GPS Goes Off Then On

 

I have four Garmin GPSs. I plug them into my cigarette lighter and I notice all of them at one time or another go off for 20 seconds and then back on again. Since I experience the "on" and "off" with all of them I know the problem is not the GPS or the charger cable since one GPS is brand new and I use the cable that came with each GPS. If someone else has had this problem I would love to know what the solution is.

replace cigar lighter outlet

Since several GPSs with their cables are going off and on, it must be the power supply. Cigar lighter outlets do not have any dimensional standards. They are notorious for intermittent connections. I would replace the cigar lighter outlet.

dobs108 smile

German car?

UDewRight4Me2 wrote:

I have four Garmin GPSs. I plug them into my cigarette lighter and I notice all of them at one time or another go off for 20 seconds and then back on again. Since I experience the "on" and "off" with all of them I know the problem is not the GPS or the charger cable since one GPS is brand new and I use the cable that came with each GPS. If someone else has had this problem I would love to know what the solution is.

Crazy as this question seems, is this happening on a German car?

--
John from PA

GPS Goes On and Off

German, yes. 2003 VW Passat.

GPS Goes On and Off

I agree. It got to be the cigar lighter outlet.

I should have put money on that...

UDewRight4Me2 wrote:

German, yes. 2003 VW Passat.

A common problem with German cars of that era was the accessory socket was very slightly different in size than the socket in an American car. I found it early on in my 2000 Porsche and the dealer gave me a plastic sleeve that fit over the barrel of the plug, tightening it in the socket. I have found that bending the metal side pieces on the plug to more or less increase the diameter and thus tightening it will help.

Just as an FYI, not totally applicable since you say power is intermittently ON, but worth a check. In many VW's there is a place to store change and it happens to be adjacent to the accessory socket. IT is very common for a coin to fall into the socket. About 90% of the time it will result in a blown fuse, but the other 10% of the time it will result in an intermittent connection, since the plug isn't seated properly.

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John from PA

Plug interface

Slight power interruption will turn the device off.

Tighten up the plug interface so the plug can't wiggle or jiggle.

I had the same problem in my Jettas.

--
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

Not what I see

diesel wrote:

Slight power interruption will turn the device off

When I pull the power plug out of the socket my Garmin alerts me that external power has been lost and that it will turn off in some seconds unless I touch a request to stay on.

Do all of these models differ from that? Or do they have a special response to a very short interruption?

On the other hand, I think on some of my older Garmin models there were firmware bugs which would give a sudden shut down completely unrelated to power. Happily my 3597 firmware seems almost entirely free of this bad behavior.

Unlike the original posted description, on those uncommanded shutdowns the unit did not spontaneously come back on.

--
personal GPS user since 1992

GPS Goes On and Off

John from PA your narrative gives me roads/paths to take. Thanks!

GPS Goes On and Off

diesel, your response makes tons of sense. I will definitely look into tightening the plug interface. Thanks!

I experienced this problem

I experienced this problem with Garmin units that were failing. The problem was due to a loose usb socket on the Garmin motherboard. I doubt this is the problem since it happens with more than one unit. It is probably a loose plug like other posters mentioned.

Condition-dependent firmware bug

My personal oddest experience with uncommanded shutdowns was clearly not power connection related. The unit was not plugged into anything.

I was in a Tu-154, flying over Uzbekistan in 2005. My Garmin GPS-V had been well-behaved throughout the trip, including lots of bus travel and a few domestic flights within China.

But on that flight from Tashkent to Urgench, the unit just shut off a few tens of seconds after I turned it on. I never did understand a reason. I did try more than once, but not many times.

At the time I speculated that some form of jamming might have been involved. Even if it was, I highly doubt it was successful at intentionally shutting down my unit.

--
personal GPS user since 1992

A little strip of paper

I've had the same issue with my Chev. I just take a thin strip of folded paper and hold it in place when I plug in the charger.

That tightens up the charger connection. A lot easier & cheaper than replacing the socket.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

dead batteries?

archae86 wrote:

My personal oddest experience with uncommanded shutdowns was clearly not power connection related. The unit was not plugged into anything.

