GTN 650 touch screen problems

Irish_Armada

Irish_Armada

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Oct 8, 2011
Messages
374
Display Name
Display name:
Irish Armada
I have experienced a situation now on two different Garmin GTN-650s in two different airplanes where the touchscreen just stops responding to touch -- i.e. the screen just completely stops responding to your finger. I haven't flown in many planes with a GTN-650 (like only 2) so this must be more than coincidence and an actual recurring problem. Has Garmin addressed this issue anywhere? Anyone else dealt with this? A non-responsive screen on a touch screen GPS unit is a problem. While granted, after rebooting the unit a couple of times it went back to "normal" but this ability to fail at any time is disconcerting for a unit that's supposed to be so state-of-the-art, is so expensive, and is relied on in heavy IMC... :dunno:
 
I know the iPad/iPhone can have the same issue if there is a drop of water (or anything "moist") sitting anywhere on the touchable surface.
 
dans2992 said:
I know the iPad/iPhone can have the same issue if there is a drop of water (or anything "moist") sitting anywhere on the touchable surface.
Click to expand...

Yeah both times the screen was closely examined and nothing unusual on the screen. Same for our hands -- not wet or anything. We're talking 80-90% of the screen just stops responding to normal inputs. The unit was still on, and the regular buttons around the perimeter (direct to, home, turn knobs) still functioned. :confused:
 
Never had that problem with my 430/530 :D


Noticed my iphone/ipad and other touch screens can act up at certain temps or with moisture, just the nature of having a cool touch screen.
 
Irish_Armada said:
Yeah both times the screen was closely examined and nothing unusual on the screen. Same for our hands -- not wet or anything. We're talking 80-90% of the screen just stops responding to normal inputs. The unit was still on, and the regular buttons around the perimeter (direct to, home, turn knobs) still functioned. :confused:
Click to expand...

Hmmm... Interesting. My first suspicion was sweaty hands, but if it wasn't that, then happening on 2 different units is interesting. I have a total of around 5 hrs using a 650/750 stack and haven't experienced that. I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of the box to know, but is there maybe a touch screen lock out function that you are inadvertently triggering?:dunno: I'll call my friend and see what he might know, he has one of the first sets that came out and flies a lot, he may have run across this.
 
Last edited:
I have a 650 and it has been in service 2 years. No issues with the touch screen. Wonder if there is a sensitivity level you can set in the setup menu.
 
Henning said:
I'll call my friend and see what he might know, he has one of the first sets that came out and flies a lot, he may have run across this.
Click to expand...

That would be awesome, thank you!
 
Don't forget, the 650 is a "smart" IFR GPS (that means it does things different, EVERY time! (and you never know why)) JUST LIKE THE NEW CELLPHONES! It may be annoying, but it's SMART!
 
I have had my 650 for over a year now and have not experienced the issue that you describe.

I did see that Garmin has released new software that has some additional features but also fixes some bugs.
 
My mother can not use touch screens, she has a special pen,pointer that she uses.
It's based on capacitance, that's why it doesn't work using you fingernail, something about moisture in the skin. You could try getting one of the pointy thingys or try next recycled the GPS if you can
 
Got my 750 (bigger touchscreen than the 650) late last year and have over 170 hours on it, so far without hitch or glitch, despite fairly heavy use.
 
They work off the electrical charge in your body. Some people can't use them. My dad is one of the them. If you get the pointer that has batteries in it, that will tell you if it is you or the unit. It may have to do with callasus or something
 
yetti said:
They work off the electrical charge in your body. Some people can't use them. My dad is one of the them. If you get the pointer that has batteries in it, that will tell you if it is you or the unit. It may have to do with callasus or something
Click to expand...

You could also try licking your fingertip and seeing if that gets a response.
 
yetti said:
They work off the electrical charge in your body. Some people can't use them. My dad is one of the them. If you get the pointer that has batteries in it, that will tell you if it is you or the unit. It may have to do with callasus or something
Click to expand...

Yeah I am otherwise a touch-screen capable individual so I don't think it's on the user side, and 98% of the time the GTN 650 works how it's supposed to. Also, the other unit that had this same behavior, the PIC (not me) was touching away at it for whatever reason when it stopped working for him, and I confirmed that it wouldn't work for me either. In both cases we've had multiple guys trying to get the unit to work and it wouldn't, so it's not on our end. The software update idea sounds the most promising so far.
 
Irish_Armada said:
Yeah I am otherwise a touch-screen capable individual so I don't think it's on the user side, and 98% of the time the GTN 650 works how it's supposed to. Also, the other unit that had this same behavior, the PIC (not me) was touching away at it for whatever reason when it stopped working for him, and I confirmed that it wouldn't work for me either. In both cases we've had multiple guys trying to get the unit to work and it wouldn't, so it's not on our end. The software update idea sounds the most promising so far.
Click to expand...

Did y'all just let it sit for a minute or two without touching it after it screwed up? BTW, my buddy hadn't seen nor heard of the problem, but his sampling is only 2 units.:dunno: Perhaps this is an issue that was addressed in the last update?
 
You could also test yourself. Get a VOM and measure on the low DC scale. Most people will get a reading. And yes it will be funny to know how many people run out to the garage and do this.
 
