Problem with my wimpy little Simrad MFD ;-)

DouglasW

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
269
The small 5" Simrad GO5-XSE MFD that came with my used boat failed a few months after I got the boat so I bought a new one just like the old one. The chart was out of date, so several months ago I bought a new chart, C-Map Insight Pro which I installed to a new 32GB SD card. All worked fine until the boat lost all power while sitting on the lift for a few months. When I started the Simrad, and selected the optional chart, it did not show any shoreline detail, only points of interest. The Simrad also randomly rebooted, maybe every 30 minutes. I noticed that if I removed the card, the rebooting did not happen and the unit worked ok although on the outdated internal maps. Even making a copy of the contents of the card onto another card did not help. I sent the guys at GoFree (where I bought the chart) and C-Map messages about this and have received no replies. The Simrad folks may be ready to replace the unit under warranty, but I am not sure this will help. Has anyone had experience with corrupted map data causing this kind of problem and knows how to fix it?
 

sam am I

Commander
Joined
Jun 26, 2013
Messages
2,169
Shots in the dark.............

Perhaps switch to a high/er speed SD card. I understand you're not doing video's but perhaps this things requires higher R/W speed of the stored images/data, just a guess, your manual would probably state minimums.

Or, the thing internally has built up a tad of corrosion somewhere in itself whilst it was sitting in storage as it sounded like it had worked fine in the past with what you currently have............

If you suspect corrupt data, can you get/download a totally different test map set on the SD card and re-try after formatting the old suspect stuff off?
 
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DouglasW

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
269
I am already using the high speed cards because I also use them for video cameras.

I did try to get another map but they are few and far between for free. I tried to re-install the map I bought 7 months ago and it is still available online but I can't get the site to recognize the card somehow. Isn't it just supposed to take a blank one?
 

dingbat

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
15,417
Guessing your problem is the SD.

Most units didn’t /don’t support the newer, large capacity SD cards.

My Garmin MFD takes issue with 8 Gb and above. I keep 2 Gb just for that unit.

My new back up plotter went to micro SD
 
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DouglasW

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
269
The specs for this unit say it can use up to 32GB. I am using an 8 GB card.
 

DouglasW

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
269
I was finally able to download a fresh copy of the chart I purchased from C-Map. For some reason the gofreeshop.com site was not working properly for the last 2 days. It's ok now and the new removable SD card works fine. It disturbs me a bit that the Simrad unit will crash continually if there is corrupted data on the card. Sounds like a system bug. A well-designed system would simply ignore the card if there are errors.
 
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