NUVI 1690 Problems

It most definitely sounds like a shielding problem...

Did you only test it in the car? How about indoors? The unit(s) could have been interacting strangely with something in the car, causing the interference. This has been known to happen with car electronics. My nuvi 350 interacted in a strange way (satellite signal would drop down about 50%) when using a particular Sony head unit when the CD player was on. When the CD player was off and just the radio was on, the 350 went back to normal. Upgrading the head unit to a different Sony model alleviated the issue.

Another thing you could've tried was to test it in a different car as well. If the interference only happened in your particular car, I would suspect something in that car possibly being at least part of the cause for the interference. Many times, the simply the location of the unit may cause issues/interference/etc.

I'm definitely not saying it's the car's fault...but if the issue was only present in that one car, it would give you an alternate direction on where to begin (or continue) troubleshooting.

After all, who in their right mind would keep the GPS and buy a new car so the unit would operate without interference...

@droptop

I know exactly what you've been experiencing with your 1690's because I experienced the same annoying thing when I first got mine. However, crazy thing is the update using webupdater fixed it! It used to be that everytime I checked something like on Google search or the Weather for instance the horizontal lines would appear for about 5-10 seconds and then go away (presumably after the data finished being transmitted). Now, since the firmware update the wavy horizontal lines across the screen everytime data was transferred is no more. If you listen closely to the speaker you can hear that cellular data noise when it's communicating with the cellular network like you would with any data enabled cell phone by a speaker, but no lines on the screen. So turns out it wasn't hardware related like you initially thought.

I have tried this in my car, in the house and standing outside with the same results. The store that sold it to me even took their display out and tried it with the same results I am having. I did the Web update which di not correct the issue as other person on this group said it corrected the same problem on his that I was having. I was told today that Garmin is investigating but I shouldn't hold my breath too long…..this will not be a quick fix. These all came in from same lot.

I see the same wavy lines with mine.

It also affects landline phone coversations. I get the buzzing interference.

And have updated it with webupdater, but still have the same issues.

Unfortunately this is how Garmin now operates. They push out new models without sufficiently testing them and expect their customers to find and report the bugs.

IMHO you should return the unit and get a refund. Then either purchase an older model which should have most of the bugs worked out or wait a couple of months to see if Garmin has fixed the problems with this model. The added benefit of waiting is that the price will probably drop significantly.

I really think I will just take your advice and return the 3rd one also and wash my hand of this for a while. I love the concept and other than the annoying problem with the display, everything else worked great! I will purchase this again but after this issue has been resolved.

I have been a ardent supporter for years and purchased 6 or 7 units in the last 3 years but I told Garmin support, yesterday, that after the 680, everything they put out has been junk. I won't buy another Garmin unit .

I'm not so sure that everything since the 680 has been "junk" but then again I haven't used any of the newer devices. I haven't seen anything (other than lane assist and, perhaps, the second front microphone for bluetooth) on any of the newer devices that would make me happier than I have been with my 760.

Does anyone have any comments or experience with the TomTom GO 740 Live GPS unit. This is the same concept as the new Garmin Nuvi 1690 with the Google feature utilizing cellular communication.

I sent a 1690 back (problems with data access), but it also had the flickering problem. The replacement didn't have the problem when I first used it, or at least I didn't notice it in 30 minutes of driving. I then updated the firmware to 2.30 and the problem was very noticeable.

I have had many gps units over the years but the nuvi 1690 is the best. I have had it for a couple of weeks with no probles what so ever. I uupgraded the software to v2.30 before I ever used it. No horizontal lines.UNIT WORKS GREAT !!!

From Garmin support on 10/28: "[Screen flicker] is part of an issue we've seen with some of the earlier devices that were manufactured. This has been fixed in the devices that have left us since then. The only way to fix that is to get that in for an RMA. I have set up an exchange order for you to send your device to us and receive a brand new unit with new accessories. Please send the faulty unit (no accessories, SD cards, cables etc.) to the address below."

The retailer sent my 1690 back to Garmin. Garmin in turn sent another unit back that they said would not have the flicker problem. i received the new unit from where I originally purchased it and it is indeed flicker free. The units serial number is about twice as high as the one that had the flicker problem. The unit works great!

