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FR 230 takes ages to get gps lock

Former Member
Former Member over 8 years ago
Hi.

I've had a fr230 for a month now and the time to get a gps lock has always been above 15/20 minutes. As soon as I got it I took it for a run and after standing still like an idiot for >15 minutes without a GPS lock I just gave up and run without tracking. And we are talking about a city park...no tall buildings impeding the gps signal, pretty much just clear skies. So since then I reverted to my old polar+footpod for running and I've been taking the forerunner for walks around the city hoping to get a sense of the reason why this thing just doesn't seem to be able to work reliably.

-I tried with and without glonass
-I tried with and without an updated epo.bin file (the file containing the preloaded gps data for a, theoretically, fast lock)
-I've always started at the same point so as to make the FR's life easier, so to speak
-Obviously I've restarted the FR many times.
-The FW has always been up to date.

Through all of this the GPS lock time has always been 15/20 minutes and today the FR touched a new low (or high): 35 minutes...
I live in a large city but the buildings are old (or even ancient) and they are not very tall, so they do not impede the gps signal. And I've always kept on large roads, again just to make the FR's life easier. But it's all been to no avail.

And the worst aspect is that I don't even think that my FR is defective (we are talking about a large and renown manufacturer so the probability of a defective product should be pretty low). I'm beginning to think that this may be a design problem and therefore not fixable.

I think I tried everything to make it work reliably but if someone think I've missed something please do tell.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Just an update.
    Garmin support contacted me via email and asked me to send them a zip archive of the whole GARMIN directory in my FR230 so that they can see if something abnormal is going on.
    So...I'm impressed. Very professional of them, I must say.


    I was also contacted (and pleasantly surprised!). I sent them my FR235's directory - will keep you posted when I hear from them again.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Quick update: I did a race this weekend; start line was downtown. I could not get a GPS lock at the start line (despite the fact I had synced my watch with Garmin Express 1 hour before the race), but chatted with other runners in my corral with the same watch as me, they were getting a GPS lock in less than 30 seconds...

    I did a factory reset of the watch, which did not fix the problem. Still taking me 5-7 mins to get a GPS lock in a downtown park, and it took over 2 mins to get a GPS lock from the beach (there was literally zero obstacle which could have prevented the watch from getting a GPS lock), doesn't sound too normal for a Forerunner 235.

    Like johnrunner0000 mentioned with his FR 230, it's as if the EPO file is ignored by the watch despite being regularly updated...

    Not too happy for a watch of this price... I'm now waiting for Garmin to come back to me with a solution.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Quick update: Garmin issued an RMA for my watch and I sent it back last week.

    I just got the replacement watch today. The new watch connects instantly to the satellites from the same downtown park where I was having trouble with the old one. It also connects to the satellites very quickly (less than 20 sec) from a downtown street, surrounded by dozens of 40-storey buildings. So there was definitely a problem with the old watch, glad it's been fixed by Garmin so quickly.

    For all of us based in Canada, I did not have to send the watch to Raytech in QC. I was told on the phone Garmin now has its own warehouse in Richmond Hill, ON; where I sent my watch.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I'm not surprised Garmin ended up issuing an RMA; one of the striking point of this watch, compared to my old 610 and my antique 305, is how fast and easily it latches on to the GPS/GLONASS sats. I used to put the watch on a window sill, and wait 3-5 minutes; now I can be anywhere inside the house, and if I hit the Run button the GPS will be ready in seconds. Even when traveling a bunch of timezones and not giving the watch the chance to get local ephemerides updated, it will connect in less than 2 minutes. So if you have long connection delays (after doing a Connect sync), you probably have a hardware issue.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    And by the way...

    ... in case you think "Garmin's GPS is better/worse/slower/more precise/less precise than Brand X", keep in mind that Garmin uses a MediaTek GPS receiver chip, which is not specific to Garmin and is used in a lot of other products from a lot of other companies. Just sayin,...

    This tear-down makes for a fascinating read.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Quick and (hopefully) final update. My situation was resolved weeks ago. Garmin contacted me saying that the behavior of my fr230 wasn't normal and that there probably was a problem with the gps receiver. So I was about to ask my local garmin "branch" for an rma but then I realized that I had a couple of days left to ask amazon for an exchange. So I got a new fr230 from amazon and I'm happy to report that this one works perfectly. Now it's even able to lock to the gps signal from inside my house if I keep it close to an open window for a few seconds....
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Hi everyone.

    I have a FR230 as well, for about a month too, and seem to have exactly the same issue. When searching for GPS my watch will usually try to go to power saving mode before getting a connection. I watch the GPS connection bars change from flashing to solid one by one (each can take 10-30 seconds) and before a full connection is made (waiting up to 2 minutes at this point) it goes back to 0 bars. I've stood beside other Garmin users while this happens and they've had no problems, this is in a park with a clear view in every direction.

    I tried with and without glonass, I soft and hard reset my FR230 multiple times, I ensured to update to the latest firmware.

    Even when the watch has said GPS ready with 5 green bars (happened once after 15 or so minutes) the watch did not record GPS data for the run (Garmin Connect/Strava thinking it is a "treadmill workout" and not displaying any map data)
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    275RPS - that clearly is not right. Suggest do what johnrunner0000 did and did a seek a replacement device.