Irish_Armada said:
I have experienced a situation now on two different Garmin GTN-650s in two different airplanes where the touchscreen just stops responding to touch -- i.e. the screen just completely stops responding to your finger. I haven't flown in many planes with a GTN-650 (like only 2) so this must be more than coincidence and an actual recurring problem. Has Garmin addressed this issue anywhere? Anyone else dealt with this? A non-responsive screen on a touch screen GPS unit is a problem. While granted, after rebooting the unit a couple of times it went back to "normal" but this ability to fail at any time is disconcerting for a unit that's supposed to be so state-of-the-art, is so expensive, and is relied on in heavy IMC... :dunno:
Click to expand...

I had a similar problem with a GTN-650 in a rental aircraft recently. I attributed it to condensation since it was a cold morning and I did notice some condensation on the glass. On my return flight it work normally. It didn't matter to me since I was VFR and use my tablet for GPS (and still carry a sectional :) )

A related question -- I'm not that familiar with the 650, but is there a way to "reboot" it -- without turning off the master avionics switch? I couldn't see any obvious way to do it and I haven't had a chance to browse the user guide.
 
ColoPilot said:
A related question -- I'm not that familiar with the 650, but is there a way to "reboot" it -- without turning off the master avionics switch? I couldn't see any obvious way to do it and I haven't had a chance to browse the user guide.
Click to expand...

We were troubleshooting on the ground prior to taxi and couldn't figure out a way to shut it off other than turning the avionics master off. On the second restart, the unit worked completely fine.

To Henning's other question, we had let both units sit for awhile on other flights (since we were airborne both times) and neither time did the 650 start functioning properly again. So its not like it was just having a processing problem and needed to catch up -- we had thought of that too. So I just switched over all my comms to the #2 radio and used the two other non-FAA certified GPS units that cost 1/60th the price of a 650 for our GPS needs/wants, which were functioning just fine and dandy :mad2:
 
ColoPilot said:
I had a similar problem with a GTN-650 in a rental aircraft recently. I attributed it to condensation since it was a cold morning and I did notice some condensation on the glass. On my return flight it work normally. It didn't matter to me since I was VFR and use my tablet for GPS (and still carry a sectional :) )

A related question -- I'm not that familiar with the 650, but is there a way to "reboot" it -- without turning off the master avionics switch? I couldn't see any obvious way to do it and I haven't had a chance to browse the user guide.
Click to expand...


Pull the circuit breaker
 
coloradobluesky said:
Don't forget, the 650 is a "smart" IFR GPS (that means it does things different, EVERY time! (and you never know why)) JUST LIKE THE NEW CELLPHONES! It may be annoying, but it's SMART!
Click to expand...

Also don't forget... it has knobs. :dunno:



That said, I've had a GTN 750 for two years and I've never had a problem with the touch screen.
 
Irish_Armada said:
I have experienced a situation now on two different Garmin GTN-650s in two different airplanes where the touchscreen just stops responding to touch -- i.e. the screen just completely stops responding to your finger. I haven't flown in many planes with a GTN-650 (like only 2) so this must be more than coincidence and an actual recurring problem. Has Garmin addressed this issue anywhere? Anyone else dealt with this? A non-responsive screen on a touch screen GPS unit is a problem. While granted, after rebooting the unit a couple of times it went back to "normal" but this ability to fail at any time is disconcerting for a unit that's supposed to be so state-of-the-art, is so expensive, and is relied on in heavy IMC... :dunno:
Click to expand...

Were the knobs and home button unresponsive as well?

Garmin issues service bulletins on a regular basis for these units but I have seen nothing related to screen freezes. If that were a wide spread problem, it would have been dealt with early on in the unit's firmware upgrades.

Is the device's firmware up to date? If so, this could be something new that has popped up - and that would be bad since I'm due to upgrade mine to 5.13 next week.
 
Last edited:
petrolero said:
Were the knobs and home button unresponsive as well?

Garmin issues service bulletins on a regular basis for these units but I have seen nothing related to screen freezes. If that were a wide spread problem, it would have been dealt with early on in the unit's firmware upgrades.

Is the device's firmware up to date? If so, this could be something new that has popped up - and that would be bad since I'm due to upgrade mine to 5.13 next week.
Click to expand...

I called Garmin and they suggested we update to the newest version (5.13) to fix the screen issue. Full disclosure: our GTN's software version is pretty outdated I think (from back in 2012), and that might be the case on the other aircraft I flew in too. The Garmin engineer said they hadn't had any reports of any screen malfunctions like that for a couple years now so his suggestion was to update our software. I'll do that in the next week or so and report back if we ever have any subsequent issues. Fun times!
 
Irish_Armada said:
I called Garmin and they suggested we update to the newest version (5.13) to fix the screen issue. Full disclosure: our GTN's software version is pretty outdated I think (from back in 2012), and that might be the case on the other aircraft I flew in too. The Garmin engineer said they hadn't had any reports of any screen malfunctions like that for a couple years now so his suggestion was to update our software. I'll do that in the next week or so and report back if we ever have any subsequent issues. Fun times!
Click to expand...

Good to know - thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top