Garmin GPS boots itself

[N147JK]

As title indicates, my Garmin RV890 has started to reboot itself randomly. I'll do a full power-off, set it down, and a few minutes later notice it has performed an un-commanded bootup. What on earth..?? Anyone know anything about this? Garmin of course wants me to reset the whole thing, but that wipes out everything I have set up and saved, so I'm avoiding that if possible. - Thanks

I do wish there was some competent competition in the GPS navigator market. I think some stiff competition would do Garmin a world of good. Their products are bug-ridden toys.

[booster]

Originally Posted by N147JK

As title indicates, my Garmin RV890 has started to reboot itself randomly. I'll do a full power-off, set it down, and a few minutes later notice it has performed an un-commanded bootup. What on earth..?? Anyone know anything about this? Garmin of course wants me to reset the whole thing, but that wipes out everything I have set up and saved, so I'm avoiding that if possible. - Thanks

I do wish there was some competent competition in the GPS navigator market. I think some stiff competition would do Garmin a world of good. Their products are bug-ridden toys.

We have an RV890 also and while it has some nice features like the ISP screen and faster response of that screen, the unit does have some major bugs in it. We haven't had the reboot thing, yet, but we did have a major issue on out one month trip to the east last fall. Sometime after I loaded all our preplanned and very contrary to how Garmin would do them, routes, our 890 must have decided to do an update all on it's own, even though it was set not do any automatic anything. I think it did generated it when I had it connected to the laptop to modify a route the second or third day out. What we didn't know was that when it updated it set everything back to default values including the faster time/shorter distance setting. When we took off on a long 600 mile drive day we found out the hard way, after much angst, that not only did it reset to defaults, it also recalculated over 3000 miles of our trip to shorter distance. The long drive was from the the Houghton area of the UP all the way to just past Cleveland with out intention of going on the freeway and with it routed that way. The Garmin uses the faster/shorter setting in between and shaping points we put in so it took us through every town along the way so our 10 hour drive was almost 13 because it always then got lost in the towns and couldn't figure out how to get us back on route.


The not getting back on route problem with getting lost has been ever since we got the 890 and many others have the same issue it appears. We can be literally 100feet from a turn back on route and it shows us a way that takes 30 miles, so really insane.


I did wind up doing a factory reset to get the unit working right again and all the auto stuff again shut off, but I have no confidence that it will not do it again. I know load our routes on day at a time from the laptop the night before we use them and keep the rest in Basecamp on the laptop. It only took about 15 minutes to do the reset and then go through and set everything so not all that bad as long as you don't have to reload all the maps from Garmin. Ours saved the maps even on the full reset, which I thought was odd.



Of course it also tells us to randomly turn around and go back to wherever that we already went though also, or maybe turn into that farm field.

[N147JK]

Sigh.. booster that is a sad story, but I'm not surprised. This reboot issue is only one of several things it does that are completely wrong - it's just maddening. Yes, same as you, I've learned to never trust the device and triple check what it's doing before following it anywhere. Over time this technology seems to be getting worse, not better. Having worked in software tech for 30+ years, I have a few ideas as to why that is happening.. LOL.

I'd love to ditch the Garmin junk and have been looking at more of a DYI kind of navigation setup (tablet + GPS mapping + campground database) but I don't see an easy solution.

[booster]

Originally Posted by N147JK

Sigh.. booster that is a sad story, but I'm not surprised. This reboot issue is only one of several things it does that are completely wrong - it's just maddening. Yes, same as you, I've learned to never trust the device and triple check what it's doing before following it anywhere. Over time this technology seems to be getting worse, not better. Having worked in software tech for 30+ years, I have a few ideas as to why that is happening.. LOL.

I'd love to ditch the Garmin junk and have been looking at more of a DYI kind of navigation setup (tablet + GPS mapping + campground database) but I don't see an easy solution.

