etrex venture cx - not acquiring satellites

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

Hi,
I have been using my etrex venture cx for about 6 Months with no problems. Went out geocaching this morning and it would not acquire any satellites and it hasn't done throughout the day.

I thought it may be the resident software so went through the update process , which appears to have made things worse. It is now showing the date as yesterday's and the wrong time, which because I'm in 24 hour clock mode, is throwing the device into night mode about 3 hours ahead of when it should.

I can't find any means of manually changing the date/time, assume this is done from acquiring satellites, which it seems incapable of doing.

Any help/advice gratefully received.
Tks/Rgds,

Andy

PouchX · Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject:

Try to upload manually (not using WebUpadter) firmware. Sometimes it helps.

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

Thanks for the tip - done that - I'm afraid the unit is still showing to be a day behind where it should be.

Still not picking up satellites either.

PouchX · Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:24 am Post subject:

Try to uplaod previous version of firmware.

http://www.gpsinformation.org/perry/etrex/venture/

Also try to perform MASTER RESET.

PS: Date and time will be set when your Garmin will "catch" sattelite signal.

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

OK, despite it being the middle of the night, I downloaded manually, the firmware and installed it.
I also found out how to get into the diagnostic screen.
Subsequently, the device started to work and I've used it successfully today.

Thanks for the link and thanks for your help.

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

Just one thing I haven't found out yet...

How to perform a MASTER RESET - what's the process.

Tks.

PouchX · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:15 am Post subject:

With the unit turned off, press and hold the follow buttons: PAGE + ENTER,
then press and release the POWER. The unit will power up asking if you want
to release all user data. Select yes and the unit will be reset.

By the way. Now you can upload latest firmware and your unit shuold work well.

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

Thanks again for your help.

My unit appears ok now so I'll not be doing the reset at this time, but I will keep your advice for a later eventuality.

Regards

Andy

PouchX · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:53 am Post subject:

No problemo. Take care ;)

tomtomgoer · Lifetime Member Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 6

Whilst out walking in the open yesterday, with clear blue skies above me, I found the same problem re acquiring satellites.

I had the previous week replaced the batteries and then I switched the Etrex on after travelling to a different area, some 30 minutes from where I live.

Having tried to 'acquire' satellites after switch on in the usual manner for about 2 hours with no success, I pressed the menu button and chose 'New Search' from the resulting drop-down list. This seemed to do the trick and the device quickly 'located' satellites and no further problems.

Moral of the story for me was don't wait to 'acquire' satellites if it seems to be having problems, use the 'new search' function via the menu button to 'locate' them.

skyfox1884 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2007 Posts: 6

Sounds like a useful tip gleaned from a harsh lesson.

Thanks for sharing your experience.
Rgds,

Andy (skyfox1884)

MapNerd · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 28, 2007 Posts: 3

My Etrex Summit had a similar problem - powered it up and instead of acquiring the satellites, the screen had question marks (?) instead of the satellite icons. It never did lock on even after 15 mins

So I used the helpful hint here about Master Reset and its back working again. Less all my settings of course

Great tip - thanks. It saved me a lot of anguish
Rolling Eyes

	PocketGPS
	Web