Garmin Oregon x00 Beta 3.13 Available
It seems like every week there is a new software upgrade (or two) from the busy engineering team at Garmin. As we tweeted on Friday evening, beta 3.13 has been posted to resolve two new issues introduced in beta 3.12. Garmin describes the fixes in 3.13 as:
- Fixed issues with thresholds used for auto compass switching.
- Fixed issues with back button not appearing when editing a waypoint.
Both of these issues are addressed, but a third issue introduced in 3.12 (or possibly 3.10), random shutoffs, was not mentioned. Over the weekend I had some solid trail time with the new release and I’ve been happy. I did not experience any shutoffs but my compass was disabled and that was the key to minimizing, but not eliminating, the shutoffs for me with 3.12. I have read reports of people who still see the shutoffs in 3.13 so the issue may still be unresolved.
As for GPS accuracy GPS Firmware 3.7 (the new firmware introduced in 3.12 and still present in 3.13) is performing well. I’ve had 5 test runs on my test trail and so far no major drifts, the track accuracy has been good, tracks are much cleaner and don’t appear to be over averaged (ie. cut corners, delayed arrivals, etc). The Oregon still records too much stopped time and if you are hiking at slow speeds you’ll notice that your speed does frequently drop to zero even though you are moving.
If you are interested in trying the new GPS Firmware this is probably a good time as long as you are willing to leave the compass off or live with a few occasional shutoffs.
For more up to date information you can follow Oregon x00 Beta 3.13 discussion on the Oregon wiki.
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August 12th, 2009 at 12:59 am
I just upgraded my Oregon 400t and it’s never been the same again. It crashed during installation and I was unable to reboot it. Then I took out the fresh batteries and replaced them with another set of fresh batteries and then it booted okay. I had a few crashes in between. I have since tried to reinstall the firmware (V3.13) just to make sure things are okay but it refuses to install stating “Files and/or directory are corrupt or are in use by another program”. I’m not sure what that means but I do have the latest version installed. I performed a complete system reboot where I was supposed to lose all my data but only lost some of it. I thought doing a complete system reboot (hold the upper left screen and turn on) would bring the Oregon 400t back to factory status. I was given the option “do you really want to do this?” and opted to say “yes”. It worked okay and I did lose only a few waypoints but most of them are still there. Any ideas why this is happening. I have been trying to contact Garmin via toll free numbers, e-mail at Product.Support@garmin.com but the e-mails get kicked back stating they can’t receive e-mails. I can’t imagine Garmin running away from such a problem. I tried to call them when they were supposed to be open and the recording stated they are closed. I tried e-mailing them directly from their site but am not sure if they are getting the mails, there’s no confirmation and I don’t get any automated mails assigning me a number. Can anyone help me? Thanks a million…Tom