Disappointed with my new Nuvi 760

it seems like my 760 takes several minutes to aquire satelites....

Good luck with that.

A multi-functional device = a jack of all trades and master of none!

Let's see what all it's doing: Tracking sattelites, plotting points on a map, keeping track of nearby POIs, playing MP3's, running a Bluetooth link, listening for FM traffic broadcasts, running a tiny FM transmitter, listening for voice commands...........did I miss anything ???

I'm amazed that they work at all!!

It is possible that most people that use the SD card have used it before for other info storage and that is why it slows the Garmin down. The SD card is most likely full of fragmented files (like the hard drive gets) and it takes the op system a lot longer to compile the file since it has to go all ove the card memory to find the bits. There are 2 options to fix this. 1 - reformat the SD and 2 - de-fragment it. Makes more sence to just defragment since you don't have to re-load all your files. Look at your car from the PC in explorer files - properties and defrag should fix it up. Hope that does it for you.

1. FM transmitter really doesn't work well at all - just doesn't seem powerful enough to overcome adjacent stations and my radio has trouble picking it up even when I manually set the Nuvi 760 to a very quiet frequency. I know that part of the problem is my So Cal location with many radio stations located here. I will be using a wired adapter as a workaround.

2. As I posted in another thread, even the 2009 maps are missing a number of designated bike paths and therefore Nuvi wants to route me onto freeways (not allowed) or route many miles out of the way as it doesn't see the bike paths there. Fortunately this is not a big deal for my local area because I already KNOW where they are, but for trip planning to new destinations, it would be very nice to have all those designated bike paths on the map.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with this device.

Do they claim to have coverage of bike paths (that don't parallel a regular street)?

If so, is there a "bicycle" setting to make use of them? If that is true, you would think that it would automatically exclude Interstates.

Something about your description doesn't sound right......or maybe that's what you were trying to point out !!

Yes, Garmin missed the boat on this one. It's not like they're pioneering a new technology on this. I've played around with the FM transmitters in my co-workers' MP3 players in my vehicle. They worked so well and that was 2 years ago already.

ouch I was thinking of one of these

Not likely... what slows information retrieval on a hard drive is the spinning of the drive and that the read/write heads have to move across the surface to retrieve the info. Flash memory has no moving parts so the info moves in and out no matter how it's broken up.

Could it be that FM Transmitter you tested, didn't comply with the local legislation? My (European) Nüvi 760's transmitter has a range of about 20' - powerful enough, for two cars side-by-side on the drive, to both be able to receive the Nüvi's output, equally well (or nearly so).

Garmin's manual says:

While use of FM transmitters is legal in the United States, the allowable output power for FM transmitters is lower in the United States than in those European countries that allow FM transmitters. The Nüvi models sold in Europe contain the higher powered European FM transmitter and cannot be legally used in the United States.

FWIW: You may want to purchase the 2008 Topo Maps and load them onto your SD card. I use them on my my eTrex on my bike and it appears to have the details bike path and street info.

FWIW: If you don't have one all ready, purchase an AC Cell Phone or MP3 charger with a mini USB connector rated with at least 500mA of output current. The Motorola R3 etc will work fine for around $20.

Just a follow-up. In checking on some other known designated bike paths such as those that feed UC Santa Barbara from Goleta, they are NOT shown on the City Nav North America NT 2009 maps, so my mistake there in thinking that they were. It's unfortunate because the Nuvi DOES have a bicycle mode. Of course it has a pedestrian mode, but I wouldn't expect it to show sidewalks, so I suppose this is about managing expectations.

Here's a little test I did:

In bike mode, first was route from intersection of Highway 101 and Highway 150, near Carpinteria CA, going to Channel Islands National Park HQ in Ventura, CA. With no waypoints, default routing is to avoid Highway 101 but route way out of the way, using Highway 150 to Ojai and then various streets back to Ventura, total trip length 31 miles (and some pretty good elevation changes/climbs). Insert the waypoint of Emma Wood State Beach Park in Ventura, CA and the route gets much smarter, totaling 25 miles, with little elevation change along the coastal route. This route properly recognizes that the first part of Highway 101 allows bikes, and takes you off at the old highway 1 which is bike legal for the remainder of the coast trip. However, it goes slightly awray once you leave Emma Wood, because it doesn't see the bike path connector, but it somehow knows that it must exist because it's not legal to bike on the freeway there. Yet the routing shows you on the freeway to the next exit, although it calls it Highway 1 at this point, as if the old highway 1 continued. If it was 100% wrong, it would make you u-turn back to Carpinteria then follow the first route. So...bottom line is the bike path isn't shown on the map, the freeway section there is not bike legal, but it 'knows' that somehow you can get a bike thru there legally, and it picks putting you on the freeway but calling it the old highway as the solution. Interesting in a geek way and not really all wrong. Knowing that it doesn't show designated bike paths, it's as if the program was fighting with itself to offer a solution that makes the most sense given the parameters it knows about and what it can display with this map version.

I will check that out. I assume you can flip between the two map sets, etc. A bunch of questions come to mind (can you route on a topo map, etc) but I will research first before taking up everyone's time. Thanks again for the tip.

One of them was a regular Ipod with the Ipod's FM transmitter accessory. They were all bought locally. There was no static at all (as compared to the nuvi 760's), and although the sound quality was a little below that of a hardwired unit, at least, it was usable. The FM transmitter on the 760 (which I also bought local) is useless, IMO.

I reformatted the SD card before testing.
It had no affect on the map lag time.
I even tried a blank SD card and had same results.

