Help This thing dies when disconnecting from charging.

I have just bought a fenix 5. Desperately disappointed, when disconnecting from charging the unit shuts off and won't restart. When you reconnect it sometimes registers 0% battery and charges again or sometimes 100%. It only works after disconnecting maybe one in three times. Battery life on those occasions is less than 12 hours. If you try and do an activity the longest has been 10 minutes or so. Its very close to going through the bloody window, help please anybody...

Top Replies

1546868 over 2 years ago +1

I managed to fix this. Open the watch, take photos first, and then try pressing down on the two batter connections in the white connector from the battery. If this does not work, disconnect the battery…
5427881 over 1 year ago +1

Same exact thing is happening on my brand new Garmin 68s that I bought yesterday from Cabela's. Works fine plugged in , unplug it and the screen fades out and you cannot use the device.
Garmin - Chris over 1 year ago in reply to 5427881 +1 verified

5427881

I am sorry you have the issue. It is highly unusual for a new device to have the type of issue your GPSMAP 68S came with. If you haven't already, please be sure to return it back to Cabela's for…

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0 MikeMarshall-AU over 7 years ago

I would suggest contacting Garmin Support
This does not sound "normal" and have not seen this on my wifes 5S
have you updated to latest FW (does not need to be beta but the unit may have shipped with old version)
All my dealings with Garmin support have been fantastic

0 dizcarey over 7 years ago

I tried doing a full factory rest and this seemed to cure the problem. Managed about seven days including some activity tracking. The after connecting to the mac same issue re appeared. I have tried all sorts of permutations and somehow it seems to happen after connection to the computer. Am I resetting back to old firmware when I factory reset? Does anybody have any ideas. I live in Mexico and returning the unit isn't really the easy an option, I would stand a bout a 50/50 chance of ever seeing it again.

0 mcalista over 7 years ago

Try connecting to a different USB power source other than your computer. Some devices can have narrow tolerances in terms of USB voltage, and if for some reason the USB port in your computer is not up to the USB spec, this can result in the type of charging behavior you describe. A faulty cable could also be the problem (the voltage at the USB port is OK, but the voltage delivered to the device is not OK). The F5X (but not the F5 or F5S) had cable problems - some people found that the slightest movement would disconnect. If this is the case, contact Garmin Support - they will likely supply a new cable without the concerns about returning the whole watch in Mexico.

0 pshare over 7 years ago

Further to mcalista's point, I spent an hour with a Garmin tech support person last week for a completely unrelated issue. What I learned from that session is that a PC's rear USB ports are often more powerful and reliable than the ones in the front. Depending on the issue, a USB powered hub can make matters better and sometimes worse.

0 Petnek over 7 years ago

Yes pshare, I can confirm that. Front USB's are often with lower power. For example I can't run 2 external 3.0 hard drives on two front connectors. Some newer motherboards (if we are talking about desktop PC, not laptop) has one or more slots with even more powerful specifications than is normal for USB. Because I charged my new F5 only once, after what I read here, I'm going to use chargers for mobile phones with 500-750mAh output.

0 dizcarey over 6 years ago

Thanks for all of the helpful advice and sorry for the delay answering. The usb is through a dongle ( mac supplied) for a macbook pro. Anyway So i ended up sending it back. Well I tried to but it took several weeks as it meant shipping internationally, Garmin themselves took over two weeks to action forms that they sent. Long story short, I had moved on from that area and its been a long time trying to reunite myself and the watch, via Mexican freight forwarders. Next step is to return the faulty unit. Here is the kicker though, i was stupid enough to buy an Edge 1030, guess what the reason I am haunting these forums is that bloody well doesn't work either!!! Now some are saying its just initial software bugs etc, but if i buy a device thats supposed to pair with a phone it should at lest pair with the phone without 100 bloody attempts. Honestly Garmin I am in because i foolishly tried to buy a suite of stuff, I just wish it had been somebody else products. Yours are shocking.

0 Mentox over 6 years ago

Not that it helps but I have seen more people with Macs having issues, not sure what the actual problem is.

for what it is worth, my Fenix 5 and Edge 1030 are working perfectly fine

0 jose.cboliveira over 6 years ago

Did you tried to shutdown the Mac before disconnecting the cable?

0 dizcarey over 6 years ago

Did you tried to shutdown the Mac before disconnecting the cable?

Tried it every which way, It was always just a lottery. The watch eventually started dying mid activity as well. New one has been perfect, but i must be honest I am so scared of it going wrong I haven't used half of the functions.

0 1546868 over 2 years ago

I managed to fix this. Open the watch, take photos first, and then try pressing down on the two batter connections in the white connector from the battery. If this does not work, disconnect the battery. Then unclip each of the terminals and then push them back into the white connector and reconnect. It worked for me. Took me a few hours of troubleshooting to check f the battery was getting charge etc. Cheers.