Help! Is my Garmin eTrex getting ready to crash?

[+Pathfinders4]

We're three days away from GeoWoodstock 5 and my Garmin eTrex has just started this odd "quirk".

 

Periodically during normal operations, it gets these horizontal lines across the screen. The screen is still visible, but it looks like it's going to phase out. It does it while on the car jack and when outside of the car on battery power. Batteries are new. It's done it in several locations over the last couple of days, so it's not power lines, microwaves, aliens (sunspots??) I have had no problem with coord accuracy (at least, not outside of the usual problems I have when caching), but this is something very recent.

 

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Is the unit getting ready to head to the "great Cache in the sky"?? Is there anything I can do or will Garmin have to take a look at it?

 

Any help will be appreciated.

 

Pathfinders4

[+Miragee]

That seems to happen somewhat regularly to the eTrex models and happened to my old monochrome Vista.

[+Haffy]

Yes unfortunately this seems to be a common problem with the Etrex's but if you want to check out a home repair, it can be fixed, as I have repaired mine using this tutorial. http://home.triad.rr.com/ralloh/Vista%20LED%20Repair.pdf

[+Timpat]

Do not fear. It will continue to work for you and will for a long time. This happened to my 7 yr old Legend, and I just give it a good stiff whack and it stops that nonsense for a while. The ribbon connector inside is the cause.

[+JohnTee]

What a relief to know that my eTrex Legend is not about to die! I've had the screen broken up with lines, seems like both vertical or horizontal and had the display just gray out, then come back. I'll have to play with the idea of disassembly . . .

 

JohnTee

[+Pathfinders4]

Thanks all.

 

Got a hold of Garmin Tech support by phone and email. They hooked me up with a software update and a master reset and, I think, I'm good to hook!! Will keep all the advice in mind should it happen again. (I still may use this as a good excuse to "upgrade"!!) PF4

[+allory]

The thin horizontal lines on mine will alway clear up if I toggle the backlight on and off.

[+KG GeoCachers]

Great timing on this question! This has been happening to my Garmin Legend.

 

I just pounded the thing as TimPak suggested and it went away immediatly! I'll looking into the other fixes, too.

 

THANKS ! ! ! ! But no thanks, I wanted to upgrade to a 60Cx!

[+Train_Man]

I used to have a legend, did something similar. I upgraded to a 60CSx. I did an update and reset the unit, and sorry to say but it probably won't help permanently. Might help it for a week. But the good news is it's just the screen, and as long as you can hit it or do something to make it work, it shouldn't affect the GPS feature!

[+303-Acid]

I recently bought a second eTrex Legend cheap that was advertised as having the line problem. I had read about them having this problem and downloaded the above pdf. I opened it up and the display ribbon was partly coming out. So I popped it back in and it's working as new. I can't see it being still waterproof, but I ran some tape around the seem to help out.

 

If it's out of warranty definitely give the fix in the pdf a go. There's no soldering to be done!

 

The hitting probably just pushes it back in a little.