I was in a Tu-154, flying over Uzbekistan in 2005. My Garmin GPS-V had been well-behaved throughout the trip, including lots of bus travel and a few domestic flights within China.

But on that flight from Tashkent to Urgench, the unit just shut off a few tens of seconds after I turned it on. I never did understand a reason. I did try more than once, but not many times.

At the time I speculated that some form of jamming might have been involved. Even if it was, I highly doubt it was successful at intentionally shutting down my unit.

It's possible that the batteries were almost discharged. Cold weather can reduce the capacity of a battery by 50%. Uzbekistan can be cold in winter.

If they were jamming, I don't think it would be possible or even necessary to shut down the GPS.

Nope

dobs108 wrote:

It's possible that the batteries were almost discharged. Cold weather can reduce the capacity of a battery by 50%. Uzbekistan can be cold in winter.

If they were jamming, I don't think it would be possible or even necessary to shut down the GPS.

Battery management was integral to my daily routine on that trip, and by the time we got to Uzbekistan I'd been keeping things going for weeks. This was not a battery state of charge problem.

It was summer. Anyway I was travelling in a jet airplane (the Tu-154 at first glance looks lots like the 727, though it differs greatly in detail).

I hold to my belief that the reason it shut down was a firmware bug. But I have no idea what elements in the situation gave that bug a turn in plain view that was not usually a problem. I ran my GPS-V for much longer than I have run any other of my long string of GPS units.

--
personal GPS user since 1992

Could be the Garmin could not keep up with the travel velocty

archae86 wrote:

My personal oddest experience with uncommanded shutdowns was clearly not power connection related. The unit was not plugged into anything.

I was in a Tu-154, flying over Uzbekistan in 2005. My Garmin GPS-V had been well-behaved throughout the trip, including lots of bus travel and a few domestic flights within China.

But on that flight from Tashkent to Urgench, the unit just shut off a few tens of seconds after I turned it on. I never did understand a reason. I did try more than once, but not many times.

At the time I speculated that some form of jamming might have been involved. Even if it was, I highly doubt it was successful at intentionally shutting down my unit.

The Tu-154 you mention has a cruising speed of 530 miles/hr (850 km/hr). That is almost 9 miles per minute. Any GPS has to acquire data and process that data and a GPS intended for a car may simply not have the processing power to perform calculations fast enough. I remember my first "hiking" Garmin would handle takeoffs and landings well because speeds were low, but would drop out at altitude and cruising speed, even with an accessory antenna.

--
John from PA

Used GPS-V on lots of airplanes

John from PA wrote:

The Tu-154 you mention has a cruising speed of 530 miles/hr (850 km/hr). That is almost 9 miles per minute. Any GPS has to acquire data and process that data and a GPS intended for a car may simply not have the processing power to perform calculations fast enough. I remember my first "hiking" Garmin would handle takeoffs and landings well because speeds were low, but would drop out at altitude and cruising speed, even with an accessory antenna.

Interesting observation on your inflight experience.

I've used several models of GPS hundreds of times on commercial air travel. My personal experience has been that initial acquisition was often slow and inconsistent, but was strongly helped by holding the unit directly up against a window. Once satellites were acquired, often the unit could hold lock sitting on the tray table if I had a window seat, but a glance at the signal strength page showed that is was usually near the edge.

I was always travelling under rules that required the GPS to be off below 10,000 feet, so I never got to compare behavior during takeoff and landing to climb cruise, or initial descent behavior. But I did see true ground speeds at least over the range of 180 to 700+ mph without ever a difficulty. (700+ was very rare, and meant a huge tail wind was boosting true ground speed without the airspeed or Mach breaking strict rules).

At times the authorities have required that the manufacturers build in artificial limits on the GPS capabilities to make it harder for bad guys to use them to guide bad things.

Specifically, the CoCom limits are 1000 knots (true groundspeed, not airspeed, despite the units) and 59,000 feet altitude. I've not gotten near either of these limits, ever.

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personal GPS user since 1992