If I will ever buy GARMIN again...??? I would do it only as above mentioned.
Unfortunately, NEW MODELS = money grab for (high priced) GARBAGE ....that have to be tested by customers!!! One greedy company that wouldn't learn from own latest mistakes, untill somebody else will grab teir market's share... and... untill they piss off all their loyal customers!!!

I ordered my first 1690 last week from Amazon. NO Flicker problem.....great. However, I found out in short order that it would not save my favorites after shutting the unit off. In fact, it would lose the HOME location as well. So, I ordered a replacement from Amazon. The replacement serial number was a lot lower (read older). This one has the screen flicker problem. I saw somewhere that units manufactured after 10/16/09 were flicker free. I just ordered another replacement hoping that I will luck out this time. It is bad business indeed for Garmin not to pull the earlier units.

Agreed 100%. You/We the consumer should not have to exchange units multiple times to get something that works correctly, especially if the problem is known to Garmin. All these bad units with the affected serial numbers should have been pulled from all retailers by Garmin in communication with the retailer. Garmin should know exactly which units are affected. It should not be up to Joe Consumer to find and locate these bad units for Garmin and have to deal with multiple exchanges.

I had the 740 live for 3 months and I never experienced any of the symptoms that your describe with the garmin 1690.

Garmin just counts on, that customer will not complain...and those few squeeky hinges? Those will get a grease eventually if they are persistent...keep trying...good luck...

Well thanks guys for all the info. i was getting ready to get this unit, but it sounds some issues need to be fixed first.

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would buy any of the Nuvi 1xxx series units over the older models, after researching them all. I simply can't find any compelling reason. Anyone?,.... anyone?,... anyone?

I had the wavy lines as well. I called garmin and after being told that an update would fix the problem, but the update wasn't avaialble, I said NO. I explained that after spending big bucks on this 1690, I will not wait for an update that may fix the problem. They gave me an RMA and sent me a brand new one. This new one works great and no lines. You have to be a little pushy with customer service.

Thinking I had all the kinks worked out in my Nuvi 1690, I began my trek across country: Daytona to San Diego. Starting last night, the Nuvi 1690 just shuts down at will. Also, the POIs that I loaded do not work properly in that the sound files will not play. All I get is the Garmin alert tone. This is a real dissapointment since my eyesight is not what it used to be, the alert fonts are small, and I was relying on the sound files to announce the POI. Yet another unit going back to Amazon in the hopes that the new unit will be defect free.
Another issue: the Mexico maps which I downloaded from Garmin will not register on my device. Garmin was sending one email per day asking a canned question (which I would promptly answer)and then finally gave up.
Overall, I like the features that Garmin has incorporated into the new 1690 but quality control seems to have suffered.
I like the Nulink service which is almost always available since it works on the cellular network. I had the MSN service on a previous unit which worked fine locally but not so when traveling out of my area. It always required at least a day to update info which is useles if traveling.
I have to plug Amazon here because they are great when it comes to replacing defective merchandise.

Well, I am their one of their latest 1690 "customers". Should have "googled" around for customer complaints before I handed over $500, particularly since I am a Quality engineer in the electronics industry and should know better. In general manufacturing defects are few and far between if the product is designed correctly and manufactured with a process that adheres to modern quality control principles. A design flaw, however, is insidious. Many are due "hardware" (translation: physical design) and cannot be fixed by software workarounds. An example would be RF shielding, as I think someone pointed out.

The 1690 screen flicker problem reported by many others was on my unit, serial number 1SU035***. I just bought it last Wednesday and returned it to Best Buy today. I asked for an exchange figuring I was just unlucky and got a defective unit, maybe something along the lines of a faulty cap, connector or solder joint. I noticed the new box (the one I was getting in the exchange) had a black "nu-link" logo on top whereas the box on the earlier unit had a blue logo. Otherwise they looked the same. That struck me as curious - why they would be different on that one seemingly trivial cosmetic detail. However, the new one has a lower serial number, 1SU032***. That does not bode well. I am seeing this "10/16/09" manufacturing date posted on forums as the cut-off date for fixed units, but nobody is indicating how to translate number to date.

