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Joined: 21/06/2003 14:27:08 Posts: 7 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
I have an Emtac sleeve, iPAQ 3870 and TomTom 2.22. Over the last few days the system has degraded (in the way described in this thread) to the point that the system does not work at all. Given that I am not using BT for my GPS connection, there does seem to be other factors at play. I did wonder about the heat question - both sleeve and iPAQ did feel very hot on return to my car and I did have some problems.
I am on the brink of trying a hard reset to see if this can correct the problem. Any ideas and advice will be very welecome.
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
Louis,
Lutz, the Pocket GPS staffer from the States, has talked previously about how he likes his vent mounts so he can blast his hardware with his air conditioning in the heat of an American summer!
I guess that we are potentially talking about a similar issue with hardware getting cooked 'in car' in the height of summer, particularly if you leave any part of the setup in car (it may be better to remove it if you can do so easily, particularly in this hot weather).
My setup travels around with me - the only thing that stays in the car is the Brodit mount. There again, I'm using a CompactFlash GPS that slots into the expansion pack I always keep my iPAQ in.
It may help to hold the affected hardware in front of an air vent (with air conditioning on if you have it) for a while to cool it, and see if it then starts to behave correctly.
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
This really goes down to build quality and the size of the device at the end of the day. Back in 1992 the company I worked for used to distribute PC mice, and we used to get around 7 out of 10 back saying they had failed. These were very thin plastic mice, and when we used to get them back into our workshop the mice were working fine. Send them back to the cusotmer, again working fine. The problem only occured generally in months May through to September, until a few people experienced it outside of these times. What we found was that because most of the customers were educational colleges and universities, they had lots of windows in their buildings, and PC's used to be huddled up next to a window. We were finding because of this, mice were left in direct sunlight for hours at a time, which would make them fail, take them away and let them cool down and they return to normal. We also found if someone was using their mouse consistently for 4+ hours a day with warn hands, would also see this fault.
In the end what we did was to open them up and to stick a piece of tinfoil to the inside of the cases, which seemed to resolve the problems.
I guess what I'm saying is the same sort of problem seems to be exhibited here in the forums over the past week, that due to the size, and thickness of the plastic used on the outer case, and being black (which absorbs heat-maybe an old wifes tail), but all of this could be causing these sorts of problems.
I went to clean my windscreen the other day because I've got the remains of hundreds of flies on it, and although it was quite warm out, I didn't realise until I started washing it and then drying it with a cloth how hot the windscreen had become.
David is right, try cooling the receiver, the Emtac/Sockets do work well off dashboard, so it might be an idea to put them down near the gear stick/hand brake or on the passenger seat. You will lose a little signal, but it may be better than leaving it exposed in direct sunlight. Larger GPS Receivers seem not to be affected, probably due to thicker outer casings and also metal sheet shielding which probably helps dispurse the heat.
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
The thing about black absorbing heat is no old wives tale. Things are black because they absorbing electromagnetic energy in the visible spectrum (and possibly beyond). If they reflect this energy, they're white.
Similarly, shiny finishes reflect (and therefore don't absorb) more energy than matt ones.
The same principles apply to heat transmission by radiation - the way the energy got into the surface really doesn't matter. There's a school physics experiment that makes use of this similarity to show the difference between the various surfaces.
I can't remember the name of the experiment, but it involves a metal cube that is filled with boiling water. You can rotate the cube to choose which side is facing a thermocouple. The measured temperatures indicate the relative heat loss from shiny white, shiny black, matt white and matt black sides.
It follows from this that painting 'radiators' (which work far more by convection than radiation) glossy white is a bad idea. Matt black would work far better, but is cosmetically unacceptable in most cases.
You may notice a difference if you have two PCs side by side - an one with a light keyboard may well feel cooler than one with the current vogue of grey (charcoal, midnight grey, black and all the other things it's called), particularly if both keyboards are in sunlight.
