Nav v not finding satellites

[Wapping]

Asking an older device to ‘work hard’ by having a gazillion roads on there may be causing issues.


Kind of like a computer trying to perform multiple tasks with poor RAM and processor.

If it’s working OK in UK I’d regard it as a home country navigation machine only

It is very rare that anyone ever needs installed maps that stretch from the north of Finland to the bottom of Greece, via Portugal and Ireland. Similarly, the pressing need to keep every route they have ever ridden (all available at a moment’s notice) can by safely done away with. The amount of ‘stuff’ - besides the now highly detailed maps of an entire continent - that some bods have on their devices (before we even get into it processing of ‘must have’ music, texts, weather and whether it’s raining 50 miles away, phone calls, traffic and more) is mind boggling.

 

[Guru Gora]

Me Mongo.

Mongo like simple GPS

 

[Fatboydel]

Yeah, I only ever ride in the UK now, so it will be fine. My NAV5 has always been reliable and getting help and a replacement battery was no problem directly from Garmin. Genuine battery was cheaper than the chinese copies as we..

 

[Barnoe]

Yeah, I only ever ride in the UK now, so it will be fine. My NAV5 has always been reliable and getting help and a replacement battery was no problem directly from Garmin. Genuine battery was cheaper than the chinese copies as we..

If you do ever decide to go abroad you can always update the map then.

But its working for now, so don't do what i usually do.... fix it until its broke again

 

[Mzokk]

The fact everyone is taking a stab in the dark at a fix, here, speaks volumes.

There’s also a good reason why Garmin stopped supporting this device a while back. Not helped by Garmin’s curious use of the phrase “lifetime” map updates causing untold angst in some quarters.

I’ve three “old” Garmin/BMW devices lying on my garage bench unused as they’ve reached the end of their useful life, as far as I’m concerned.

The NAV V is still supported by Garmin at least as far as the mapping is concerned. NAV V uses garmin NTU maps the latest being Garmin City Navigator Europe NTU map version 2027.10. The problem is that the whole of Europe is now 8.3GB or 8.9 on FAT 32 storage media. The NAV V has less than 8GB of internal memory and about 1.2GB is taken up by the operating system. When you download the maps via Garmin express it will detect whether or not you have a micro sd card installed, this should be <32GB and formatted as FAT32, and distribute the map tiles between the internal memory of the unit and the SD card. This is actually the better way to do it with older units and larger maps as the majority of the map data is plonked on the card giving a bit more headroom for the OS and indexing files on the device to do their thing. (If you try to install a larger card it might work but it HAS to be formatted as FAT32 the default formatting on Windows computers for larger cards >32GB is exFAT which won't work with the Garmin/NAV V OS.)

In this case if the unit has been lying about for a long time un-powered then it is likely the unit/and or the SD card therein has a corrupted sector or two. Micro SD cards in Garmin Devices can be problematical and often the only solution is to replace it.

The lesson is for all Garmin units is to plug them into a computer or charge them fairly regularly (once a month or so) this will keep the data and the battery in good order.

The recently "sundowned" Garmin units use NT maps. The last of these was issued as Garmin City Navigator Europe NT map version 2025.10 in July 2024. These maps were used in the Zumo 660, Zumo 550, and the NAV IV. Most of these units had <4GB of internal memory and the later versions of Express limited them to regional downloads of the mapping because the map tile indexing system for the full maps even with a Micro SD card installed would not not fit on the internal memory.

For myself I still have all my old Garmin units starting with a Streetpilot 2610 thru a NAV IV, Zumo 340 and 390 and a Zumo XT all still work perfectly. The Zumo 340 and 390 are used on my old R1150GS and are my favourites because their mapping logic for "Faster Time" matches very closely routes that you would produce in Basecamp. Its my experience that any of the units don't operate anymore slowly than they did new when running Garmin maps or Open Street mapping on an SD card.

Also, the older units, if used for point to point navigation, the logic won't necessarily use faster main roads to achieve a fast route. The Zumo XT is poor in this regard. I mostly use MRA or OSMand for navigation now and the XT is used as a backup running a Track of the route and dealing with proximity alerted POI's.

 

[Wapping]

Mzokk, has it spot on.