Hard Reset

[OneTwoSierra]

How do you do a 'hard reset' on the Garmin 396? I've got an issue where my battery isn't charging but the unit says "Charge Complete".

Thanks for the help,
bs

[IowaRV9Dreamer]

you take out the battery for 10 seconds. My 296 often won't powerup - it just chirps once and sits there dead, even though the battery is full. A hard reset always fixes Seems to happen a lot more often now that I have upgraded the firmware to 4.4

This is why IFR GPS receivers require DO-178 certified software.

[OneTwoSierra]

Well, mine's toast. The battery is dead (confirmed with multimeter, .1 volt) and it won't charge. Works fine with external power, but it always says 'charge complete'.

Any sage wisdom?

Could it just be that the battery is fried?

[lucaberta]

Googling around I found a very interesting page with some hidden commands for the Garmin 2xx/3xx4xx series units:

http://home.online.no/~sigurdhu/GPSm...C_commands.htm

Beware, you're on your own if you use these commands! YMMV.

Ciao, Luca

[lucaberta]

Originally Posted by OneTwoSierra

Well, mine's toast. The battery is dead (confirmed with multimeter, .1 volt) and it won't charge. Works fine with external power, but it always says 'charge complete'.

Any sage wisdom?

Could it just be that the battery is fried?

yes, 0.1V is a clear indication that the battery has died. Any chance you could try your GPS with another battery from a friend's unit?

Looks like the replacement battert can be bought directly from Garmin at $59.99:

http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp...0%2D10517%2D01

Maybe other shops can offer it for less.

Ciao, Luca

[OneTwoSierra]

Just called Garmin and what great service! They're sending me a replacement battery next day air at no charge. And I didn't even have to ask for that.

I just got the unit in June of this year, and they said they had an issue with older units and software versions that kind of puzzled their engineers - that the software in the battery and the software in the unit didn't like each other.
My software was 3.2 and he said they hadn't had any reports of issues this recently, but they want me to ship them my battery so they can confirm what the problem is.

I appreciate all the great info already posted on this thread.

[lucaberta]

The current firmware for the 396 is 3.60, available here:

http://www.garmin.com/support/collec...t=010-00425-00

The release notes between 3.20 and 3.60 are as follows:

Changes made from version 3.50 to 3.60:

* Corrected display of communication frequency displayed on Airport and Nearest pages for airports that have multiple Unicom or Multicom frequencies.
* Corrected issue that could cause the odometer field value to become inaccurate.
* Corrected occasional unit shutdown during powerup.
* Improved Aviation In communication format by preventing duplicate waypoints from being added to the route when the remote unit is navigating a procedure turn.
* Improved address search when using postal codes.

Changes made from version 3.40 to 3.50:

* Corrected issue that could cause flights to be recorded while driving on land when the unit is in aviation mode.
* Improved alerting for airspace with upper or lower bounds specified as AGL.

Changes made from version 3.30 to 3.40:

* Corrected selection of duplicate aviation identifiers.

Changes made from version 3.20 to 3.30:

* Improved display of TFR times between 12:00 PM and 12:59 PM.
* Improved airport tower frequency display processing for airports with more than one tower frequency available.

Nothing really major I'd say, but if I were you I would always run the latest code on your unit. That's what I do with my 296.

Ciao, Luca

[OneTwoSierra]

Yes, thank you. I had already upgraded to 3.6 last night trying to fix the issue and no dice.