Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - DSC Overheat???

I have a DSC PC1555 alarm. Recently, I got a keybus faliure message and i went and checked on it. I unpluged it and pluged it back in and it was fine for about thirty seconds and then the keybus message came back so I blew on it incase dust or something got on the circuit board and it "came back." It stayed on for a while and then the message came back. So then I took one of those little hand-held fans and just pointed it at the board and it stayed on; i turned off the fan and the whole thing started over again. So my question is; can the system overheat and if so, why?

Yes they can overheat. Why? Because the second law of thermodynamics (entropy always increases) hasn't been repealed. Machines can fail. You could have taken a voltage transient through the ac power supply a month ago, and the damage is just now manifesting...

You can check the wiring for shorts, but if the incoming 12v power is correct, and the keypad is overheating and failing, then it's time for a new keypad.

Thanks, but I think I wasn't as clear as i should have been. I did that whole procedure (faning it) to the motherboard. I don't know if that changes anything because I'm still thinking something is going to need replacement.....

thanks again!

The built in overload on the motherboard is thermal based. You might have a bad device or a partial short making the system draw too much current from the system, or the overload device is failing (this is a common failure mode for DSC panels).

Ok, thank you. So i'm asuming that there's not much I can do to or about it?

Disconnect any devices that pull aux power except for the keypads (motions, glassbreaks, 4 wire smokes, etc.)

Try powering up, if it stays on on it's own, reconnect one device at a time until the panel shuts itself down again. The last device connected is probably your problem child.

If it shuts down supporting nothing but the keypad(s), then the panel is on borrowed time.