Montana 700 series crashing and freezing.

[TonyR]

*** formatting updated to comply with forum posting guidelines ***

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am onto my third Montana; I returned the first unit (700i) under warranty as it kept crashing whether it was in the car cradle or in my hand. That means that when Garmin advised of a fix that meant modifying the dampeners in the cradle, my first thought was they were barking up the wrong tree, so to speak and so it was.

My second unit was also a 700i, it became apparent soon after delivery that the problem was in all units because this until behaved the same as the last one. I am not a computer guru or specialist but I am an air traffic controller and ships navigator by trade and have been using Garmin since it's conception, so as an end user who knows how to put these units through their paces, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the processors or cache in these units cannot handle the load.

That being my suspicion, I asked for a refund on my second 700i and bought a 700 thinking that since the unit had less 'unnecessary' junk in it's programming, it might be able to handle the load. BUT, even with Bluetooth turned off as well as topo map, the unit freezes up and shuts down. To confirm my suspicion on the incapability of the units processing power, I tried what I have been able to do on just about every model I have previously owned, and that is, to zoom out on the map page to the point where the whole of Australia would show on the screen and see how much info the unit is able to process. Eureka, never got anywhere near showing Eastern Australia, no matter how many times I tried....IT DOES NOT HAVE THE PROCESSING POWER.

Garmin, I don't know whether this time you have tried to cut costs by going 'el cheapo' or it has been a tragic mistake by your engineering side but you must look at the issue mentioned here and do what you can to pacify your client base before they turn elsewhere. You have a great reputation, always have had and we realize that mistakes are made regardless of who!

[LostAgain]

From my own experiences, compared to something like a 276CX, the 700 I find quite responsive and it does shut itself down occasionally both in and out of a powered mount.
I'm on my second 700, Garmin replaced the first one because of a map redraw issue at low speeds that wasn't fixed with the new device but was since fixed.

Spoiler

https://www.gpsrchive.com/Discussion/vi ... php?t=1233

I just tried zooming out on my 700 from the scale of 300 metres out to the maximum of 800 kilometres it takes about 10 seconds to display the map correctly with the Oz-Toppo-V6 Australia/New Zealand, ShonkyMaps and the OpenMapChest Australia/New Zealand, only one activated at a time and the basemap turned off.
I always use only landscape mode for the display and always have the basemap disabled.

If I zoom to a scale of 200 KM, which pretty much shows all of Queensland, then change the active map from ShonkyMaps to Oz-Toppo-V6, it takes about 10 seconds, if I then change the map to the OpenMapChest map it takes 4 to 5 seconds to display correctly.
Swapping from one map to the other the times remain consistent.
Did this test both inside without a satellite connection and outside with a connection, GPS & Glonass.

Software Version 19.00
GPS Software Version 2.90
Display Software Version 85.07

Map Settings:
Dashboard - Corner Data Fields
Orientation - Track Up
Guidance Text - Never
Auto Zoom - Off
Shaded Relief - Do Not Show
Map Speed - Fast
Detail - Most
Text Size - All Large
Zoom Levels - User Waypoints 20KM, the rest Auto
Vehicle - a custom arrow I made myself

My shutdown issue is unfortunately not repeatable and I haven't bothered with the mount upgrade kit, though I have read a few instances around the web of users stating the upgrade kit for the powered mounts was not solving the issue.

[Przekątny]

I just tried zooming out on my 700 from the scale of 300 metres out to the maximum of 800 kilometres it takes about 10 seconds to display the map correctly with the Oz-Toppo-V6 Australia/New Zealand, ShonkyMaps and the OpenMapChest Australia/New Zealand, only one activated at a time and the basemap turned off.
I always use only landscape mode for the display and always have the basemap disabled.

You should turn on the base map, at a zoom of about 5 km the detailed map
will be replaced by the base map - in general the map will be refreshed faster.

[LostAgain]

You should turn on the base map, at a zoom of about 5 km the detailed map
will be replaced by the base map - in general the map will be refreshed faster.

I see the basemap take over at 80 KM scale on my 700, regardless of what other map is on at the time.
Anything below 80 KM and the base map is no longer visible.
I very rarely use the zoom further out than about 3 KM anyway, mostly it's at 200 or 300 metres 99.99% of the time so I leave the basemap off.

[Przekątny]

I don't know the structure of the mapOz-Toppo-V6 Australia/New Zealand, ShonkyMaps and OpenMapChest Australia/,
but the speed of drawing the map largely depends on the correct structure of the map, level "0" contains all map elements, each subsequent level should be generalized (to simplify), the last level of the detailed map should correspond to the 5 km zoom in the device, at the 8 km zoom the base map will be turned on.

Two scenarios:

Basemap enabled - at a zoom of 8 km, the device will stop displaying the detailed map and will turn on the display of the basemap.

Base map disabled - the device still displays the last level of the detailed map at a zoom of 8 km or higher. The map, or rather its last level, with the level of detail intended for a 5 km zoom is displayed at a 200 km or 300 km zoom, which slows down the map drawing.

I see the basemap take over at 80 KM scale on my 700, regardless of what other map is on at the time.

Change "Map Detail" to Normal or Lower

[LostAgain]

I don't know the structure of the mapOz-Toppo-V6 Australia/New Zealand, ShonkyMaps and OpenMapChest Australia/,
but the speed of drawing the map largely depends on the correct structure of the map, level "0" contains all map elements, each subsequent level should be generalized (to simplify), the last level of the detailed map should correspond to the 5 km zoom in the device, at the 8 km zoom the base map will be turned on.

Two scenarios:

Basemap enabled - at a zoom of 8 km, the device will stop displaying the detailed map and will turn on the display of the basemap.

Base map disabled - the device still displays the last level of the detailed map at a zoom of 8 km or higher. The map, or rather its last level, with the level of detail intended for a 5 km zoom is displayed at a 200 km or 300 km zoom, which slows down the map drawing.

I see the basemap take over at 80 KM scale on my 700, regardless of what other map is on at the time.

Change "Map Detail" to Normal or Lower

Thanks but I'm not changing anything, I have my 700 working about as good as I can get it for what I use it for with it's current settings.

I tested my 276CX and Montana 610 by turning their basemaps on, and when using the same maps as I did on the 700 I see the same thing, the basemap starts displaying at 80 KM on each device, anything less then whatever map is selected displays instead.

The info in my first post I put up as perhaps a way TonyR could confirm if they saw the same behaviour I did when using the same map settings I was, or whether it was something different with their device.

[Przekątny]

The info in my first post I put up as perhaps a way TonyR could confirm if they saw the same behaviour I did when using the same map settings I was, or whether it was something different with their device.

The extended drawing time of a detailed map at 8000 km is not just a feature of the Montana 700 device, in other devices it is similar.

If the function is performed not quite in accordance with the function of the receiver, often the effects can be strange, just like describing that in a specific car model in the fifth gear at 40 km/h there is vibrations - in the described situation vibrations occur in every car - Turn on the appropriate gear and the vibrations will cease.

The base map (enabled) allows you to quickly operate the map when we want to move the map to a considerable distance (reduction of the zoom, move the map over a considerable distance and approximation) increases the speed of such action.
Of course, it can be said that I do not need it, but the manufacturer predicted that such a need may occur, and when the base map (turned off) there will be a problem with the time of drawing the map.