splevy

Member
My trusty 396 is showing an odd failure mode. It was not used for about six months, and when I tried to turn it on the battery appeared to be dead. Okay, that's fixable, and I usually use ship's power anyway.

However, when powered externally it shows a date and time in October 2013 and it never seems to lock onto any satellites to restore the ephemeris or even find the correct time. It does bring up one green bar but never any more. As far as functioning, all the buttons and menus seem to be working. I powered it on for several hours a few times on different days with the same results.

I did replace the internal battery about two years ago to fix the slow acquisition problem, but at least then even with the bad cell it would lock up in ten minutes or so.

Maybe it's time to upgrade, but if there is some way to restore it I would like to try. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Stan
 
Hold down the "out" button while turning the unit on. Once the Garmin logo comes up you can release the "out" button and the unit will go i9nto a "quick acquire" mode. This works for me.