Nuvi 760
Sftwr ver 3.00s
Bluetooth ver 3.10
Basemap AMR Autoroute Basemap NR 2.00

Well, you're probably tired of hearing from people without any comparable problems and especially a newbie, but I have a new 760 and haven't even been on the road with it yet. But I've done extensive playing with it trying to learn everything and have had no problems at all... yet. And I also have a 1 gig card in it. It's a Kingston and my biggest problem is removing the card. I need a catcher's mitt because it really flies out. I just have to remember to point it at my lap when removing the card.

Very true but the unit has to remember where everything is and the fewer continuous files the more locations of fragments to track. It would have some effect on the opsystem and ram when you are talking 2GB SD and com. link IMO. I have also noticed that the more information on my SD card the slower the operation on my camera and that should also hold true for the GPS.

The only other thing that could slow the unit down could be a corrupt file that another person posted about.

In any case it is something that can be tried quickly and not lose any data. (It's an idea)

Neither of them shows a bike path that runs along the Los Angeles River near the I-5.... And as I stated in the other post, the one mentioned in or near Carpinteria, CA isn't shown on the Topo 2008 map...

BTW When I tried to set a route with the Topo map using MapSource, the route was as the crow flies...

I'm starting to wonder about Garmin support. They don't all seem to be on the same page. Seems like you get different answers to your questions, depending on who responds.

This is the latest reply from Garmin Support about my problems at the begining of this post.........

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

A SD card that is loaded with more than 2gigs of information may cause a
possible lag time in the unit. A card that is High Capacity may also
cause a problem with the unit.

I would also check and make sure the map detail is not set on Normal.
You can check this by selecting the Tool icon on the main screen. Then
select the Map option.

Let me know if you have any additional questions!

With Best Regards,

Corie P
Product Support Specialist
Automotive Team
Garmin International

If you have problem then upgrade the latest firmware, which is fully free from www.garmin.com
. if you purchase new GPS and have a map 2008 and call to Garmin, they will give you free Map2009.
and install it in your NUVI and be happy.

I have a Nuvi 350 and I have noticed some lag. Al though my built in memory is ok the 2GB SD card is nearly full. I am going to try clearing some space and see if that helps.

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

A HC card will work on many of our units. We suggest not using them
because they do take a little longer to load information.

I checked with one of my Automotive specialists with the lag issue. It
was something he had heard of happening. There is not currently
anything in place to correct the lag. Hopefully, a future firmware
update will include a fix.

With Best Regards,

Corie P
Product Support Specialist
Automotive Team
Garmin International

There's some lag in my 760 too, but I've also noticed similar lag in my wife's c530 so I guess it's expected.

I tried a Kingston 2GB "elite pro" SD card in my Nuvi 760 and it seemed to work just fine. I decided to go for it and purchased a Transcend 16GB card, about $60, (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010Z28XG) and it is also working just fine. It's awesome to have about 13GB of music files available, and the Garmin software seems to be able to organize it just fine. There was some initial delay as the unit had to read in all the file info. All music is MP3, variable bit encoded using iTunes, with a base of 192 bits/sec. Can't complain about this!

i have a 4 gig in my 760 i love it i go on map source and look at where i have been i have no problems with the 760

There are 3 speeds of data transfer: Class 2, class 4 and the fastest rate is class 6. Is it possible the rate of the SD card is slowing down the SD card use? I have heard of cameras having a problem writing data to the slower class 2 card when taking multiple pictures.

I have some of the same problems and was using a "No Name" SD Card. I bought a 2GB Sanddisk card and everything works perfect now. Could be a problem with the SD card that the 760 detects.

JG

Now HH, that was the coolest bit of troubleshooting I've read lately. Yours is an inquiring mind!

I am inspired to use that method with some .jpg files I am having issues with.

Thanks.

Well, I got a 750, and with 3.00 on it, I noticed that it would lag between 1-3 seconds for updates while driving, especially at higher speeds..it often shows me entering an intersection after
I've already crossed it. So I contacted Garmin, and did an RMA. I just got the new unit today - and it does the same thing. I don't have an SD card in it or any custom POIs - it's fresh out of the box. I love the features of it, but this is an annoyance.

I have the same 2 second lag on my 760, i.e. shows me entering an intersection 2 seconds after I've actually passed it. It's quite obvious when the map is zoomed in close, as in city driving on local streets at around 35-40 mph. When it's zoomed out, as in freeway driving and passing exits or crossovers, it's not as obvious.

I've grown to live with it, however, my reaction time is now tuned to the 760's delay so that I'm already looking for the turn even if the nuvi says I'm still a-ways off.

I've been thinking about updating my 200w to a 760 but after your comment I am having second thoughts. Do you have any recomendations?

I've always used San Disk cards. I've known people to have problems with the discount cards on cameras and other equipment. San Disk cards are usually faster in transfer speed so I stick with them. No lag problems with my 760 and an Ultra II 2GB card.

If the 760 has the features you want, then buy the 760. Don't worry too much about a couple of people posting problems. Remember there are thousands of happy users.

If you read forums you will find people complaining about every product ever made. Nothing is perfect. Does the 760 have flaws and glitches? Yes. But so does every other GPSr.

Speaking for myself, my first 760 worked flawlessly until it developed a problem with the startup screen. The problem was only cosmetic, but I took it back and the replacement unit is working flawlessly.

Hey, remember I said the 2-second lag is a minor issue to me, but it is still worth mentioning. Otherwise, I'm completely happy with the 760 and I fully recommend it!

I bet your in the 3D mode. Try using the 2D or track up depending on what your unit has, I get the lag in the 3D mode but when i go to track up it is right on.