Hard Reset

[+DustyWalker]

Okay- stop laughing. Anyone know how to do a hard reset on a Garmin 12XL? It belongs to a friend of mine and was working fine then out of the blue ceased to pick up any satellites. Or do you have any other ideas what may have caused this and how to fix it?

[8mmag]

Okay- stop laughing. Anyone know how to do a hard reset on a Garmin 12XL? It belongs to a friend of mine and was working fine then out of the blue ceased to pick up any satellites. Or do you have any other ideas what may have caused this and how to fix it?

 

Here you go...from HERE

 

"Special key startup sequences

The three keyboard keys on the right side of the unit have special significance if held down while powering on the unit. These keys are generally called page, mark, and enter. On the GIII units and some other units the center key is call menu but for our purposes it behaves the same. On Street Pilots the equivalent keyboard names will have to be used. These are page, option, and enter. See below for etrex and emap startup sequences. Other Garmin units typically have some of these special modes as well although the key sequences may be slightly different. I have documented some of them below.

 

Page - Holding the page key down while powering up the unit will cause an immediate forced cold start. On the street pilot this is the only way to observe the software revision level. On the G-III this is reported to lose the temperature compensation data.

 

Mark - Holding the mark key down while powering up will totally reset unit. You will lose all user supplied data and preferences. The machine will be set back to factory defaults. Be careful, there is no warning message. All data will be lost! To continue after a reset click here.

On some units this feature has been documented in the manual and will offer a warning message before erasing. However, some versions of software, even on these machines, do not offer the warning. Do not depend on the documentation here. Have everything of value backed up before trying this. The big plus of this feature is that this reset can fix problems with the unit that will avoid having to send it back to Garmin.

 

Note that setting back to factory defaults means everything. You will not only lose things that you can backup but also settings that you cannot. For example the user defined datum, the user defined grid, any preferences and datums that you have set up, any customization of any kind. The leap second data will be gone. The Garmin waypoint will reappear if you have erased it. You will not have any of the tuning that was performed to calibrate your unit at Garmin so expect poor initial lockup performance. You will need to have a clear view of the sky and re-collect a full almanac. This takes about 15 minutes.

 

Enter - Hold the enter key down while powering up the unit will cause a test mode screen to appear. This test screen is used at Garmin in final testing and calibration of the unit. Warning! Do not use this screen if your unit can get a lock onto satellites. It is possible that a real satellite may spoof the test mode into recalibrating the unit with the wrong data. No permanent damage will be done but you may experience a little longer lockup times or may even have to do a total cold start to get it running again. You may also experience continued longer lockup times for awhile while the unit re-calibrates itself under use. You can read this document for a discussion of this issue from Garmin. If your unit has a removeable antenna then unplugging the antenna is a good way to ensure that no lock can be obtained.

The test mode screen can appear automatically if the unit detects a failure during power up. You can use this mode to verify certain operations of the unit. For example hitting each key will cause the corresponding key in the display to darken. Hitting the enter key twice in a row (on some units it is the page key) will cause a graphic pixel test which could highlight any bad pixels in your display. Hitting the same key again will further test the display. Hitting the key one more time will return to the main test screen. One units that use the page key to perform this test you can use the quit key to perform the graphic test backwards. The power/lamp key will show both an indication and actually light the lamp.

 

Other displayed entries are specific to internal tests performed in final test but the temperature (in Celsius), the internal and external battery voltages, and the gps time can be useful. On the G-III+ and 12Map this mode will also display the version number of the software which has been removed from the start up screen. Some units report a Bravo Version which is the version of the hardware. On some units the status of the power on diagnostics can be viewed here.

 

While not obvious to an observer the test mode also starts the interface to emit PVT solutions in Garmin mode on units that support PVT output. Once started, this mode will continue even after a power off until you change it in the interface section by selecting "none". The fact that this command sets Garmin mode may be useful for other purposes as well. For example this may be a way to recover from a bad software load or even a corrupt map load. "

[+DustyWalker]

Thanks very much!

[8mmag]

Thanks very much!

 

You're welcome. So is tho 'ol boy breathing again?

[+DustyWalker]

I'm sorry to report that it didn't do the deed. Looks like it may be destined for the bone yard. He can buy a new unit for not much more than it would cost to repair it. Thanks anyway.

[8mmag]

I'm sorry to report that it didn't do the deed. Looks like it may be destined for the bone yard. He can buy a new unit for not much more than it would cost to repair it. Thanks anyway.

 

You know, before you declare a time of death, hook it up to an external antenna if you can. I have an old GPS45 I thought died, but it turns out just the antenna went south, not the whole GPS.

[+DustyWalker]

I'm not sure if he has access to one. I'll check. Thanks.