My plan is to call Garmin customer support on Monday and give them two choices - either confirm my serial number (on the unopened box) is post fix for screen flicker or I am returning the product to the store and getting a full refund. If they say get an RMA, pay for shipping yourself and we'll ship you a new unit in two to three weeks, then they can stuff it! My attitude to that kind of mentality is I should never have been subjected to this circumstance in the first place and sticking me with shipping and weeks wait would be insult to injury.

An immediate family member (whom I was helping test the units) went through three 1690's before finally returning the last to Best Buy for a full refund. All were purchased locally at retail, which was a good thing as it made returning the units somewhat pain-free. All three were recent-release units (late serial numbers with no screen flicker issue) and were purchased from different stores in the Los Angeles area, hopefully avoiding a "bad batch" however all three had their own issues.

The 1st unit transmitted audible noise through the car stereo speakers when connecting to the nuLink network, regardless of positioning throughout the vehicle. The stereo has zero issues with any other devices (MP3 cell phones, etc) or the later units below which replaced it.

The second unit's nuLink cell "link" simply went dead after one day and simply would not connect/receive any data whatsoever. The on-screen nuLink reception icon showed the red "x" after the link went dead and never recovered despite numerous hard resets.

The third unit's power switch required way too much force to operate in a normal manner.

All three unit's power switches were very hard to operate but the third unit's switch was nearly unusable. Are all 1xxx units with this switch design this difficult to operate with virtually no switch travel? I can understand engineering the switch to be "pocket-proof" since many of the 1xxx series units are also geared towards pedestrian use (cityXplorer maps) but this design is terrible. Maybe if they made the switch flush with the unit's case ("pocket-proof") but designed in more actual switch travel...

The reason for purchasing locally was in fact to ease the return process (if any issues cropped up) as issues were sort of expected and the local purchasing ended up being advantageous. All units were defective and all three were easily ("easy" as far as Best Buy returns go) returned for a full refund with no re-stocking fee.

Garmin's new unit release is becoming increasingly more frequent and quality control is becoming non-existent, both hardware-wise and software-wise. For a top-of-the-line unit in the $500 price range, this is simply ridiculous.

I suppose if you have, or can find a "good" unit, the 1690 is indeed very nice as the UI and the whole "feel" of using the unit is great. Personally however in my experience with it, the quest for a "good" unit ended up with no unit at all...at least for now.

Wow, sounds like you had it rough. I have a pre October 1690 that is fine, no flicker although the 3.0 FW fixes that. I also had an early 760 unit that did not have the issues that were reported.

I bought all of my units online from amazon or Tiger GPS, (the 760 and 1690 and Edge from amazon). From my reading, it appears that those that were purchased from local retailers are the ones with the issues, mainly Best Buy. I am not sure why. I called Garmin and my unit's DOM was Sep 17, 2009. I have the nuMaps lifetime (2010.4 installed) and ver 3.0 FW and it works as advertised.

Not so on the 3.0 FW update. I updated to all the latest FW on both the Nuvi unit and the NuLink receiver last week of Jan 2010 and still had the problem. I am pretty well convinced it's most likely EMI shielding related in any case.

I finally gave up and returned my second unit unopened to the store. I am absolutely not going to have them mess me around for weeks shipping me a replacement unit, burning up my time and at my shipping expense, when I never should have been subjected to this in the first place. DirkusNimrod's comments were spot on in my opinion.

Hi,

Since last several updates, my nuvi 1690 is freezing up when I try to pick the state under "Address". Does anyone have the same problem? It's really annoying, I can't use my GPS anymore.

When I updated mine to v 3.0, I initiated a hard reset - I also download all the other updates prior to prior to the reset and have not had any problems thus far. My DOM was 9/17/09.

DO NOT TRY TO UPDATE FROM MY GARMIN WEBSITE!!

I hooked up my Nuvi 1690 and searched for any updates for this freezing problem, to see if they had realized and came up with a quick update. There was nothing.

Then I opened up WebUpdater and let it scan for updates, and there it was!! There was a Nuvi Keyboard update! So I updated, and it's working fine right now.

