Today I was at the trailhead, pulled it out of my pack, held down the power button. No response. I tried several times, scratched my head thinking that I was sure I had charged it, but I must be wrong and the battery must be dead.
I got home and connected the charging cable I always use. No response. The unit won't power up with a cable connected and several tries holding down the power button. I try a different cable and power source with no better results.
I check on the warranty. It has a 1 year warranty. I need to call Garmin support and see if they can help me.
So --- after writing all this I decide to plug in the cable again, figuring I would let it "charge" overnight and hope for the best. But as soon as I plug the cable in, the garmin logo appears on the screen and in a few seconds it fires up! I pull the cable and tell it to shut down. Now I use the power button and it starts up just like normal. It shows the battery at about 90 percent.
I don't know what to say. I would be tempted to think the power button/switch is getting flakey, but it refused to fire up when I plugged the cable in like it should have.
The fading out on a bump is new information. I suspect the unit is running, but the screen is the issue. Quite possibly me trying button pushes ends up turning it off. But I really don't know what is going on. The main thing is I am 3 out of 3 for taking it on hikes and having it fail me.
The cost including $11 for shipping and $16 for tax comes to $281.
The seller description is:
This unit is approximately three years old and rarely used. No scratches and includes an attachment clip and flotation ring.It's on the way. I still may talk to Garmin about having my original unit repaired.
The unit looks absolutely perfect, new, and unused. The battery is about 50 percent charged. I plug it into a charger and that will do for a first checkout.
Tom's backpacking pages / tom@mmto.org