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Colorado 300 & Maps


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I have a Colorado 300, and Topo 2008. I'm trying to put the lower 48 states on one 4 gig SD card though Mapsource and it takes forever. I have not completed it yet. So I tried a 1 gig SD card and a map of the Southeast 486 meg . When I turn on the 300 it starts loading and then just fades away and turns off. Is my unit defective? I have used three diffrent SD cards 4,2,1 gig . The only card that I have sucessfully loaded maps on and use was anold 32meg SD card . What's the deal?

Thanks for any help!

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I have a Colorado 300, and Topo 2008. I'm trying to put the lower 48 states on one 4 gig SD card though Mapsource and it takes forever. I have not completed it yet. So I tried a 1 gig SD card and a map of the Southeast 486 meg . When I turn on the 300 it starts loading and then just fades away and turns off. Is my unit defective? I have used three diffrent SD cards 4,2,1 gig . The only card that I have sucessfully loaded maps on and use was anold 32meg SD card . What's the deal?

Thanks for any help!

 

I too have a Colorado 300 and have purchased a 4 gb SD card to load maps. It's been a real struggle to load mapsets up to 2 gb onto the card using the Colorado as a mass storage device. I've all but given up as it takes far too long and the map transfer fails constantly. What I suggest,which is what I'm doing,is purchase an inexpensive SD card reader and load your maps using it instead. It loads the maps faster on my 512 mb card,of which I'm using close to the capacity of the card and it completes the process without failures or errors.

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I got the whole NA NT 2008 and the Texas part of Topo 2008 loaded on a 4 GB card and it works fine so far.

 

All of Topo 2008 will not load on a card -- too many map segments. There is a work-around using some 3rd party tools, but I haven't tried them yet.

 

If you get an SD card reader and use it to load the maps, rather than the Colorado and the USB cable, building and transferring the maps will go much faster.

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Wanted to get a some feedback from more experienced and knowledgable members on the question of loading maps? Why is it,as noted in my previous post,it took me about such a short time to load mapsets up to the limit of my 512 mb SD card using a card reader(10 minutes for mapsets from Metroguide Canada,North America and Europe),yet it takes all day to load 2 gb of those same maps? I just don't get it!

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If you have the card in your Colorado, it communicates and transfers data very slowly -- I think it uses the USB 1.0 standard. Using an SD card reader that uses the later 2.0 (faster) USB standard you can get things done faster. Your computer speed factors in as well.

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Wanted to get a some feedback from more experienced and knowledgable members on the question of loading maps? Why is it,as noted in my previous post,it took me about such a short time to load mapsets up to the limit of my 512 mb SD card using a card reader(10 minutes for mapsets from Metroguide Canada,North America and Europe),yet it takes all day to load 2 gb of those same maps? I just don't get it!

 

There two parts involved in getting maps to your Colorado using Mapsource:

 

1) Building the files

2) Transferring the data.

 

As qlenfg has already mentioned 2) is made much faster by using a USB2.0 card reader instead of using the Colorado's native USB1.1 interface.

 

1) Doesn't depend on whether you are using USB 1.1 or 2.0 it is determined by the performance of your computer and the number of map segments you are building. I have noticed that the increase in time is not linear with respect to the number of map segments. In other words the time it takes to build a map set with 1000 map segments is not 2x a mapset with 500 segments it is something more like 4x or 8x (I'm guessing here, just using numbers to illustrate).

 

GO$Rs

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Wanted to get a some feedback from more experienced and knowledgable members on the question of loading maps? Why is it,as noted in my previous post,it took me about such a short time to load mapsets up to the limit of my 512 mb SD card using a card reader(10 minutes for mapsets from Metroguide Canada,North America and Europe),yet it takes all day to load 2 gb of those same maps? I just don't get it!

 

There two parts involved in getting maps to your Colorado using Mapsource:

 

1) Building the files

2) Transferring the data.

 

As qlenfg has already mentioned 2) is made much faster by using a USB2.0 card reader instead of using the Colorado's native USB1.1 interface.

 

1) Doesn't depend on whether you are using USB 1.1 or 2.0 it is determined by the performance of your computer and the number of map segments you are building. I have noticed that the increase in time is not linear with respect to the number of map segments. In other words the time it takes to build a map set with 1000 map segments is not 2x a mapset with 500 segments it is something more like 4x or 8x (I'm guessing here, just using numbers to illustrate).

 

GO$Rs

 

Your comment about the non-linear results of different sizes of map sets is very interesting. It was driving me crazy,as I'm always looking for explainations for things I don't understand. Do you have a theory on why this is?

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Your comment about the non-linear results of different sizes of map sets is very interesting. It was driving me crazy,as I'm always looking for explainations for things I don't understand. Do you have a theory on why this is?

 

Not really, the internal software algorithms that Mapsource uses to build a maps just aren't linear for some reason. Could be because of poor design or just because of some inherent processing that must be done to build a map set that doesn't scale linearly.

 

GO$Rs

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I've also had problems loading Topo Norwegian Topo Pro maps which I've reported earlier and now tested with firmware 2.4:

 

The Topo Pro maps in Norway are divided and sold in 20 maps:

 

Topo Pro cd 1 - Stavanger

Topo Pro cd 2 - Kristiandsand

-

-

Topo Pro cd 20 ....

