Ever had a GPS freeze up on a ride?
I’ve never seen this happen before: On a ride today, my Garmin Edge 305 completely locked up. It was toward the end of a 30 mile ride and I noticed the map seemed a little off – we were coming up on a turn we had made earlier but according to the map screen we were still a couple miles away. It appeared the GPS was still tracking (the trailing track was still “growing”) but it was at least 2 miles behind.
I tried changing modes (screens) with no response. Tried hitting the Start/Stop button: nothing. Then I tried to power it down and even that didn’t seem to work after holding the button for several seconds. After releasing the power button the GPS finally turned itself off about 10 seconds later. It came back to life after turning it back on but clearly it had missed some data.
Has anyone else ever had a GPS just lock up on them like Windows 95 on a 486? I had always assumed (and even experienced) reliable service from my GPS but now I wonder if newer models are getting more complicated and therefore more prone to bugs?
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June 1st, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Something similar happened to me only it was when I was starting a ride. Darn thing wouldn’t turn on. Apparently there is a bug in the firmware that causes the Edge to not turn on. I found a remedy after alot of surfing and trying various things but what worked for me was holding down the Mode Button and then hitting the Reset Button. Garmin Tech Support also recommended this as well, but said to do it while plugged in. I don’t remember if I was plugged in or not. Once I got it working I immediately updated the firmware.
Prior to that, I had something interesting happen. I was riding a particularly technical down slope when I endo’d and the Edge took the full weight of bike on it, snapping it off the mount, and popping the cover screen off. It also automatically shut off. Turned it back on and it worked fine. The one thing I hate about the Edge is that the timer has to be on for it to record and I always forget to turn it on. In this case I probably got a mile away when I realized to turn the timer back on.
When I got home, Training Center (which I hate) only recognized the last mile or so after turning the timer on, however, Topofusion and a training program that prefer called Sporttracks, captured the whole route. Go figure that one out! I asked Garmin Tech support about it and they were clueless.