GNS 530W Stopped Recognizing Nav Data Mid-Flight

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

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Fearless Tower
Halfway through a cross-country flight yesterday, I suddenly got a series of messages on my GNS 530 saying the data card had been removed, inserted, removed, inserted and removed again and started a restart countdown.

When the unit completed its restart, it did not recognize any Nav data. I tried pulling and reinserting the card and rebooting a couple times and no dice.

Anyone else had this happen?
 
Not mid-flight, but I've had a G1000 SD card go bad when I tried to update the auxiliary databases. It made a constant alert for the PFD terrain database.

The fix was to make a new one.

You can try to clean the contacts, remove/reinsert several times, and so on. But if the problem is internal, you'll likely have to replace the chip.
 
I flown a ton behind GNSs, that's a new one on me
 
It's that damn 20 year old technology. Better ground that bird until the GNS arrives. <- that's not a serious reply, as you know.

Real reply - did you power it off, remove and replace both cards, and then power back up?

And a Question for them that may know - Can the cards be removed while powered on? My ASSUMPTION is no, but I'd like to know in case my 20 year old navigator technology shows this symptom.
 
Ravioli said:
Real reply - did you power it off, remove and replace both cards, and then power back up?

And a Question for them that may know - Can the cards be removed while powered on? My ASSUMPTION is no, but I'd like to know in case my 20 year old navigator technology shows this symptom.
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Yes. Tried all that. No change.

You can remove the cards while in use, but you will get a message like I did and they it will restart itself.

What was odd was that when it happened to be, I wasn't touching the box.
 
James331 said:
I flown a ton behind GNSs, that's a new one on me
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Yeah, me too. I've heard of cards being corrupted, but not sure how it would corrupt itself mid-flight.

When we get home, I'll try swapping a different card and see if that works. If not, I suppose we'll be sending the box off to Garmin.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Halfway through a cross-country flight yesterday, I suddenly got a series of messages on my GNS 530 saying the data card had been removed, inserted, removed, inserted and removed again and started a restart countdown.

When the unit completed its restart, it did not recognize any Nav data. I tried pulling and reinserting the card and rebooting a couple times and no dice.

Anyone else had this happen?
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I had the exact same thing recently. Short story, it will go back to Garmin. They will charge you $1100 for a flat fee to refurb. Tell them the buttons stick and the screen is faded also. Got basically a new unit with updated motherboard. It's worth it plus warranty.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Halfway through a cross-country flight yesterday, I suddenly got a series of messages on my GNS 530 saying the data card had been removed, inserted, removed, inserted and removed again and started a restart countdown.

When the unit completed its restart, it did not recognize any Nav data. I tried pulling and reinserting the card and rebooting a couple times and no dice.

Anyone else had this happen?
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Something very similar happened to me when I flew from Florida to California. It turned out that decision I made to only buy the Eastern States subscription caught up with me.

edit: But I see from later posts, that was not your problem.
 
JOhnH said:
Something very similar happened to me when I flew from Florida to California. It turned out that decision I made to only buy the Eastern States subscription caught up with me.
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Yeah, I've seen that before on other airplanes, but that isn't the problem here.
 
Gee, I've never had one NOT fail, or otherwise gag, at some point; GX55, GX60, 430, 530, 1000. Not that often, of course, but at least once each. All software sucks, and all hardware controlled by software has suck potential. No worries with backup - for the last few years my Dual/FF has been my defacto primary navigator anyway. . .
 
I had a similar situation occur. Ever since, I keep three db cards. One at home, the current version in my GNS530W, and the previous cycle in the glove box. To test if the issue is just in the card, borrow one from another pilot and see if it resolves the issue. If it does, buy a new one and keep a spare.
 
On the bright side, I did discover that you can manually enter in the lat/long for the Navaids and still be able to enter your flight plan and use GPSS.
 
Well, the good news is that it turned out to be just the card being corrupted.

I did discover during troubleshooting, however, that a WAAS GPS will not read a non-WAAS data card. I tried putting in my old non-WAAS card to test it and it wasn't reading it, so we pulled the box and took it to the local Garmin dealer to send off. Fortunately, they tested it with a WAAS card before they boxed it up.

Looks like I can save some of my Christmas money!
 
@Fearless Tower - did you replace both cards and if so, if you don't mind, what did they cost?

I'm considering a second set of cards for my 430W so I can update in 1 trip to the hangar instead of two.

Thanks.
 
Ravioli said:
@Fearless Tower - did you replace both cards and if so, if you don't mind, what did they cost?

I'm considering a second set of cards for my 430W so I can update in 1 trip to the hangar instead of two.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Only card that is bad is the Nav data card. I'm still waiting to hear how much. I'll let you know when I do.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Well, the good news is that it turned out to be just the card being corrupted.

I did discover during troubleshooting, however, that a WAAS GPS will not read a non-WAAS data card. I tried putting in my old non-WAAS card to test it and it wasn't reading it, so we pulled the box and took it to the local Garmin dealer to send off. Fortunately, they tested it with a WAAS card before they boxed it up.

Looks like I can save some of my Christmas money!
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The non-wass databases are different and the data cards are half the size (storage wise) of the wass cards so it is no surprise that it didn't work. :)
 
Funny reply: that's what you get for using Garmin to take you through the clouds. :)

Serious reply: as others have noted, a spare card is a great idea to have in the cockpit for this very reason. Yes, they are pricey but it sure beats having to find another field with VOR or ILS approaches to be able to get her down.

I need to buy a spare for my Bendix-King, thanks for the reminder! :)
 
I kept 2 cards for the unit and simply rotated them. If I had two units, I would have had 3 cards. That way if one fails, I have a backup, albeit a month out of date.
 
