Thread: 496 GPS taking longer to find satellites

My 496 is taking longer and longer to find the satellites. Recently it pops up a menu, asking me if I want simulator mode or to keep searching. So far, I ask it to keep searching and it eventually finds the birds, but definitely more slowly than it used to. Any ideas? WF

There is a way to reset the system. Someone might correct me if I'm wrong so someone jump in. Someone here will know for sure and chime in. My 296 had that problem in the beginning and Garmin sent me a new antenna.

Her read this link it tells you what you want to know.

http://home.online.no/~sigurdhu/GPSmap- ... mmands.htm

the issue is a small battery, keeps up the clock.

i think the fix is to send it to garmin for replacement.

mine went last winter, you can hold in the out button till you "agree" this will allow the unit to find satellites quickly. after it acquires sats it will update the time. when it is confused on the time it is also confused on where to expect to see which sats.

recently my big battery went and my unit went down, replacing it was easy and the unit is fine, cept it still needs a new clock battery.

I had start up issues with a GPS396. Check the clock just after turn-on, before it finds satellites.
If the clock is wrong, it is likely the internal button battery has died. Factory had me
try running the unit 8 hrs in Simulator mode and display dimmed to charge battery.
Didn't help. Had me hold the Out button during startup, until Enter shown for maps.
This reset the almanac, force a long acquire cycle. Didn't help. There is apparently
no display of internal battery voltage, the clock is the only symptom.

I finally returned the unit and got a new one under warranty. This one has a 9
digit bar code serial number; maybe a new design.

Last fall, the service fee was $350 so I hope yours is under warranty.
Don't attempt to open it. There are very fragile connectors inside, and
the battery has special welded tabs so solder temperature doesn't damage it.
And the battery is only available in Europe.
(don't ask me how I know...)

The clock on mine seems to know the right time immediately when I start it up on battery power, so I guess that means its not the clock battery? The problem of taking a long time to find satellites just gets worse, and the last two flights it was an hour before the dang thing figured them out, and on shorter flights in sometimes never does Last flight, after two hours it finally came up. There is only one connection to the antennae and that seems to be clean. My next thing is to take it out and update the software, but I can't think of anything else to do.

- WF

WF,

Go ahead and update the software first just to bring it up where it should be and the software update might help. Some of these updates fixed some off the things like dropping to comm link. Then do a hard reboot. I believe it is the out button and the power button. If I'm wrong on the buttons someone will chime in.

I've had that problem, every so often. It's been discussed here a lot. There could be several different issues or fixes. Some folks have ended up sending theirs back for the battery fix. I just recently updated my firmware, as there was a bunch of updates over the holidays. Garmin techs told me one of the things they changed was the way it relocated satellites after being off for a while. After updating, so far, it hasn't taken more than 5 minutes to grab the satellites, and usually much faster.

In the past, I could shorten the acquisition time by first going into the diagnostic mode. You do that (memory help me...) by turning the unit on with the Enter key pressed. You'll see a multi-colored screen with all sorts of tests listed. After about 30 seconds, all the tests are done, and I'd turn the unit off and back on.... the satellites would be acquired quickly after that. Elsewhere here (avionics, I think) there is a discussion of the problem, including a couple of reset sequences and charging tricks that are known to sometimes fix the problem.

Tim

Software update seems to have fit the bill. The 496 is working great again! WF

Software update seems to be the fix ! - WF