Damn Garmin GPS Crapped Out!

[Bad Obsession]

I have an old Garmin GPS Map that is a handheld. I am having a blank on the model but it is a handheld 200 series that had the basemap and all of the other good stuff on it.

Where I eventually intended to replace it with a mounted color GPS that is a real chartplotter, I was thinking that I wanted to keep the old one as a spare.

The problem I am having is that when it boots up it won't locate satalites. This happened once before and only did it a few times and it worked again. Now it won't pick up satalites at all and I have tried several times. The unit hasn't been dropped, gotten wet, or anything like that so I am clueless as to what is going on.

Anyone have any thoughts on this one?

 

[Tim R.]

Sounds like the antenna is shot.

Call Garmin. They can probably refurbish it for a fair price.

 

[Thread]

Garmin

A related story.

I bought the admiral a Canon Powershot 250 digital camera in 2002. Great camera, high quality pictures and always worked. About six months ago shortly after replacing the nicad batteries that had worn out with OEM, the view finder would more frequently not always display an image. So I sent an e-mail to Canon customer service, told them what a great camera it was, explained our plight and asked them for a recommendation.

Boom! Right back with a response saying to send the camera to them, they would inspect it and provide a disposition. They added that this model did have a component that was inclined to fail after a period of time. They added that after the inspection they would let me know if it could be repaired, how much it would cost and included in their response a prepaid UPS shipping label.

One week later I received a message stating that the camera was repaired, on its way back and there would be no charge. That was two months ago and the camera works like new. They followed up with a customer survey, which I filled out. The next day I sent them a very nice thank you message stating that Canon would be my first consideration on a new camera and that I would tell everyone I knew about our experience with their company.

I had a similar experience with our Garmin 178C, but in this case it was about three months out of warranty. They made the repair (replaced the anit-glare film on the screen that I scratched because I did not use the special cleaner) at no charge other than the shipping. I would start with an e-mail to Garmin customer service and see where it leads you. They have always been very helpful to me.

Thread

 

[Rick Webb]

Before All That

Make sre the time and your location is set correctly

I had a similar issue with mine

 

[Ross]

Re: Before All That

Try pulling the batteries and putting them back.

 

[Manny]

Has the unit been in storage or unused without batteries for a long time? If so the backup memory battery may have been discharged which causes the unit to lose the date/time and other info. I have an old gps 12 that I hadn't touched in over a year, when I turned it on it couldn't find anything for a long time, setting the date and time allowed it to finally acquire signal.

Manny

 

[cat38skip]

Does that model have a separate memory battery? Many early GPS units have a small wafer battery to maintain the memory. If the memory battery dies, you will not be able to initialize the unit. It will power up but will not acquire satellites. The memory battery is usually not serviceable by the user.

 

[Bad Obsession]

Manny, I think that you may be right. I usually store the unit off with no batteries in it. When I run it on the boat I have it hooked into 12V. I need to remember to try to set the date and time in the unit and see if it boots up. I bet that is the issue!

I will try that before going to Garmin.

 

[Joseph Shirley]

I had a similar problem with an old ICOM GPS. It was made for them by Panasonic and it was old. Panasonic wouldn't touch it because the ICOM name was on it and the contract had run out. ICOM wouldn't touch it because they didn't know anything about it. Independents thought it was the lithium battery that was dead, but they wouldn't touch it because they couldn't get a schematic. So what the heck. I took it apart myself (very carefully), and found the thin wafer lithium battery sandwiched between two circuit boards, and it was tack welded in place. I carefully pried and popped it out, bought a replacement, set it in without welding it in place, and the GPS has worked fine ever since.

Try all your professional sources first and is they cant help just go for it.

Good luck

Joe S

 

[sailingdog]

I'd point out that some of the older GPS units are having issues with the fact that there are new satellites that they do not have any idea of how to communicate with or recognize properly. Most of the older units did not get a firmware update to deal with the newer satellites.

 

[Joe]

My old garmin gps 48 handheld used a nicad battery for its intermal memory that was supposed to last 7 years or so. Mine ran out way before that... it wouldn't locate the satellites when booting up. I was within the 3 year warranty period so garmin quicikly repaired it free. About a year later the unit just stopped....... again I contacted garmin.... past warranty now, so this time they offered to recondition the device for $100... and include a new warranty.

Don't waste time trying to figure this problem out yourself. Just tell your story to their customer service people and they will give you your options.