I was looking to see if my favorite computer hardware seller had the 1690 because I want to get one and found they give a 100.00 instant off, so in cart it's 399.00. Pretty good price if I don't get a crap one lol.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858108...

The sudden price decrease might be due to a newer model coming up. I also don't want to be that guy who tells you to wait because a new technology is coming. There is a new technology coming everyday nowadays, and you simply cannot wait around.

Therefore, I'd really recommend 1690 however I have seen couple of red flags so far:

Mine stops receiving signals when it's cloudy. My previous Nuvi did not do this.
Screen freezing (new issue)
When you search for nearest POI's while your car is in a parked position, it gives you the distance to the POI as a straight flight, not actual roads.

However, I believe they will have updates that fix everything. Freezing problem is already fixed. So i'm looking forward to more updates that will enhance the user interface.

Maybe Garmin sends all their bad units to Best buy. I've been reading these and other complaints over the net for a few months now and most all come from there. Maybe because it's easyer for them to handle the returns that way. I got mine on ebay in November, did all the registering updating and never had any problems before or after, I just love it. I may not have bought one though if after reading all the reviews first, but my purchase before that worked out good, "whew"

Best buy is for people who can't use internet i think. I mean it's good to talk to salespeople, but in the internet everything is cheap, tax free and most cases free shipping too. Best buy or any other sales outlet will never be able to beat internet.

Just go to www.froogle.com for anything and it gives you the cheapest prices.

I call it Best Lie because they usually do not have enough of the sale items or they are usually higher priced than their retail competitors.

Amazon has the 1690 for $379.49 through cartoys.com

I second CarToys.com....that's where I bought my 1st 1690 for $349.95. They were a good company to deal with. I just had to remind them to forward a tracking number for my unit...but other than that they were great.
Unfortunately I am on my 3rd 1690 unit.....just got it the other day & I am not sure I want to even power it up. I might just sell it with my new lifetime map update card.
I'm just tired of waiting for the updates to come out.....anytime you call up their customer service people, it's like they are hearing about the problems for the 1st time & they can't believe their products aren't working as they should. Yeah right!
My old C550 is still going strong...even though Garmins latest map updates seem to have issues. But that's another topic....

Somehow..I 'almost' believe it...

I've enjoyed my 350 and 660 for years...
Sure..a few problems..nothing that couldnt be solved be rolling back or getting a later firmware update.
Irritating? Sure..showstopper? No...

Yet...the 'newer' models seem to have more issues.

I've been thinking about upgrading..Yet the additional features hardly thrill me.
Just give me reliable routing algo's and a good interface with a decent display. (this covers my current geepuses..
The 3d stuff? Pffft..not interested.
Eco-junk? Keep it.
MP3 player? LOVE IT.

Something is telling me to hold on to my current geepusus for as long as I can...

I have a funny feeling they are outsourcing...
Can anybody confirm this?

NOTE: I'm a 20+ year IT pro.
I see the 'effects' of outsourcing.. while 'cheaper', the quality is DIRT.
I KNOW..I deal with it. Its like dealing with retards that happen to know a particular programing language. Ask them anything outside that small bubble and its 'all bets off'.
They are 'trained' in very..VERY..narrow computer concepts/programming.
I had a 'consultant' one time...developer..had NO FREAKING CLUE what TCP/IP was!! I asked that he be fired!
They are amazingly..well..dumb..morons..idiots..usless..
Well...they certainly make for expanded QA duties...cuz frankly..their code SUCKS.

Just sayin..

Garmin are clearly not building these new units to last. Just like iPods, they are pretty much built as throw-away devices after ~2 years. They are buggy out-of-the-box and remain buggy pretty much throughout their life-cycle. When problems are reported to Garmin, the CS reps pretty much always say "this is the first I've heard of this issue", even when it's quite well known in this and many other forums. It's both humorous and sad at the same time.

I remember reading that one user reported a repeatable bug to a Garmin CS rep, then the Garmin CS rep repeated the bug on their own unit. The hypothetical question was raised about whether or not that CS rep reported the bug to Garmin CS...

