2820 Firmware Update

[Happyhenry]

Just a note that may help others.

Got back last night from a long weekend blatting around the Ardennes - and very beautiful it was too. Lots of French and Belgian bikes out and about and lovely empty roads swooping and diving around wooded valleys.

However, the GPS (Garmin 2820) packed up on Sunday morning. Following a fuel stop it rebooted as the power came back on but couldn't find any satellites. It came up with:'Are you indoors?' (No); 'Have you moved several thousand miles?' (No); 'Is the date 14th October 2007?' (Yes); 'Will keep searching for satellites'.

I rang Garmin this morning and they were really helpful - immediately sent me an email with a link and instructions. The firmware on my unit was V3.0 and the current is V4.2. They advised an update as the 'almanac' - which I think is the cache that holds the most recent information - probably hadn't been emptying itself as fast as it was filling up. This just stops it working. The new firmware update sorts this - apparently.

Anyway, didn't work. So the next step after updating was a master reset, achieved by holding the Menu and Map buttons whilst booting up the unit. Worked a treat and all is now up and running again. You lose all your waypoints, routes and track log things, but they are easily restored from the computer (if you have saved the maps).

May be worth updating if you are heading off on a trip so that you avoid the problem I had - getting back across France to catch the chunnel with a old & crappy map!

P.S. Why do the French re-number their roads so often and also have more than one number for each road?

 

[st13phil]

P.S. Why do the French re-number their roads so often and also have more than one number for each road?

Simple: Because they're French and they can

Seriously, I noticed lots of roads that changed number this year and on each occasion it was where a road had moved from being Route National (i.e. an N-road) to a Departmental (i.e. a D-road) or vice-versa. Renumbering roads is one thing, but their best trick is to renumber Autoroute exits or re-name places. An obvious example of the latter is Chalon-sur-Marne which became Chalon-en-Champagne - but only on some road signs

 

[chasr]

I think the 'almanac' is a database which stores satellite locations, which will facilitate boot-up times. The almanac should be updated automatically when the unit is running.

 

[Happyhenry]

I think the 'almanac' is a database which stores satellite locations, which will facilitate boot-up times. The almanac should be updated automatically when the unit is running.

I bow to your greater knowledge. Garmin's email said that it would take up to 45 minutes for the unit to 're-learn' the satellites once either the firmware update or the master reset (or both) had been done. It actually took about 10 minutes to find five or six of them and get a reasonable signal level.