David (whose academic discipline is chemistry with a fair amount of physics mixed in)
Joined: 21/06/2003 19:24:34 Posts: 19 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
I am completely new to this GPS lark having bought a complete system package from Dixons consistng of a Toshiba E350 and a Tom Tom Navigator 2 UK with a SD 128 MB memory card.
I have experienced a similar intermittant GPS freeze symptoms which agree with those what most of the other contributers have experienced. My system is still in it warranty period so I have had the TT 2 and leads replaced. The new system has not been fully tested over a reasonable period but the GPS can fail restart if the Pocket PC switches off Automatically. It will restart if the GPS receiver is powered off and on again . Hope thi is of interest to everyone with different Pocket PC's
Joined: 21/06/2003 14:27:08 Posts: 7 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
Thanks for the advice given.
I did a factory reset and now everything is working again. Makes me wonder whether the heae really was the problem - if it was, why did a factory reset cure the problem.
While driving, the air conditioning keeps the equipment cool enough - but when parked for some time, even in the glove compartment, the sleeve is heating up. I think I will keep it in the boot in future to be on the safe side.
Hope the reset advice helps anyone else who has problems that can not be overcome (and I hope someone really figures out how come it goes wrong in the first place :-)
Joined: 26/09/2002 08:03:29 Posts: 75 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
Sorry but I just posted this on another thread before I found this one which is more like my problem.
I keep getting freezes with my setup
3870, ROM 2.2
Emtac BT GPS
TTN 2.22
Checkpoint 2.0
I've noticed that every freeze I got was at 58 mph and the speed froze but the indicated vehicle movement carried on for a while although not with an accurate position. A soft reset cures the problem so I don't think it's the Emtac.
I'm sure this didn't happen with earlier versions of TTN.
Joined: 05/06/2003 11:06:29 Posts: 13 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
My system now appears to be working without fault. Try turning receive incoming beams off and keep the emtac cool. Be interested to know if this cures anyone elses problem.
Joined: 21/06/2003 14:27:08 Posts: 7 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
Did a journey today and everything was working fine. Then stopped to do some shopping and left the system in the boot - today was pretty hot.
The same problem again, which rendered the device useless. Got home, tried again and, after deselecting and reselecting the GPS setup, everything started working again.
The Emtac sleeve did not feel partuclarly hot, but I am beginning to wonder about this now.
Joined: 07/06/2003 16:45:14 Posts: 114 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
Well heat may be a separate problem, but I don't think it is one that I am suffering from, even though the GPS receiver gets fairly warm, during use (it's velcro'ed under the front windscreen, on the dashboard).
The specific problem that I have requires a reset of the iPAQ to recover, or turning the BT radio off, then on again, using the BT icon in the taskbar.
If your unit recovers simply by turning off the BTGPS receiver, and then turning it back on again, then I believe that that is a different freeze issue, and may indeed be heat related.
I'm not saying don't discuss your problem on this thread, just that we need to remain clear as to the cause of each of these problems, where operation stops to the extent that you have to take manual action, so that we don't get confused.
Since I put the GPS receiver in it's own Bluetooth Manager device group, on my iPAQ 3870, I have not yet had a re-ocurrence of my freeze problem.
Still testing, of course, as until I've had a full week of trouble-free use I'm not going to say that this solution has definitely worked for me, but it is looking promising.
To recap; I deleted all my BT devices from BT Manager. I searched for the BTGPS receiver, and saved it to it's own "GPS" device group. I then searched for my other BT devices and added them just to the "All Devices" group.
When setting off for a journey, I start BT Manager and display and refresh the GPS device group, then I start CheckPOInt, which in turn starts TTN2 and TTGPS, and then throws me into the Navigator screen. I then select a route and start driving.
Now, back to heat problems. Has anyone actually had a freeze whilst not moving. i.e. bench test your GPS in your back-garden, or wherever, and see if you get a freeze.
If you can use a laptop, or something else other than your PocketPC, that may also help to eliminate causes.
My suggestion would be to perhaps use a hairdryer to gently raise the temperature of the unit, and see if it continues to operate.
