Help Needed: Garmin Foretrex 101

[dak's Emu Mob]

G'day All,
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I bought a Garmin Foretrex 101 some time back, and I'm very pleased with it. However, it has started playing up for some reason.
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When I turn it on, it proceeds to acquire satellites, however, instead of displaying a flashing "acquiring" message, it flashes "locating". It never moves on to an operational state, despite my leaving it for up to 30 minutes.
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Yesterday, with clear blue skies and no trees of nearby buildings, my Magellan Map 330 locked on to nine satellites within 30 seconds, but the Garmin would not lock on after 20 minutes of waiting, despite having solid contact with eight satellites.
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If I press the 'mark' button, it shows that the last known location was S22, E158: Somewhere in the South Pacific. I haven't been there recently. I last used it successfully in Singapore.
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Is there some sort of reset or initialisation I can do? Any help will be appreciated.
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dak

[caughtatwork]

I suppose you RTFM?

From the manual (anyway):
Note: If you are using your Fortrex 101 for the first time, have moved over 500 miles from the location you last used your Foretrex 101 unit, or have not used your Foretrex 101 in more than 1 month, allow time for the unit to track satellites by leaving it outside with a clear view of the sky for 15 to 30 minutes.

It probably still thinks it's somewhere else. Just give it time maybe to reset itself to wherever you are.

[EcoTeam]

G'day All,
<p>
I bought a Garmin Foretrex 101 some time back, and I'm very pleased with it. However, it has started playing up for some reason.
<p>
When I turn it on, it proceeds to acquire satellites, however, instead of displaying a flashing "acquiring" message, it flashes "locating". It never moves on to an operational state, despite my leaving it for up to 30 minutes.
<p>
Yesterday, with clear blue skies and no trees of nearby buildings, my Magellan Map 330 locked on to nine satellites within 30 seconds, but the Garmin would not lock on after 20 minutes of waiting, despite having solid contact with eight satellites.
<p>
If I press the 'mark' button, it shows that the last known location was S22, E158: Somewhere in the South Pacific. I haven't been there recently. I last used it successfully in Singapore.
<p>
Is there some sort of reset or initialisation I can do? Any help will be appreciated.
<p>
dak

Holding down "goto" when you turn the power on will prompt you to "clear all user data", not sure if that's a cold "reset" or not but worth a try.

Holding down "enter" while turning the power on brings up the tech screen which shows you ram/rom test results, battery voltage, temperature and other techo stuff. Worth checking to see if it passes it's internal ram/rom test at least.

Also, I think that holding down one or both of the arrow keys while powering up might reset it back into "locate" mode, although I'm not sure on this one.

You could also try re-flashing the ROM with a the latest download from Garmin.
v2.40 is out.

Hope that helps.

EcoDave

[dak's Emu Mob]

I suppose you RTFM?
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. . . allow time for the unit to track satellites by leaving it outside with a clear view of the sky for 15 to 30 minutes.

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Thanks Peter. I had done that (read the manual and left it on for 30 minutes at a time) to no avail.
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Holding down "goto" when you turn the power on will prompt you to "clear all user data", not sure if that's a cold "reset" or not but worth a try.

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I tried this one and left the GPSr to it. This time it locked on within 10 minutes.
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Holding down "enter" while turning the power on brings up the tech screen which shows you ram/rom test results, battery voltage, temperature and other techo stuff. Worth checking to see if it passes it's internal ram/rom test at least.

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I tried this one too, and all the tests showed "pass".
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Also, I think that holding down one or both of the arrow keys while powering up might reset it back into "locate" mode, although I'm not sure on this one.

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I haven't tried this one yet. Not game after just geting it going again!
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You could also try re-flashing the ROM with a the latest download from Garmin. v2.40 is out.

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I'll look into this one. Mine has 2.10 loaded.
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Thanks to both of you for the suggestions.
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Cheers,
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dak

[caughtatwork]

Given your occupation, I might have guessed that, but hey it's always the place to start

[Richary]

I work with a lot of wireless LAN gear and have had success even reloading the same firmware to a unit. Can only guess one bit gets corrupted somewhere but doesn't bomb the self test.

Had a similar topic here a few months back with a Magellan from memory and a firmware reload I suggested fixed it. So that is the easy thing to try.

After that it might be a return for fix job. Good luck