Earlier this month my Etrex Legend Cx starting acting up on my trip to the UP. I had it in the car to give us an ETA for Munising. Every now and then is would start beeping and changing screens on it own, and starting to "recalculate route" and other crap. This was about 7 hours into our drive.

Thursday last week I had to drive about 520 miles in one day for work. Again, about 6-7 hours into my drive is started acting up, only this time is started plotting me about 1/4 mile off the interstate, so it kept doing the "recalculating" thing over and over and over and over.

I got to thinking that maybe it was getting hot. So I turned it off for about an hour (I was on my way home and was using it again just to get an ETA). After it cooled down it worked just fine.

Im guessing that this model acts up when it gets hot due to being on for a long time. This, combined with having it mounted on the windshield and having the defrosters on.

Anyone else run into this? Could be an issue you want to know about. I still recommend this unit though. It's been very good to me otherwise.

Tony

Tony - We have a few of the color eTrex units (Legend and Vista) in our group and have not seen this. None of them run the unit in a situation where they could get as hot (like by the defrosters as you describe).

Any chance the view was being obstructed on the windshield (the coated glass; snow/ice/etc)? I could see that causing it to "hop" around when it loses satellite lock (my older 60C will do the same when on the seat of the truck).

Jeramey,

I had it in the same spot on the windshield I always do. The only common factor I could think of is it was turned on for 7 hours. I drove from my house to Mt. Clemens, and when I had my meeting I left it turned on in the car. Then on my way back on 696 it started acting up by plotting me way off the highway. The only other time is plotted me off the highway was when I was in Florida. I had been in Alaska using it, then the next time I turned it on I was in Florida. It took about 15 minutes for it to plot me on the highway I was on, but I attribute that to the gps connecting with the different satellites for that area.

Tony

The extended use and higher heat could certainly have something to do with it. I'll check around, be interesting if others see it in the same situation with that model.

I've had 2 Legend Cx units for the last couple of years & never had anything like this happen. Sorry can't help.

Well it died today and won't come back on. I'm going to email Garmin for help. It's about 14 months old, so I'm probably screwed as far as coverage, but I'm going to give it a try.

Worked fine all the way to Traverse City, Michigan on Friday (about 4 hour drive). Turned it on this morning in the hotel room to see what restuarants were close by. It hadn't yet locked on to any satellites, then the screen went blank. won't come back on under any circumstances anymore...

Tony

One easy thing to try is to remove the SD card. I have a 60csx, and it got really fouled up by a bad SD card. It had problems powering on/off, displayed strange things and all kind of wierd problems . It worked fine when the card was removed.

Give that a shot. It may not fix it, but it is certainly an easy thing to try.

I use this to solve issues I have with my eXplorist XL and a Garmin 76CSx. Both will lock up from time to time, and the only way to get them working is to pull the Batteries, eject the card, replace the batteries, boot the GPSr (it now will work fine), shut it down, put the sd card back in and turn it on for use. It seems to happen to all 6 of the sd cards I have, even tried 1 map at a time to keep it simple, but it still happens now and then.

I called Garmin. The way to reset the Legend Cx is to press the page button, the power button and the joystick button at the same time. But that didn't work. So they are going to repair or replace it free of charge. They also said that they are sending me a new power cord because they think it may have caused the problem. I'm glad I bought the Garmin cord. This unit is about 14 months old, so I'm happy that it's going to be covered under warranty.

Tony