Garmin Nuvi 680 taking a few minutes to obtain sat!

my 530 takes forever some days and is instantaneous others...been happening over the same timeframe you mentioned.

Regards, Ted

I have had a similar experience on my 660. Last week in Danbury CT it took several minutes. This week in Atlanta GA it happened again. I turned the 660 off and then back on and it acquired the signal in about 20 seconds.

I also have a 680 and I'm in an open area. I also have on all the latest firmware from Garmin. I have noticed that lately, it will take a little longer to acquire as well and other times it is pretty fast. This didn't seem to happen before about a month ago.

It's good to know other nuvis are experiencing this...

Some days our 650 acquires satellites lightning fast, other days it's like molasses.

I have the 680 and it takes a couple minutes to find satellite unless i had the unit on not too long prior to starting up.

To some degree, this is just the way GPS works. Each of the satellites transmits a detailed chart of precisely where it will be for the next four hours. Once your unit has collected this data, it can time how long signals from each satellite take, and since it knows precisely where each satellite is, it can compute your location.

If your unit has been off for some time, it takes a while for it to download all of this data from each satellite. If you just had it on a moment ago, it doesn’t need to download this data at all, and can compute your location fairly quickly.

Of course sometimes you get a quick lock even if your unit has been off. This is just due to strong satellite signals and quick downloads of the data. And sometimes it takes a while even if your unit was on quite recently. Such is lif

I notice the same behavior for both my C530 and Tom Tom One.

They seem to be somewhat faster to obtain the satellite when I am close to home. Otherwise they can take as long as 20 minutes.

If you turn it back on exactly where you initally turned it off, it will lock in much faster.

My 18 month old C330 took 30 mins to acquire a signal last week and other times. Call Garmin. Needed to do software update. Much better now.
I got a Nuvi 350 just before Christmas.It to need to be updated and it is less than 30 days old.

Go to http://www8.garmin.com/support/blosp.jsp

to find your system. Easy simple

I never had this problem until I "upgraded". Called Garmin and they had no answer as to how I could backtrack into 2.90...IMHO, Garmin is slipping as bit (might be one reason their stock plunged lately)...they are fast to get new product to market but the QC on the software is lacking.

Regards, Ted

I have a 760. I upgraded to the new 2.5. The next day, it was sluggish after it ran the software, but the next day, it was back to normal.

I get a good signal lock within 10 seconds. Longer if I haven't used the unit in a few days. I think the longest was about 40 seconds, but I hadn't used the unit in a week.

I have Garmin 650 with latest firmware update. I experience the same problem. Sometimes, it took forever to lock the satellite. However, at the same location, if I turned off the unit and power on it again. It locked the satellites in seconds. Does anybody have any idea when this happens?

I find that with the latest firmware if I turn it back on at the same location that I turned it off it hooks up much faster. Not sure if there is any science to this approach...but it does work for me....best of luck

I've got both a 660 and a 680.

The 680 will get sats almost instantly, while the 660 can take up to 5 mins. This issue started about a month ago and has been steadily getting worse. Before this issue surfaced, the 660 was also instant in acquiring sats.

Personally, I feel it's the heat getting to some of the guts. The 660 is over a year old and I feel the components are getting degraded from it sitting in the car.

My 1st Garmin, I think a Garmin 100, I used on my boat. I use to keep it in the glove compartment of my car. That thing lasted about 2 years before it did the same thing; eventually it couldn't pick up a sat at all. My 2nd unit was a Garmin 45XL. That lasted about 3 years before it did the same.

These days, I've got a Raymarine GPS on the boat and it picks up sats as if there was no tomorrow. I've had it for 3 years and not a single problem.

I think Garmin needs to re-engineer some of the GPS chips to better withstand heat, to keep them from degrading over time.

I also own a Garmin GPSMAP76 that I use as a backup on the boat. This unit is only outdoors when in use so it rarely just sits in the car. I also haven't seen a single problem with it in 3 years! But remember, it never gets heated because it comes in the house with me as I keep it in a bag with other boating supplies. So I'm guessing it's the heat that kills these Garmin units.

Now, if this 660 eventually stops acquiring sats as my previous Garmins have done. Ain't no way I'll ever purchase another Garmin. Believe me, I've had enough Garmin units and there's other manufactures out there where I don't have to take any more punishment from them.