Humminbird 597 GPS Error Message

[icefisker]

On Friday night my Humminbird 597 gps unit was working fine, and then it suddenly came up with an error message that said no GPS unit was connected. The map screen also went blank. I tried a number of times to restart it, with no luck. When i went to the diagnostic screen, it said the GPS is unconnected. Not sure how that is possible, since it is an internal GPS. Does anyone have any insight on this, or had the same problem? I am dreading the out of warranty return and service charge!!

[BartmanMN]

My 788 did that the 3rd time I had it out. I had to send it in for warranty work to fix.

I would compare the price of having it repaired vs. adding an external GPS antenna.

[icefisker]

Thanks for the reply.

Did your map screen stop working as well? It will not display the map (even with the chip in) and will not display my saved waypoints.

[BartmanMN]

Correct. Map only shows up when GPS connects. It's the same way when you first turn on your unit and you click through the menu. The maps never show up until the GPS connects. Since your GPS isn't connecting, maps will not show. Sucks. When it happened to me, I was on Mille Lacs for opener. Thank god for the Navionics app on my phone.

[icefisker]

Yikes that sucks, the lady on the phone told me to send the unit in for big $$$ and i asked her about an external GPS and she said to send the unit in anyway because there may be something else wrong... I updated the software at lunch and still getting the error message.

It went down friday night, so i also had my navionics app going while trying to listen to the Vikes over my phone... that lasted about 20 minutes!!! LOL.

[BartmanMN]

I looked on the humminbird HSOforum and didn't see your model listed as being compatible with any of the 3 external antennas that they show. Not sure.

[icefisker]

I am probably going to end up sending it in... Did they resolve your issue Bart, and what did they say was the problem? What was the turnaround on the service?

[BartmanMN]

They received my unit on 5/16/12 and had it fixed and in the mail back to me by 5/17. They did not list what was fixed, the Repair slip just said 788CI HD DI Repair.