What is the outside reasonable time to pick up satellites--the longest you wait? We may have a sick GPS.

Which one do you have? I've seen some complaints on the newer Garmins.

IIRC Garmin decided to optimize one way which led to longer intial locks. If you haven't upgraded the unit software it's worth trying.

How long depends on the last time it was used and how far away. Getting on a plane across the ocean is an extreme case and would force the thing to download all the satellite info. OTOH just having it off for a few days and driving across town before turning it off would be slower then turning it on every day.

Nick, we have a garmin 770. It was unacceptable slow sometimes for a while--15 minutes or so by which time we were lost.

I did call Garmin and they walked through some steps and downloading a whole bunch of updates. Since then (3 days ago), it has improved very, very much. Usually it connects from immediately to 3 minutes. A couple of times it has been 4 (we test it every time we go out even though we don't need to be using it then.) If 8 out of 10 times it is quite good and 2 out of 10 it is 3-4 minutes, is this normal?

Jane, I don't know whether my experience will be relevant. I have Garmin loaded on my Blackberry. It takes maybe 30 seconds to load up and be ready to navigate. It often tries to navigate before I have back the car down my hilly driveway!

Marian, ours does it as quickly much of the time but then there are the slower times. I wonder if we need to send it in for repair. Ideas anyone?

I think you're seeing the 7xx series slow times. I want to say it's more sensitive to placement then the other models. If you're really worried you could consider an external antenna.

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=102346

That thread claims upgrade 2.6 enables some things but it takes a few days for the change to show up. You might want to check that thread. They're talking about 15 second times.

Nick, thanks for the link. It was very interesting reading and I wish I had seen it before buying the 770. Mine is much better since doing the upgrade but not as good as I would hope for. One guy said he sent his back and they sent a new one that worked better. Maybe I will call them to ask for the same thing.

We have the Garmin Nuvi 750 and it syncs in less than three minutes upon initial boot, less on subsequent power ups after the initial sync. We didn't have any problems with it in Provence. With all the driving we did in mountains and gorges, we usually had 15-20 ft accuracy at all times.

Tonight ours took 10 minutes for initial start up. We'll call Monday and ask for a replacement. Will report back on the success.

Sorry to hear your GPS is still giving you problems, Jane. Hope you get some resolution today. DH wanted me to update that the sync times I posted were after we did the firmware update which he thinks made a tremendous difference.

Alana,we just did the upgrade last week--the one that was dated March 7. Is this the one your husband is talking about. The term firmware has me a little confused. Thanks for help.
Jane

Jane, I'm not sure if I can be of any help. I have the Garmin Nuvi 370 and so far it has taken on average about 3-4 minutes max to acquire the statellites. Ten minutes seems way too long in my opinion. I think you're right to bring it back.

Hope it works out for you.

Yes, Jane, that's the upgrade he was talking about. Sorry to hear it didn't solve your woes as easily as ours.

I like this definition that I just found for firmware, here .

quote:

Software stored in read-only memory (ROM) or programmable ROM (PROM). Easier to change than hardware but harder than software stored on disk. Firmware is often responsible for the behavior of a system when it is first switched on.

I think that maybe it is OK now. If I am outside it starts quickly--it just doesn't do well inside even though it is by a window with clear, non-obscured outside light and skies.