Garmin GPS III Plus initial startup screen just flashes on then off

Discussion in 'Garmin GPS' started by robroy, Feb 23, 2021.

  1. robroy

    robroy

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    Like so many others I am quite fond of my old GPS III Plus but now have a problem with it. It hadn't been used for a while but I decided to fire it up. Initially the screen was incomplete with missing columns of dots but they are all back now. Read on various sites about the internal battery so changed that out. New battery is putting out 2.9v now as opposed to 0.75v of the old one.
    When I power up on batteries, car lead or using my mains adaptor the initial "splash" screen comes up with Garmin copyright 1998-2002 but then just goes off instantaneously. No combination of other buttons when powering up seems to overcome this.
    However, if I press the Enter key when powering up I am taken to a test page as per this pic below. If I press the quit or page key I can scroll through 3 other pages that just seem to be screen test pages. I haven't seen any messages regarding ROM or RAM failure. The test page below suggests that everything is working ok I think...?
    Anyone have ideas as to what the problem might be or how I overcome it? Would like to bring the unit back to life as it is fine for my needs.
    gps 3 test screen.jpg
     
    robroy, Feb 23, 2021
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  2. robroy

    Nuvi-Nebie Moderator

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    Did the unit perform the same before and after internal battery replacement?

    It may have a corrupted map file, do you connect the unit to a computer for file transfer?
     
    Nuvi-Nebie, Feb 23, 2021
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  3. robroy

    robroy

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    Hi Nuvi Neubie, It behaved like this before battery replacement which was why i went down that route, full of hope.
    I haven’t done any file transfers with it. Certainly not recently and can’t remember doing them when i got it back around 2002. Only have a serial cable connection for it but no pc with a serial port these days.
     
    robroy, Feb 23, 2021
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  4. robroy

    Nuvi-Nebie Moderator

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    I have only had a couple of units that only has a serial interface ( no USB) and neither of them supported maps so I've never used a serial interface to transfer maps, however the Garmin GPS III page does say map sections can be transfered from Garmin Mapsource to this unit

    I think there may be a corrupted file on your unit but even with a serial cable and a USB to Serial converter for connection to a modern computer, I'm not sure how much could be achieved when connecting to a computer running Garmin Mapsource
     
    Nuvi-Nebie, Feb 23, 2021
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  5. robroy

    robroy

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    Hi Nuvi-Nebie
    Thanks for the advice. I have ordered up a serial to USB converter cable so will see what I can do if anything.
    cheers
     
    robroy, Feb 25, 2021
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