Acquiring Satellites / POI files

I added a ton of POI and thought the same thing. Then the next time it found the satellites as fast as before. Could it have anything to do with turning it on in the same location you turned it off. My guess is they keep a file of the last place it was. If it's in a different location when turned on, it takes longer to find the sats. But I'm just guessing.

I got an external antenna and it improved my unit's time to acquire satellite signals.

I wouldn't think a bunch of POI Files would slow your GPSr finding satellites, although they might add to your boot-up time.

I'm more inclined to believe it's because you were not where you were when you turned it off. -OR- Something else that adds time to lock onto the satellites is having WAAS turned on. Mine is off and it seems to get a satellite lock a lot quicker.

When you shut your GPS off, it saves a bunch of "hints" to use the next time it powers up.

But these hints can go stale -- so when you power up again, if you've moved since the last fix, or those hints have gone stale, it's going to take longer before it's ready to go -- twenty to thirty seconds instead of five seconds.

And once it's decided that it can't use its hints, and needs to acquire updated information from the orbiting satellites, things such as being in motion can slow down the process.

Some times when I run errands at lunch, I'll get in the car and the GPS (a 680) takes awhile before it's ready to go. Other times, I don't go anywhere all day, but when I get in the car to drive, home, I start things up, and the GPS says it's ready right away!

All in all, a good opportunity to take a breath and focus on being where you are, not where you want to be.

Arriving intact is more important than arriving quickly!

It's under the service menu (press and hold the speedometer for 8 seconds).

Loading POI files has never slowed mine down.

Some have said that having a large sd card with many files on it has slowed booting and some performance. It may be something you want to check, and is not hard to do.

Daniel

Sorry if this is a stupid question but did you mean an external antenna for your car or the nuvi. doesn't the nuvi come with an antenna. thanks.

The nuvi has an internal antenna. But some have found due to metallic windshields or gpsr placement in the car a separate antenna has helped. There is an antenna jack on the back for such a device. Also it could be that there is a possible broken connection that is causing a problem as well.

Daniel

I read SOMEPLACE that if you move more than 15 miles from the last place you turned it on, when you turn it on again it will take longer to acquire a signal.