Tomtom Go500 just died on my??

Nigel-DV · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 07, 2006 Posts: 29

Has anyone else experienced this?

I bought a Tomtom Go 500 from Carphone warehouse in UK just 2 weeks ago. I used it once on a 2 hour round trip, fine, then after a 12 day break, I used it again on a 4 hour round trip.

This is what went wrong. I was using the built in battery; then suddently the battery low warning indicater started to allert me that the battery was running low. I pulled over, then plugged in the ciggerette power chord and continued to drive for another 20 minutes.

I reached my destination, then after an hour in my friends hous I returned to my car, got Tomtom out of glove compartment, plugged ciggy power chord in and turned on my Tomtom, fault; the green power light came on, but that's it, the screen was dead; nothing.

I turned it off, green light goes off, then turned it on again, nothing, just green light and dead screen.

I tried powering it up with no power chord plugged in (I figued the built in battery must be somewhat charged as I'd been using it on power chord for 30 minutes) and tried powering it up, nothing, not even green light.

Anyway, it was dead so I returned it to carphone warehouse and got a refund. Why a refund, because the price had just dropped by £20 so I got a refund, walked around the corner to another brance of Carphone warehouse and bought a new one from scratch.

Anyway, my brand new one seems fine so far, after 5 minutes use anyway. But I'm concerned as to why the last one died on me.

Could it be something to do with the way/order in which I plug in the ciggerete charger and power up the Tomtom, could it have blown something inside due to charge comming from the car battery?

Very concerned as when this happened I was 80 miles from home with no AtoZ in the car (there is now).

Any advice on what could have caused this so I can prevent it happening in future?

I just noticed on the new one, there is a 'reset' button on the base. I never knew it was there, do you think if I had pressed this on my old dead one, it would have fixed it? what does this button do?

Thanks guys.

sgould · Frequent Visitor Joined: Oct 05, 2004 Posts: 1320

There's always been a reset button on the GO. ;)

It would probably have got it going again. It just reboots the system, nothing on the SD card is lost.
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Oldboy · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject:

You can also force a re-boot by taking the SD Card out, and re-inserting, before switching on again.
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Nigel-DV · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 07, 2006 Posts: 29

So, would it have been likely that the Tomtom blew an internal fews, or burned out the circuit board because of the ciggerett charger off the car battery?

Andy_P · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:29 am Post subject:

No. The symptoms you describe are exactly what I'd expect if it just needed a reset.

Eldar · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:31 am Post subject:

gingernut777 · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 8:34 am Post subject:

Nigel-DV · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 07, 2006 Posts: 29

zardoz · Lifetime Member Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 76

How do these symptoms differ from those when the car charger is faulty and delivers over-voltage to the unit and fries it?

Eldar · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:32 am Post subject:

It doesn't happen to 300/500/700 series, otherwise they don't differ.

zardoz · Lifetime Member Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 76

@Eldar

Please could you give me the technical reasoning behind your statement?

Are the TTG x00 series internally protected or does the "new" charger design not use a sense wire?

Thanks.

Eldar · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:04 am Post subject:

The only reasons for the original charger breaking down was crap workmanship and schematics. Both have since been improved I haven't seen a single 300/500/700 series unit burnt by the original TomTom charger for this series.

zardoz · Lifetime Member Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 76

Many thanks for the response. Basically it means, don't attempt to use an old GO charger on the new series because there is still the risk of destruction then. Now I know what to steer clear of when looking at junk sales. Smile

Eldar · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:18 am Post subject:

indeed, I'm seeing more and more of the old GO units destoyed by the charger.

Oldboy · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:00 pm Post subject:

The later Classic chargers were OK. They were marked 24/12V DC.

The early ones were 12V DC.
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