To put insult on injury, when it got all hose up we had no clue why, so didn't realize all the routes had been changed to the new settings. So I stopped, pulled out the laptop, deleted the trip that was hosed up, and reloaded a clean copy from the laptop that was good. We took off again and it immediately lead us right through the heart of Cleveland and couldn't find it's way out, just circles. It would recalc any preprogrammed route I put in to it's new settings not just the ones that were on there. I called Garmin and complained that if you have a route preplanned in Basecamp for fastest route, that is what the GPS should do. He said nope, it doesn't work that way. You have to program as you wish, like fastest time, and then check to make sure and change if needed the GPS to match that. You can't just have two routes for the same day that you are going to use and have one be shortest distance and the other fastest time unless you change the GPS setting in between and you can't load the second route until ready to use it because it will change to whatever the GPS is set at when you load it. Very stupid setup.

[N147JK]

Originally Posted by booster

He said nope, it doesn't work that way. You have to program as you wish, like fastest time, and then check to make sure and change if needed the GPS to match that.

Similar with vehicle.. it will only execute a trip if the unit is set to the same vehicle used when creating the trip. It wont move ahead with the trip and simply adapt it to a different vehicle.

I often faced having to work on systems like this. It has all the signs of hacked together junk software.. an amateur effort.

[Hatteras Jim]

I have a RV-760 that's 10 years old and just started doing the same thing. However, mine only reboots when on rough road with a lot of vibration. So far, I rebooted it, reloaded everything and it still cuts out. It's not a loss of external power and I am suspecting that a component on the circuit board has become sensitive to vibration. I plan to tear it apart, check for bad solder joints and reheat a few. I was thinking it is more of a hardware issue than software.


After numerous cross country trips, the navigator's job in our rig, is to examine the gps route and then check it with the Rand McNally. I remember a back road in Maine that had a handprinted sign on the corner telephone pole that read, "No matter what your GPS tells you, DO NOT TURN HERE!"

Have numerous examples of being misdirected. Might be a good idea for a thread to list your GPS horror stories.

If you solve your problem, let us know, and I will do the same.

[N147JK]

Originally Posted by Hatteras Jim

I was thinking it is more of a hardware issue than software.

Yes I thought the same thing - perhaps the power button is going bad. Although mine will reboot itself without any movement at all, just sitting on a table.

Sure wish Garmin had some better competition - they need it. I'd put a system together myself if I had the knowledge and the interest. (I spent too many years working in tech.. don't want anything to do with it anymore).

[Blueboy1]

Hi, I have a LM52 from Garmin that does look a bit like yours, but I experienced a similar behaviour from my unit, until I discovered that it would not charge the internal battery from a simple 12vdc power cable. It needs to be connected to a dedicated Garmin battery charging module once a year for at least 24hrs to fully recharge the internal battery. The standard power cable would not do the job. It may not be your case and I know that you have a different model but I just wanted to share this experience. It was completely unreliable and I was on the verge of throwing it in the garbage before discovering that solution. Running fine since then. Have a nice day

[booster]

Originally Posted by Blueboy1

Hi, I have a LM52 from Garmin that does look a bit like yours, but I experienced a similar behaviour from my unit, until I discovered that it would not charge the internal battery from a simple 12vdc power cable. It needs to be connected to a dedicated Garmin battery charging module once a year for at least 24hrs to fully recharge the internal battery. The standard power cable would not do the job. It may not be your case and I know that you have a different model but I just wanted to share this experience. It was completely unreliable and I was on the verge of throwing it in the garbage before discovering that solution. Running fine since then. Have a nice day

Our 890 gives us the same warning when on a usb cord to the laptop for trip transferring or update/map updates. Same if it is plugged into a phone charger even though the phone charger has the same or higher output as the dedicated little, overpriced, Garmin usb charger. Somehow they are locking out all other chargers, I think. When we travel it stays full off the 12 power outlet cord just fine as it is being used so no issue there.



I have to be sure to charge up the 890 before a big map download so it doesn't go dead in the middle and muck up the update.