For those of you out there with a 1690 with nulink I have a question for you. I live in Orlando, FL and have had mu 1690 replaced for 2 seperate issues. The first is it randomly turning off and rebooting and the other is the nulink services not being updated. The round traffic icon in the upper left hand corner sometimes doesn't appear even though I have a full signal from the "tower" icon on the main screen. To make things worse, when the icon does appear it is supposed to be either green, yellow or red (telling you the traffic condition on the road you are on) but has anyone ever checked to see what happens when you press the traffic icon. It is supposed to tell you if the traffic is up to date or the last time the traffic was updated. Now my unit get a GREY icon letting me know that it has not received any new traffic info in quite awhile. And it gets better... If I manage to get a green traffic icon and i'm driving (moving) it is constantly updated, but once I stop and park for more than say 10-15 min, the GREY icon comes back and the traffic has not been updated in as much as 110 min. Should this be? shouldn't the traffic info be sent constantly to the unit with out me prompting a rebooting to "catch" a tower with an update server info sent to it. After all, who gets in their car drives to their destination (work for example) and then leaves to go home and before pulling off they are forced to reboot the GPS until the green icon comes up. OH yeah did I mention that none of the other nulink services work either? I have also had this 1690 sent in for repair twice and they keep saying that it works flawlessly. I actually don't think that it is the nuvi 1690 but rather AT&T as the service provider. AT&T is either not sending the info for traffic passively and constantly or the nuvi 1690 is not requesting updated traffic info of its own accord frequently enough. Guys... check out you 1690 and just see if all the traffic info is "Up To Date" and if it stays "Up to Date" when your parked for more than 1/2 an hour. Thanks

The traffic should be updating regardless if you're moving or stationary. On the five (yes, five...up from the three I mentioned in my post above) units I went through while testing with a family member who was in the market for one, they all exhibited the exact same traffic behavior you describe. This made the units useless...every stop for longer than 10 minutes dropped the traffic signal and the unit needed to be power-cycled to refresh. After the power cycle and sitting stationary for 10 minutes, the traffic would again be dropped.

Because of this and other issues (all had very difficult to trigger power switches, others had terribly insensitive touch screens and one even lost the nuLink signal permanently), all units were returned as defective locally to Best Buy.

The unit has since been dropped from his shopping list as Garmin has yet to correct these issues for the North American units (new firmware for AU and EU has released which supposedly corrects many issues).

It's too little, too late.

I havn't had any problems with my nuvi yet. Download every update dissconnected bluetooth dodn't know if that made and differance. I have had no interferance and wavey lines..No problems at all...

I've had the 1690 since early July. I immediately updated the firmware to 3.50 (came with 2.20) and also updated the maps and whatever else needed updates.

I deleted Gupdate.gcd and unused voice, vehicle, help, EULA and KB files. I have about 400 Mb free.

No wavy lines, no reboots, just flawless operation thus far.

I also have the ecoRoute HD connected too. It also works flawlessly.

I have my envTouch connected via BT. The volume is a bit low compared to the nav voice, but otherwise BT seems to work fine.

I'm pleased with the 1690. I chose it mainly due to the connected service. This was an upgrade from a still perfectly functional SP2610.. except that the maps were way out of date and it was no longer supported by Garmin.

Edit: I'm really glad I wasn't in the market for the 1690 early on! I would have been discouraged by all the problem reports. Amazing what a little firmware fix will do.

Just curious if firmware updates have resolved your problems? I've not experienced any of those issues in 2 months of 1690 usage.

I take it back. I did see one reboot once when I was trying to press the back button and a bump in the road made me hit the display several times in rapid succession. I don't know if that was the cause or coincidence, but I've never seen it since.

I remain very pleased with the 1690.

nuvi 1690
firmware v3.60

Like some others, I have had no problems with my 1690. I am also on the latest firmware.

Mine is still going strong and mine was an early unit. I had a minor one (one reboot) before the FW update. Other than that none. A very nice machine!

I guess that I am blessed, as I had a 760 that performed well for me too.

I've now had another one. And I think it is due to user error.

I found I was able to induce a reboot (but didn't try to duplicate) by making some changes which forced the 1690 to recalculate and then got busy pressing buttons before the unit finished the recalc. That seems to have triggered a reboot.