Modifying The Garmin Nuvi 500
Fri, 04/22/2016 - 4:38pm
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    17 years
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I still have a Garmin Nuvi 500 in one of my vehicle. It has a very slow processor and seems to take forever when looking for POIs. By any chance, has anybody here ever tried modifying their Garmin to a newer, faster processor? My guess is that the effort wouldn't be worth it, but I thought that I would ask anyway.
can't get there from here
if you have the skill and tools to safely remove the SOC from the board, you know you can't get there from here. It's designed as a system, for that processor and timing. The technology has improved a bit in the intervening years -- processors much faster and lower power at the same time. Hey, Garmin has even improved their code!
Nuvi 2460, 680, DATUM Tymserve 2100, Trimble Thunderbolt, Ham radio, Macintosh, Linux, Windows
Yep, it's not practical
I totally agree with k6rtm. Even if you could upgrade the chip, odds are you would also have to upgrade the motherboard, then of course you would probably need a different battery, and probably even a new screen. It is far easier and even cheaper to just buy a new unit.
It reminds me of a time when someone brought in an OLD computer (Windows 3.1 days) and wanted the CPU upgraded JUST ENOUGH to run Windows XP.
Well new CPU OK, but that requires a different motherboard, that requires different ram, that all requires a different power supply and case, new hard drive (the 20MB won't even hold the basic OS installation.) Finally, a new monitor (EGA just won't cut it.)
The only thing we could use was the floppy drive of which we were informed didn't work.
Garmin Nuvi 2450