Just bought a new one, hooked up the cables, installed the software on the Dell Axim X5 i got with it. However the GPS reciever doesnt seem to be picking up a signal, i have hooked it up inside the car, nr the windscreen, left it for an hour, stuck it outside on the roof of the car and still it keeps searching for a signal but wont find one, Car is parked on the road, so no houses etc in the way. Occasional i get 3 red bars come up on the GPS search but they dissapear after a second or 2 as most. Whats going on, am i doing something wrong. GPS is the silver one, and has a green light on it. Im stuck to be honest.

 

try driving round for a bit, in open areas

When I very first got mine, it took quite a while to sync up with the satellites and I had to drive round for a bit

now its almost instant

 

Tried that, well i only drove around for about 20 mins tops, i been trying to get it to sync up from inside, outside, on the move since 8pm.

How long did yours take to sync up.

Im thinking about leaving it overight, it wont kill the car battery will it, being connected to the car lighter.

 

Not sure on the power drain on the battery

Cant remember how long I left mine for, it did take quite some time, infact I was half way down a motorway before it finally sprang to life

Mine is dead centre on the dashboard wedged up against the windscreen, and the houses & trees were stopping it from locking on, once on the motorway (nothing but farmers fields either side for miles) it was ok

 

well i got along drive to either sunderland or stockport tomorrow from london, so i guess i will give it a shot then. cheers mate, if any one got any more suggestion feel free to post them.

Do you think its cos i got a sh!tty rover as a work hire car has got anything to do with it... ha ha

 

Is it a wired one or a bluetooth one?
Have you selected the correct COM Port ?

 

Or try asking on here http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/modules.p...2fbe798ef1eee0

 

Its wired mate, i've checked the COM port, its on serial COM 1, i tried moving it to another COM & USB port but TOM TOM didnt even try and communicate with it then.

 

have you checked that it is not disabled in tomtom and the gps soft?

 

within tom tom there is a icon called GPS status, i click on that and it shows a number of bars, some are filled in grey, some are half filled, some arent filled in at all, these turn red every couple of hours but only stay red for a second and then go grey again. the Speed and co ordinates on this page are greyed out, but when the bars turn red, the speed goes black and shows how fast i am going, but again this only lasts a second.

How do you check if its enabled or disabled in tom tom, i cant see it in tom to m properties ?

 

What cradle are you plugging into? I have found that the GPS receiver is very sensitive to the connection between the cable and the cradle. This could just be my cradle, but it is worth checking. It does sound like it hasn't yet got a strong fix on the satellites. If the little dotted line display on the GPS status screen between the satellite dish and the PDA symbol is greyed out (or partly greyed out) that suggests the signal isn't stable and making full contact.

Also check that you've got the latest update of the software. You haven't got a heated front windscreen that might be blocking the signal? It is certainly worth moving the position of the GPS receiver so that it has clear line of sight to the sky.

Chris

 

One thing I found with my (still not working) TomTom setup - do you have an external keyboard for your Axim?

If so you need to unload the software as it will be holding COM1: closed.

Do you have a little graphic that shows you have a connection on COM1: on the GPS status screen?

I think my problem is down to the RJ-11 connector... do you have the Seidio G2500? They apparently have problems with the build quality...

 

Make sure you have the latest version of the GPS software from TomTom, I had similar problems until I upgraded. It worked fine to start, had to re-install TomTom and then it wouldn't, just seems a tad flakey, the version has worked just fine