn't impact connection and speed," he said. 

One of the drawbacks of Starlink appears to be thermal issues where the user cannot access satellite internet until the dish cools down. Other users have reported the same problem. 

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