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Garmin Oregon 300/400 slow in cold weather


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This has happened to me twice now since the weather is getting colder.

I was out caching with my Oregon 400t and the outside weather was around freezing. The unit was attached to the strap on a case that I carry over my shoulder so was not in contact with my body. These were new, fully charged powerex batteries that I was using. When I went to click on an item on the touch screen it was sssoooo sssslllloooowwww in responding. At first I didn't see any response, then the item I touched was highlighted in blue and then it eventually went to the screen that it was supposed to go to. The time taken for this was in the neighbourhood of 30-60sec and was repeated on subsequent clicks of the screen. I then pulled the batteries to shut off the unit and rebooted it and the same thing occurred. I then pulled the batteries and warmed them up, warmed up the unit, replaced the batteries and it functioned okay the rest of the day as long as I kept it in my hand or in a warm area like my pocket.

I don't recall this happening last year and I don't recall having read about this in the forums.

Has anyone else seen this??

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A lcd works between x and y, I don't know exactly.

You say freezing outside, maybe the windchill made it a lot cooler?

Windchill does not make it any colder than it is. If the temp is 30 degrees and you have a 100 mph wind, it will not be colder than 30 degrees.

It simply makes it seem colder due to removing the heat quicker from the body than with no wind.

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According to you there is no difference between standing still in the snow and standing still with a blizzard in the same snow?

 

It's 20 degrees out. Put your face out the car window at 70 mph. It's still 20 degrees out.

 

The difference is that your body radiates heat through your skin, warming your skin to a temperature somewhere between 98.6 and air temperature. Any added wind blows this heat from your skin surface and cools your skin temperature so it feels colder. At the same time, your car's bumper temp is going to be 20 degrees whether it's going 150mph or standing still.

 

It's still just 20 degrees out.

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According to you there is no difference between standing still in the snow and standing still with a blizzard in the same snow?

No difference to the GPS, correct.

To you it will seem colder because you lose heat more quickly, but it's not really colder.

 

However, if your gpsr radiates a little heat of it's own, then it does make a difference.

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Don't know about the Oregon, but this morning my Nuvi won't power up after I left it in the car overnight. And we're not talking about Minnesota winter - this is near San Francisco, where it might drop to 30 about 3 nights a year. It came on only after it warmed up in the car. Hope my trusty navigator is not dying on me.

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A lcd works between x and y, I don't know exactly.

You say freezing outside, maybe the windchill made it a lot cooler?

 

Nickel Metal Hydride batteries perform much better when they are warm. Could be you were seeing slow CPU performance because of a voltage or current drop.

 

This thread is pointless..

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LCD gets slow in cold temps. Batteries underperform in cold temps. Living in northern MN, this is common knowledge. I have no experience with touchscreens in the cold.

 

I guess it depends on how cold we're talking. I have a Lowrance fish locator with a LCD screen that starts to get sluggish when the temp gets below 0 deg F.

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I spent six hours caching with NorthWes and skifast around Palmer/Wasilla Alaska a couple of weeks ago in temperatures around -2° and +4° F and neither skifast's nor my Oregons showed a performance dip. Last week, skifast and I spent eight hours in the teens (some in 20 mph winds on a mountain ridge) and neither of our Oregons suffered from it, though I did learn some of my NiMH rechargeables are no longer up to cold weather work.

 

Skifast did have an offbrand screen protector on his Oregon three trips ago and at around freezing the screen protector seemed to shrink at a different rate than the GPS screen and it "froze" up his screen. However, once he stripped off his screen protector, his GPS returned to normal.

 

On the other hand, my Magellan Sportrak LCD screen definitely slows down noticeably at below-freezing temperatures.

Edited by Ladybug Kids
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I haven't seen any performance delays with my oregon in cold temps. Even tried again today with temps in the teens, both my colorado and oregon's display worked the same as at room temperature. The only time I have seen screen issues in the cold was with my older black and white gpsr.

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Skifast did have an offbrand screen protector on his Oregon three trips ago and at around freezing the screen protector seemed to shrink at a different rate than the GPS screen and it "froze" up his screen. However, once he stripped off his screen protector, his GPS returned to normal.

 

I have a Zagg screen protector on the Oregon. Don't know if it would srink at a different rate.

 

The batteries I was using were the Powerex 2700, fully charged and only the second time I was using them.

 

The weather was hovering around the freezing point, small amount of ice around the water's edge and we were out of the wind.

 

Yesterday, same batteries, same temperature I had no problems caching all day but I was holding the unit in my hand or it was in my pocket, not hanging out in the open, so the extra warmth seemed to help.

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