Garmin 305 is acting weird. (Read 661 times)

Of late, my 1 year old Garmin 305 has been acting up. After I have powered it on and am running with it, whenever i press the "Mode" button to go to another screen, it switches off. And then I have to turn it back on and try again until it actually works like its supposed to. I am wondering whether there is a loose contact inside the watch or if there is some other sinister reason as to why this is happening. Anybody else here face this issue before? Any remedies? I did try reinstalling the firmware to see if that would help but it didnt. Any help is most appreciated.

Thanks Lopez ... i did read that thread as well but the soft reset didnt quite work for me. And the hard reset i thought was same as reinstalling the firmware (which wipes all settings). Let me try and persist with the soft reset option another time and see if it makes a difference.

Do you know if my problem is unique? What i mean is it doesnt turn off by itself usually but only if mode button is pressed.

Mine was wonky out of the box on its Course feature: it would let me select that training option, but shut off as soon as I'd start the Course workout.  I finally contacted Garmin at 11 months, they had me do some stuff (unsuccessful), and then they pretty quickly said to send it in and they'd replace it.

 

There was quite a bit of back and forth between Garmin CS and me, and I'd rate their CS very highly.  Give them a call or start a Support Ticket online; even if you're off warranty, they may surprise you.

 

 

(And for the first time ever, the darn thing shut itself off this morning right as my programmed workout ended.   Weird.)

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary.

 

I got mine from Buydig.com, too.  They're an authorized Garmin retailer -- no problems there.  Don't quote me, but I think you're covered under the normal warranty even if you live/run outside the US.  If I took mine on vacation to, say, Spain, I'd most certainly expect Garmin to warrant it if the thing bricked.

Sounds EXACTLY like what mine started doing immediately after a run during a hard rain.  I rarely run in the rain, being in CA, and find it hard to understand how you guys that run in rainy areas can even keep these things alive.  After that rain my 305 started shutting off randomly.  Finally it just wouldn't turn on at all anymore.  I just sent it back to Garmin for a refurbished one for $79 + tax + shipping = $91.  A brand new one is ~130 - 140 nowadays.  After this next one goes out I'll be most likely getting a 310XT (unless there's something better out there in a year or so) which are supposed to be waterproof.

I should have done this a long time back ... i took my garmin 305 to my air ionizer (basically a desk tower fan) and let it stay  there for about half n hour. After that tried the buttons a couple of random times, and they worked perfectly. So i think the moisture issue was right on the money. The only caveat is .. "...so far..." !! I hope the problem doesnt recur when i am out on a run and start sweating again, Singapore is really humid.

You would be amazed how small Singapore is compared to the US or India - most ultra runners here in the forum can easily skip town and find themselves in Malaysia!! (but you need to clear immigration though!).

Its good to connect with folks like you on the forum .. i am a newbie to running (less than a year of regular running, less than 800 miles of total running) but i hope someday to run some of the biggies in your neck of the woods ("your" here meaning the US).