I have read on here and experienced it myself whre the Zumo 450/550 freezes up. The fix to this is to remove the battery pack and then reinstalling it. My question is this: Has anyone removed the battery pack and used the Zumo with out it?

 

Here's a response I read on the Zumo Forum but what's the fix if it freezes with no battery!!!



Re: Dead Zumo - tried all suggestions to restart
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2008, 08:39:01 AM »

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I had this happen to my 550. It( the Zumo) will NOT work if the battery is shot. But...the Garmin people had me remove the battery completely and it worked just fine until I received a new battery. Obviously in this configuration it requires external power.

 

Thanx for the info I've had my 550 for 10 mos. and hasn't missed a beat but have noticed the internal batt. dropped off some so will order a replacement

 

Call Garmin customer support, it's still in warranty. Garmin is great when it come to customer support.

 

I've been fortunate with mine. I had the battery go bad and Garmin sent me a new one.

I used it in the base with the old battery in it and it worked fine. It just wouldn't work off the base with the bad battery.

 

I have had my zumo 550 for over a year. Not had any problems with the battery yet, but the bike cradle stopped charging last fall. It would work on battery power, but I didn't realize it was running on internal battery until the battery went dead and wouldn't recharge.

I called Garmin, they sent me a new one. Great service. BTW, they have a deal going on now where you can buy lifetime updates for your map for $120.

Dennis

 

This information is in the Owners Manual:


"The touch screen is not
responding to my taps
properly:

Calibrate the touch screen. Turn the unit off. Press and hold (the POWER button)
for about one minute until the Calibration screen appears.
Follow the on-screen instructions."


The trouble-shooting instructions didn't work for me when my 550 screen froze when it was less than a week old. Instead of removing the battery, I tried calling Garmin Customer Support first. The rep said to Press and hold the POWER button and + (PLUS) button simultaneously. That worked for me. There is no mention of those steps in the manual.

I carry the battery cover Allen Wrench in the Zumo case for emergency. I've also heard that you have to be careful removing the screw because the head rounds off easily. That seems hard to believe if the right size wrench (2 mm) is used but I figure I'd pass the info on.

Customer service seems good and there's a lot of smart geeks on the Zumo forum!

Hope this helps.

 

What updates do you need that cost$$ I just did a free map uodate download from the Garmin websight?

 

I've never had to remove my battery pack, yet anyway. Mine did lock up about a month ago for the first time and I was able to revive it by doing a soft-reset, which is to depress the power and "+" buttons simultaneously. Did you try that? Also, with the v4.5 firmware it would occasionally shut itself off while riding, not like power was removed as in normal operation but like I hit the power button. This has not recurred with v4.6 or v4.7 firmware.

Ever since new this Zumo and another one I tried would fail to boot if I start the bike too quickly. If I wait 'til the splash screen comes up, in about one second, it will boot up fine--but otherwise most of the time it will never even power up. When this happens the power button doesn't work and only a soft-reset will revive it.

I've had other problems with this 450 that are shared by others, thus aren't uniquely my problem, but I won't go into them here.

 

Just had my 550 start to freeze up after 7 months and about 5,000 new miles. First time was right in the middle of a rather complicated journey, where I was moving thru an unfamiliar medium size town.

I wish I would have known about the softset. I think I actually hit the power and plus button at the same time by accident. (It's where both my thumbs end up sometimes) and I got it working after getting lost in the city.

Now that same thing has happened a couple of more times, and I have also had the "power off" issue happen while riding once. I thought this thing was made for the rough service of a motor cycle....for the price. especially.

After 18,000 miles on the ultra I've had way more problems with the Garmin than anything on the bike. Now I'm not sure I can trust it to keep working.