Charging Issue with Forerunner Garmin 965

Hello,

I purchased my Garmin 965 in April, and everything was working fine. However, for the past two months, I’ve been having a lot of trouble charging it. The connection with the charging cable is unreliable. I have to force it and turn the cable in different directions to get it to charge.

I even tried using a friend’s cable and charger, but I’m facing the same issue. I’ve also cleaned the charging port on the Garmin, but that didn’t help.

Could this be a manufacturing defect?

Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

0 jeff28w 2 months ago

Mine, as well as most of my previous Garmin Forerunner and Fenix models, do the same thing. I typically have to remove/reset the charging cable to the watch and move it around until it has a solid connection, and then I leave it be and it charges. We have multiple charging cables from over the years and have bought new charging cables. Invariably it ends up occurring with all the cables we have. That I can, within a few attempts, always have a solid connection we have just gotten use to this.

0 Elbo 2 months ago

The charger connector isn't the best design. Too often I find the connector disconnected and my watch not charged. Annecdotically, I find cheap cables work better than the expensive garmin ones.

Currently I experience a bug in the firmware that prevents my watch from being charged unless I reboot it first.

0 Bitti 2 months ago

Probably the metal "ring" around the charging cable plug has become loose, so it doesn't keep the plug properly in place (that can happen over time, but especially if you remove the plug by twisting it).

As a first try I'd just gently squeeze the metal ring by the long sides with small pliers. Not too tightly (otherwise the plug becomes so tight that it's impossible to plug it in), but just enough to make it a little tighter and to help it lock in place. Over the years I've had to do this a couple of times for my Garmin cables, and after that all are working as they should.

If the above doesn't help, it's of course also possible that the contacts are dirty or corroded. Cleaning them gently could also work.