Note that you should take extreme care when trying this because;
a) Your wife/girlfriend may take exception to you using her hairdryer in this manner and
b) hairdryers can put out a lot of heat, especially at their highest settings, and the BTGPS unit's casing is only _thin_ plastic and probably easily warped.
Remember take extreme care, and do it at your own risk. You want to re-create extreme ambient conditions and not cook the unit. Use of a thermometer and a quick check in the unit's specs (Operating Temperature: -20°C to +60°C) would not go amiss.
Joined: 07/06/2003 16:45:14 Posts: 114 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
As a follow-up post; I had another four freezes, driving into work this morning. Again, the freezes were characterised by no moving beam between the PPC and Satellite icons in the TTGPS driver program, and a frozen speed display in TTN2, but an iPAQ and a TTN2 program that were still responsive to other commands.
Admittedly I had added back in a couple more BT devices into my iPAQ 3870's BT Manager's configuration - so I may have to take a step back in my testing program, and remove them all again.
However, with the possibility that it may be somethign else that is causing this problem - such as heat - I checked a couple more things out.
After each of the first three hangs, I powered off the iPAQ, waited a few secs, then powered it back on.
The first time, I had to do this twice before the rig sprang back to life, getting a lock and continuing back on with it's route navigation, after about ten seconds.
The second and third freezes, it came back within a few seconds of power-off and on, so it seems that the TTGPS program was re-establishing the connection with little problem, and then TTN2 was just picking off from where it left off.
On the fourth freeze, powering off, and then back on, caused the iPAQ to completely lock-up, with the TTN2 screen half painted. I couldn't switch it back off, and it didn't respond to touches, or buttons, and I had to do a soft reset to get it back.
These incidents suggest that the BTGPS Socketcom receiver was never the problem, since it was left powered up and untouched (mounted on the dash, under the windscreen), throughout.
So, if it is a heat problem it is more likely to be with the iPAQ. However, the iPAQ was mounted on the vent and the air-con was going full-pelt at 16 degrees, so I don't believe that it was over-heating either.
I keep coming back to a very poorly implemented Bluetooth stack as the main cause of the problem, whichever way I look at it. It may be that it's just not good at recovering from errors, caused by interference, or whatever.
The only hope that I see on the horizon is that if it will be possible to upgrade my iPAQ 3870 to the PocketPC 2003 operating system, then that may help; since PPC 2003 has it's own Bluetooth stack integrated with the operating system.
OTOH, if the low-level drivers are still manufacturer specific, and the problem is down in those layers, then even PPC 2003 will not help.
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
To me it sounds more as though it's a BT Stack problem, or a problem localised on the Pocket PC. If removing the extra devices you have in BT Manager makes it work without fail again, I would suggest that it's probably a bug you've found.
I do agree, BT has been implemented very poorly, and to use it in anger on a day in day out basis for me is still difficult, but I like BT. I was having a conversation with Mike. Several weeks ago he went back to a cabled setup and found less hassles, last week whilst testing other applications I went back to a cabled setup and had a trouble free setup. Gone back to BT and had a problem today.
BT is great when it works, but when it doens't it can be a real PITA.
Joined: 05/06/2003 11:06:29 Posts: 13 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:04 am Post subject: GPS stops responding to Navigator 2
fuego,
I was just wondering if your ipaq has the 'receive incoming beams' box in the connections-settings menu checked or unchecked. I only have one bt device connected so I can't comment on how multiple devices adds to the problem but I have in the past tested my ipaq running stationary in the heat and it did lock up after a while, interestingly the ipaq itself was not in the heat but the emtac was (just realised this now). My final solution was admitedly not particularly scientific as I changed 4 things at once however it does work perfectly well now and I am of the opinion that it is possible there are a number of things interacting to cause the lock ups specifically on the 3870.
My working set up is:
tomtom gps v1.5
bluetooth manager 1.011
tomtom 2.22
receive all incoming beams disabled
Keep the emtac cool (in this heat it does seem to be close to the advised operating limits)
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