Garmin edge 500 issues

Triathlon Forum
1

Before I begin, this is NOT a Garmin bashing post - I’m looking for a potential fix.

A couple of days ago my garmin froze up during a ride, and when I did a hard reset, it tried to startup and beeped, then shutdown and did this continuously (for hours until the battery died). I tried different combos of resets based on searching forums online to no avail.

The next day I emailed garmin support and they suggested the following:

First make sure the unit is turned off.
Next please download and install the webupdater program.
http://www8.garmin.com/products/webupdater/howtoinstall.jsp
After installing the program, please launch it and proceed to the point that it asks to find the device.
Now press and hold the power button, and plug the unit into the computer. I would recommend you hold the power button with your off had (IE a right handed person should hold it with their left)
Click on Find Device and let it find your unit.
Now click next and agree in Webupdater while continuing to hold the power button.
Let Webupdater finish installing and now unplug your unit. Let go the power button and reboot the unit. It should load in the software and your unit should now behave like normal.

Unfortunately this didn’t work. I then tried the same thing, but this time holding down the “enter” button, and it started installing the software, but when it finished, it gave me a message saying the software was corrupt. After reporting this to garmin, they said I needed to send it in for repair…

Now the issue for me is that I bought it used from a fellow STer, and obviously I’m SOL on a warranty claim (hey, it’s part of the risk buying used!).

Has anyone experienced this and found a solution other than sending it in? I called the repair facility Garmin suggested to me, and it costs $90 outside of warranty…not bad, but I thought I’d try one last effort here, as there are so many knowledgeable people hanging around.

2

By hard reset did you hold the power/light button and the lap/reset button? That’s reset mine in the past.

3

By hard reset did you hold the power/light button and the lap/reset button? That’s reset mine in the past.

Thanks, yeah I tried that.

4

*Now press and hold the power button, and plug the unit into the computer. I would recommend you hold the power button with your off had (IE a right handed person should hold it with their left) *
What does this step do? Is it intended to ensure the Edge is powered on or powered off while running the webupdater? Have you taken a moment to search the Garmin Edge 500 forum - here are a few threads to read through that might help:

**Turn off a frozen Edge 500? **Edge 500 froze up during ride

5

Connect the Edge to your PC, log on to the Garmin site, go to Support, and update the firmware. Might do the trick.

6

*Now press and hold the power button, and plug the unit into the computer. I would recommend you hold the power button with your off had (IE a right handed person should hold it with their left) *
What does this step do? Is it intended to ensure the Edge is powered on or powered off while running the webupdater? Have you taken a moment to search the Garmin Edge 500 forum - here are a few threads to read through that might help:

**Turn off a frozen Edge 500? **Edge 500 froze up during ride

The above advice from garmin is what concerns me, as everything I’ve read says in order to force it into USB mode you need to hold down the Menu button - not the power button. I’ve tried all the suggestions in those threads and still no luck. The problem I’m having is that I can’t force my unit into USB mode to do anything - delete files, etc.

There is a guy in there that sounds like he had the same issue as me and had his sent back. This may be what I’ll have to end up doing…thanks for the suggestions though - there were a lot of good ones in there.