Here is the engineering diagnosis and a practical, soldering-free fix.
If you are building a custom board, ensure there is a thermal pad or copper pour connected to the ground pins of the CX31993 to act as a heatsink. Community Post Draft Title: 🚀 CX31993 DAC: The Specs & The "Heat" Fix
Right-click, open , and navigate to Power Management . cx31993 datasheet fix hot
You searched for "cx31993 datasheet fix hot" because you want action. Here is the definitive fix guide, from easiest to most advanced.
The CX31993 lacks an internal heat pad on its QFN package. Unlike desktop DACs that dissipate heat via the PCB ground plane, the CX31993 relies entirely on the dongle’s epoxy casing. If the manufacturer used a 2-layer PCB (most cheap dongles do), heat has nowhere to go. The chip thermally throttles at ~85°C, but the plastic case will burn your fingers long before that. Here is the engineering diagnosis and a practical,
Inspect the 3.5mm jack. A partial short or high-impedance mismatch can cause the Class G amp to struggle and overheat.
The CX31993 (also known as the Conexant CX31993) is a high-performance USB-C audio decoding chip specifically designed for USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapters and portable DAC/amps. It is praised for its ability to support 32-bit/384kHz high-resolution audio output and provide a clean, neutral sound with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) >128dB. You searched for "cx31993 datasheet fix hot" because
The Conexant is a widely popular but technically "mysterious" DAC chip. While a formal public datasheet from the manufacturer is notoriously difficult to find, The "Mysterious" CX31993 Datasheet Specs
Insufficient copper area or poor thermal via design Fix: Add or enlarge a thermal pad and connect it to multiple thermal vias to internal ground/power planes; increase surrounding copper pour area to lower thetaJA.