 

When I download 9 or more norwegian topo pro maps to my Colorado 300 (sd card) the GPS perfoms a auto shutoff when I select Map/Options/Select Map. (Sometimes also auto shutoff when I select map)

 

Other experiance exact the same problem. For those who understand norwegian see:

http://www.gps.no/mbbs2/forums/thread-view...004&posts=3

 

It seems to be a limit in numbers of maps that the GPS can handle. After what I can see this a serious matter in the firmware. I have used the latest firmware and different kinds of 2 gb SD cards. ( I've have also tried these sd cars and maps on my Nuvi 660 without problems! 9 Norwegian Topo Pro maps is less than 1gb.)

Edited by ohoi
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Your comment about the non-linear results of different sizes of map sets is very interesting. It was driving me crazy,as I'm always looking for explainations for things I don't understand. Do you have a theory on why this is?

 

Not really, the internal software algorithms that Mapsource uses to build a maps just aren't linear for some reason. Could be because of poor design or just because of some inherent processing that must be done to build a map set that doesn't scale linearly.

 

GO$Rs

 

Its probably like a jigsaw puzzle. A 1000 piece puzzle will take more than 10x longer to put together than a 100 piece puzzle.

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I have the Colorado 400T with 2.04 bios. It comes with Topo 08 installed, but just last night I purchased the City Navigator North America DVD and installed all maps on my unit. The total file size was about 1.8 gigs. I am guessing my experience should be simmular to yours. I used a new 4 gig Scandisk SDHC card ($38 US Comp USA). This is the high speed card. I chose it because I have heard horror stories about load times with regular cards (8 plus hours). As is, the entire process took me about an hour an a half. I used the GPSr today and it worked fine.

 

Observations:

 

When I first tried connecting with Mapsource to the connected unit, it said I did not have room. This is because I need to choose the SD card of my connected unit from a drop down menu. When first loading, Mapsource defaults to the hard GPSr itself not the card. There simply wasn't enough room on the unit's hard memory for all that data. Make sure you select the right card/drive from the menu.

 

Before connecting the GPSr I tried loading directly on the card with my computers card reader. I got an I/O error as my reader does not recognize newer high speed cards. I had to clear the I/O error before I could anything else.

 

While the maps were loading to the connected GPSr's card I notice my computer about maxed out on resources and the core heated up quite a bit. My box is a P4 @ 3ghz with 2 gigs of fast physical memory and XP. I can see were computers with less horsepower may have a problem.

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I have a Colorado 300, and Topo 2008. I'm trying to put the lower 48 states on one 4 gig SD card though Mapsource and it takes forever. I have not completed it yet. So I tried a 1 gig SD card and a map of the Southeast 486 meg . When I turn on the 300 it starts loading and then just fades away and turns off. Is my unit defective? I have used three diffrent SD cards 4,2,1 gig . The only card that I have sucessfully loaded maps on and use was anold 32meg SD card . What's the deal?

Thanks for any help!

I've had the fade away problem. Garmin told me to replace the unit, I'm moving onto my third colorado 300.........
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..... Garmin told me to replace the unit, I'm moving onto my third colorado 300.........

 

It seems to me that most of you who own the Colorado 300 are the one's having all the trouble. B) My suggestion is to replace it with a Colorado 400t. :ph34r: I've haven't heard about any problems with them so far. :laughing: Only my 2cents worth. Anyone have change? ;)

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1) Building the files

 

This time is also influenced by type of maps.

A map with routing information takes longer time to transfer than maps without.

Just try to remove routing from City Navigator and you will see faster transfer.

 

I have problem to transfer more than 2GB on my portable (it shuts down), but on the stationary 3.8GB works OK.

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The Colorado 300 UK.

 

The work to fill my 2GB SD card is dependant on the Software:-

 

Stage one - on the PC [building and indexing].

1-MetroGuide or Topo with small maptiles takes far longer than CityNavigator with big maptiles.

2-The time taken is dependent on the PC's capability not the SD card.

 

Stage two the transfer of the file is dependent on whether:-

1-You use the unit

2-A card reader

 

2GB Card 1.8GB of maps

So on my old PC it took three hours for stage one with MetroGuide.

On my new PC 65 minutes.

On my new PC CityNavigator 55 minutes.

 

The transfer to the SD card takes no more than 30 minutes whatever maps I transfer by card reader!

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:) Thanks for all the responces,

And after many tries to figure out this problem, I relized that I may caused much of it myself .I had loaded from Mapsource Topo 2008 all of the Southeast section of the USA onto my internal memory of the 300 . I thought I had deleted the maps from the internal memory but in fact I had NOT. When I loaded the Southeast on the SD card and placed into the slot on hte 300 and turned it on ,that's when I had the screen fade ,followed by a shutdown. With the Southeast USA from Topo 2008 loaded on the internal memory AND on the SD card , when I powered the 300 up ,I had screen fade and shutdown . So I went back in and found the Topo 2008 file on the internal memory and deleted it . Now I have no problem reading maps from the 4 gig , or any other cards I have . I suppose the 300 did not like the same maps on the internal and SD card memory!

With all that said I'm still have problems loading the Lower 48 States on the 4 gig SD card . The file is about 3.2 gig . I think my laptop computer is too slow and not enough ram memory.

 

Thanks Again ,

Gerbie53

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