Geocaching Australia

Since yesterday my oregon doesn't m,ake connection with the pc anymore? I am not able to download or upload anything!
Rest is working fine, I can turn on and navigate. My idea is erosion in the connection point. Tried several cables, didn't help.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks Will

Wilbert67 wrote:Since yesterday my oregon doesn't m,ake connection with the pc anymore? I am not able to download or upload anything!
Rest is working fine, I can turn on and navigate. My idea is erosion in the connection point. Tried several cables, didn't help.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks Will

I believe the USB connection can become faulty. I recently had to resolder one on a multi-card reader where the ground/case connections had not been attached properly and had broken free giving dodgy connections. Take a close look to see if there's any crud deep inside the socket than might preventing proper plug insertion, give in a gentle wiggle to see if there's any movement, and take a close look at the inner connection block to make sure that's not broken. If it's out of warranty (they usually are when things go wrong... ) and you have access to a set of Torx screws, you can open it and see if there's anything wrong inside - remove your micro-SD card first.

Don't bother with Garmin service if it's out of warranty - when I asked about getting a repair to mine that was "drop-dead", the price they told me wasn't the standard exchange deal they have in the US but the price of a new unit.... Unless things have changed since then, or you've got better luck than I did...

Wilbert67 wrote:Since yesterday my oregon doesn't m,ake connection with the pc anymore? I am not able to download or upload anything!
Rest is working fine, I can turn on and navigate. My idea is erosion in the connection point. Tried several cables, didn't help.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks Will

The way to test if the USB connection on the Oregan is faulty is to see if the Oregon turns on when you plug it into the PC. If it turns on then the PC is doing something with the USB driver and it generally is not the Oregan. With one of my PC's it takes 2 or 3 goes to get a USB connection going properly so that the Oregan is in transfer mode and not power mode. The other 2 PC's it works fine every time.

If nothing happens at all then the USB connector is generally at fault as quiet1_au has suggested. A dealer once told me, sometime after I had bought the GPS from him, that a lot of Oregan GPS units were coming back to him with this fault. (Most were out of warranty.)

Yes! Most of the times I connect it turns on the power of the gps, but does not connect. I tried 10-20 times at least, but haven't had any connection yet.

Wilbert67 wrote:Yes! Most of the times I connect it turns on the power of the gps, but does not connect. I tried 10-20 times at least, but haven't had any connection yet.

That indicates that the USB connection seems to be OK. I would look at the PC side and try and reset the USB drivers relating to the Oregan. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that as I had somebody do it for me for all my USB drivers when another type of USB device had a similar problem. That fixed the Oregan problem as well for a while but it came back eventually.

Sometimes sticking the cable into another USB port on the PC helps and if you have a USB hub then I would remove it and see if that helps.

Luckily I know how to reinstall the driver, so I did. Windows is still telling me the usb device (gps) is malfunctioning. Tried all connections and all ports, no succes. (and the pc is relatively new)

I know this sounds a bit silly, but unplug other stuff from the PC, I find if my iPhone is connected, the GPS never works

I've noticed that, if I turn my Oregon on before connecting to the PC, it's much more likely to go into USB mode when connected than if it's turned off.

Something new! Triwd that a couple of times. Each time it switches from battery mode to external power, so no good yet

maccamob wrote:I've noticed that, if I turn my Oregon on before connecting to the PC, it's much more likely to go into USB mode when connected than if it's turned off.

Since an update or three ago I've noticed this too - often I have to plug it in, I hear the windows ba-beep sounds, wait for it not to connect and switch to the regular GPS button menu, then unplug it and plug it in again before it is detected by the PC for file access, etc.

Hold off on the disassembly until you've exhausted the PC side of things (sorry, I thought your unit didn't respond to USB at all)...

Do you have (access to) another computer you could try it on?

The next thing I would try would be to make sure you have an internet connection, and then uninstall the USB Controller, checking the box to delete the drivers.
Then power off, and power on again, and let it reinstall itself.

Have you tried on another PC ?

Haven't tried another pc yet, as I haven't got one. Probably this afternoon. However all other devices (phones ext memory, printer etc) are working perfectly and I did reinstall the garmin driver and plugin new.

Big Matt had some issues with the USB/power connector on his original Oregon if I recall. There was a thread here some time back with the bottom line being that the USB connector is the weakest link of the entire unit. Since then Chip and I have been very careful when plugging and unplugging the unit, especially on big days where this process is repeated often.