Probably a dumb question, I don't own a panel GPS. What's so special about these cards that you can't reproduce a backup for yourself? Did Garmin make them physically different size than the usual families of flash memory (compactFlash/memStick etc)?

Whats stopping you from imaging the filesystem on the flash card and writing it to a new one? Of course giving it to somebody else would be stealing but you should be able to make a backup for yourself without shelling big bucks for a $10 flash card.
 
Not a dumb question, but yes, they are proprietary data cards.
 
They can't fail, that's why we pay 20x what the same tech would cost on the consumer market. FAA certification adds all this cost and means that it won't go wrong. You must have imagined it. All the extra money spent jumping through the government hoops is worth it, you know.
 
Katamarino said:
All the extra money spent jumping through the government hoops is worth it, you know.
Click to expand...

I make a living jumping thru those hoops to certify Level-A software on the big jets. Even with all those hoops, you'd be amazed by the stuff that gets past us sometimes. I know gubmint can be overbearing, but as far as software goes you want somebody checking that you followed the process. Because even the rigor of DO-178B level A isn't enough to catch everything you need to make a truly safe system.
 
The card sizes are:
non-WAAS 4 MB
WAAS 16 MB
 
mondtster said:
Non-wass is 8 mb...
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My old non-WAAS 430 took a 4 mb card. Just looked it up; seems like the old non-WAAS units took a 4 mb card and the newer non-WAAS 430's came with an 8 mb card. I didn't know this.
http://jeppdirect.jeppesen.com/legal/charts/ads-faq.jsp
Q: I have a Garmin GNS 430W and a GNS 430 (non-WAAS). Can these use the same data cards?

A: No. Garmin's GNS 400 & 500 WAAS-enabled GPS systems require a 16MB Garmin Flash Card where the non-WAAS GNS 400 & 500 series require a 4MB or 8MB Garmin Flash Card. The cards are not interchangeable because they are specifically designed for the GPS model they support.
 
FORANE said:
My old non-WAAS 430 took a 4 mb card. Just looked it up; seems like the old non-WAAS units took a 4 mb card and the newer non-WAAS 430's came with an 8 mb card. I didn't know this.
http://jeppdirect.jeppesen.com/legal/charts/ads-faq.jsp
Q: I have a Garmin GNS 430W and a GNS 430 (non-WAAS). Can these use the same data cards?

A: No. Garmin's GNS 400 & 500 WAAS-enabled GPS systems require a 16MB Garmin Flash Card where the non-WAAS GNS 400 & 500 series require a 4MB or 8MB Garmin Flash Card. The cards are not interchangeable because they are specifically designed for the GPS model they support.
Click to expand...

Interesting. All I've ever seen are 8mb cards on the non-wass units. I wonder when they switched?

I learned something new!
 
Fearless Tower said:
Only card that is bad is the Nav data card. I'm still waiting to hear how much. I'll let you know when I do.
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Did you ever find out how much a navdata card is? I thought I would like to have a spare so I could keep one home to update at the beginning of the cycle and have it read when I get to the plane next time. But looking on the web, it looks like a blank navdata card for the GNS530W is $170.00. I might pay that if mine failed, but not for a convenience spare. I always have the 696, two Ipads and two Iphones in the plane for backup. Not to mention, paper charts that are not "too" old and windows to look out of.
 
JOhnH said:
Did you ever find out how much a navdata card is? I thought I would like to have a spare so I could keep one home to update at the beginning of the cycle and have it read when I get to the plane next time. But looking on the web, it looks like a blank navdata card for the GNS530W is $170.00. I might pay that if mine failed, but not for a convenience spare. I always have the 696, two Ipads and two Iphones in the plane for backup. Not to mention, paper charts that are not "too" old and windows to look out of.
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Don't know yet. I haven't gotten the bill or the card from the avionics shop yet.
 
JOhnH said:
Did you ever find out how much a navdata card is? I thought I would like to have a spare so I could keep one home to update at the beginning of the cycle and have it read when I get to the plane next time. But looking on the web, it looks like a blank navdata card for the GNS530W is $170.00. I might pay that if mine failed, but not for a convenience spare. I always have the 696, two Ipads and two Iphones in the plane for backup. Not to mention, paper charts that are not "too" old and windows to look out of.
Click to expand...
yeah, but none of those will legally allow you to shoot an rnav approach. if that's your only way thru a solid OVC layer 2000' thick and the nearest BKN is 100nm away, you'd wish you had a backup.
 
JOhnH said:
Did you ever find out how much a navdata card is? I thought I would like to have a spare so I could keep one home to update at the beginning of the cycle and have it read when I get to the plane next time. But looking on the web, it looks like a blank navdata card for the GNS530W is $170.00. I might pay that if mine failed, but not for a convenience spare. I always have the 696, two Ipads and two Iphones in the plane for backup. Not to mention, paper charts that are not "too" old and windows to look out of.
Click to expand...
Got the card, but still haven't gotten the bill from the avionics shop yet.

But here is the catch and a heads up for anyone else who needs a replacement card.

Garmin updated there cards two years ago. So, if you order a new card, you get one with an orange label. What that means is that you have to go out and buy a whole new USB Skybound plugin to update the friggin' card. The previous Skybound adapters will not work with the new orange label data cards. And, if you get a new orange label card, you need software version 3.3 or newer installed on your 430/530. I lucked out there. My 530 has 3.3, but can't update the card until I pay more for a new adapter.

Had to file /U going to DC today. I am starting to hate Garmin….

For those looking for a new/spare data card, Jepp is selling both the blank card and new Skybound adapter for $255.
 
It happened to me just yesterday. Trying a different card and hope that solves it.
 
Sounds like a silly bad contact with the card?? Consider pulling card. Try to inspect a lot to see if some dust or fiber got in there. Give it a blast of canned air to clean it??
 
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