Tom Tom 3 and Ipaq 3870

st1967 · Lifetime Member Joined: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 189

I have read hegedusa post about the Ipaq 3870 and Tom Tom bluetooth, but I have a wired Halcion GPS Mouse that worked like a dream under TT2. However since upgrading to TT3 (3.01 409) my whole system runs like a complete DOG !!

Initial time to get fix from GPS is now around 2 minutes whatever the weather conditions (used to be 30 secs MAX). It even loses this while driving !! Never done that before. I sometimes have to reset the Ipaq twice before I can even get to put a route in. There are now constant map locks even when driving. Move off your original route and it's pot luck whether the system will lock or do the reroute.

Once at your destination, forget about putting in another route, I have to reset the system again and start a fresh. Much less likely to lock up.

Does anybody else out there with a 3870 have any problems like these. Overall I am so disappointed with the upgrade, and although I like the new maps and itinery system I would rather go back to a stable system first.

It's almost as if the 3870 just isn't powerful enough to run TT3? Is there a minimum spec of PocketPc to run it?

st1967 · Lifetime Member Joined: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 189

Just noticed that my Tom Tom GPS was only running v3.0 from the TT2 days although v3.02 was installed it was not being used. Have removed all GPS drivers and reinstalled v3.02 to see if it makes a difference.

Also noticed that on the Tom Tom website the latest version is TT3 v3.01 409/2 is there much of a change from v3.01 409 or are the the same thing? Have downloaded it but not run it yet.

Thanks

dksbbs · Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 7:15 pm Post subject:

I have the Ipaq 3870 running TT3, with a wired rikaline 6010 GPS mouse,

I also suffered problems and rolled back to the 2.7 GPS driver, this seems to have cured the hangup problems.

I must admit that the software is slow, epecially searching for addresses and starting up, I have therefore installed the Central UK map where I do most of my driving and this has speeded everything up. I also have the full map installed for longer journeys and just switch maps when I need to plot a long journey, I put up with the slowness on these rare occasions.

Hopefully when TT3 fix the terrible look up facility where you get all the streets of the same name in the county when you are searching just for a street in a town will resolve some of these speed issues. If this doesn;t work I will get a new Ipaq, however I understand you can only register TT once every six months on different devices after the initial registration so will have to wiat until then.

Dave

DavidW · Posted: Wed May 19, 2004 11:41 am Post subject:

The 3800 series has a very slow SD port, which will hurt address lookup speeds rather. This is a hardware limitation of the iPAQ 3800 series. All later iPAQs have rather faster SD ports.

GPS 3.00 is installed when you install Navigator 3 unless you take some very specific steps to stop it being installed. I don't think any current Navigator 3 CDs contain a later version of GPS than 3.00, though many contain Navigator 3.01.

I don't believe that version was ever made available as a download, though it might have been. To my knowledge, GPS 2.09 was the last version of GPS released before Navigator 3 was released.

If you have a 3800 series, it may be time to start thinking about an upgrade, especially as it looks like there will be some new iPAQs released later this year, for which it may be better to wait than to jump right now unless your interest is in the 4100 or 4300 iPAQs which are still relatively new and unlikely to be replaced any time soon. It looks like the 5550 will be the first to be replaced (by the hx4700), and both the 1940 and 2210 will be replaced probably towards the end of the year.

I suspect your 3800 series' battery is beginning to lose performance, and a battery change is not a cheap thing to do, even if you DIY.

The address lookup will only speed up if TomTom reissue the maps with better indexing (which I hope they will, but they may not). If they are only prepared to issue a software fix (I have one in mind that Oldie and I have discussed that I will be suggesting to TomTom shortly), the address lookup is going to remain very slow on your iPAQ.

I will think seriously about upgrading my 3970 based setup to the new hx4700 rumoured for later this year. I've held off from an upgrade so far, as there hasn't yet been a huge leap up from the 3970 (all the 5550 would give me is 128MB of RAM instead of 64MB, and built in Wi-Fi - I already have Wi-Fi hardware for my 3970). That said, I am a power user of my Pocket PC, and I would make use of all the features rumoured for the hx4700. It looks like new mid range iPAQs will appear later this year, as I said earlier, together with an iPAQ that has a built in GSM/GPRS phone.

If I did upgrade, it's unlikely I'd sell the 3970 - my mother has been showing considerable interest in it, especially as a navigation system.

Activation of TomTom Navigator on a replacement Pocket PC is unlikely to be a problem. When you activate a copy of Navigator, you have to wait just seven days to activate that copy of Navigator again. Only after you've activated a copy of Navigator twice do you have to wait six months.

In other words, the wait before a second activation is possible is seven days from the first activation. After that, you have to wait six months after an activation before another activation is possible. The timer starts from an activation - if you've had a copy of Navigator 3 activated for 8 months, you can't then activate two new devices with it. You can activate one device, then you will have to wait six months to activate another device using the same Navigator Product Code.

David

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

I had similar problems with my TomTom 3 and ipaq 3870. When using bluetooth it would just "stop" tracking me on the map, and the bluetooth status thing when you go into GPS status would stop too. I tried it with my wired Tomtom GPS, and this worked better, but it too would occasionally stop. I would keep needing to do resets. Sometimes it would work for a few minutes, sometimes an hour.

I began to suspect the pocket PC itself. It was a relatively fresh install of the navigator product and I had just upgrading to windows mobile 2003.

In the end I did a hard reset, wiping everything, and reinstalled tomtom 3. It's been absolutely perfect now for about two weeks.

I did have trouble installing the software though - it kept telling me to reset and re-install, and now when I try and synchronise, it tells me that there is still an application about to install (the tomtom gps). If I untick it, it removes the app. from the pocket pc. If I leave it ticked, it tries to reinstall. I just put it down to Bill Gates.

The only problem with the 3870 I have now is that occasionally, it comes up with an error about not being able to start bluetooth. I expect this is a design flaw in the bluetooth hardware, as I used to get similar errors with the older version of windows mobile (ppc 2002 I think). The difference was that under that version, I would need to do a reset .With windows mobile 2003, I can just turn the machine off then on again.

Hope this helps

Anthony

st1967 · Lifetime Member Joined: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 189

I was aware about the slow SD cards in the 3870, my 256mb card behaves OK.

I have downgraded to the GPS driver 2.7 and it certainly is a lot better. Time to fix is now back to 20-30 secs on a clear day. Plus *touching wood* the map has not locked since I did this.

Thanks for the advice.

Richiemouse · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 4:26 pm Post subject:

I have a 3870 and have exactly the same problems. I also use the rikaline 6010 mouse that has been fine using TT2. Since installing TT3 I get constant lock ups, the maps freeze, tracking freezes. I have to reset almost everytime I have used TT3. All in all it's a complete pile of poo!

I'm really dissapointed because I was impressed with TT2 despite it's address and occasional map flaws. The ability to plan a multi point route was the biggest thing missing for me and I thought TT3 would be great. I could live with it being a bit slow on an older PDA but it's almost unuseable! Sad

If anyone has any thoughts as to how to improve the setup (without resorting to a new PDA) I'd very much like to hear them.

Rich

st1967 · Lifetime Member Joined: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 189

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