Garmin Megathread-Ask your questions here-See post 1 on how to search thread

Krusty_Clown

hunnymonster wrote: »

not a techie question, but just wondering if anyone has bought a 405 recently? Just looking around for the best value option.

Hi HM, I would say that the cheapest option is Amazon.com, if you know someone in the US you can get it delivered to, and re-shipped over here (€173 without HRM).

hot to trot

I have been downloading my 405 runs on to my work computer via the little stick thing. I got a new little netbook laptop thingy at home and want to use this instead. I downloaded the software and did all the stuff I am supposed to but when it downloaded my runs , it stopped at the beginning of August and there is no sign of the later stuff. have forced data transfer but still dont know where it is . Maybe it wont transfer? all my other runs since I got it at the beginning of tthe year are on it.
Is there anything I can try?

Krusty_Clown

hot to trot wrote: »

I have been downloading my 405 runs on to my work computer via the little stick thing. I got a new little netbook laptop thingy at home and want to use this instead. I downloaded the software and did all the stuff I am supposed to but when it downloaded my runs , it stopped at the beginning of August and there is no sign of the later stuff. have forced data transfer but still dont know where it is . Maybe it wont transfer? all my other runs since I got it at the beginning of tthe year are on it.
Is there anything I can try?

Where do you keep your runs, in Garmin connect (internet) or in Garmin training Centre (computer), or both? Are the missing runs up on Garmin Connect?

It could be that you filled the memory (there's only a fixed amount of space, and the distances you run would take up a lot of space!) and for some reason newer runs are not over-writing the older runs. Instead you're losing the new runs.

hot to trot

IM not sure where they go to be honest. I downloaded as instructed and then when I paired the watch with the ANT thingy it just went onto the screen. Garmin connect rings a bell. Maybe I should just clear the log. Dont know what the point of keeping them is anyway. I havent much chance to move location so it will be the same boring type runs over ad over.

Krusty_Clown

hot to trot wrote: »

IM not sure where they go to be honest. I downloaded as instructed and then when I paired the watch with the ANT thingy it just went onto the screen. Garmin connect rings a bell. Maybe I should just clear the log. Dont know what the point of keeping them is anyway. I havent much chance to move location so it will be the same boring type runs over ad over.

How do you look at them? In an web browser?

mrpink6789

Hey all,

Hopefully someone can help me. I mainly train indoors and it doesn't involve running, more weights, kettlebells and HIIT on the cross trainer.

I want to get a HRM to show how many calories I am burning and what my average Heart Rate is, especially during the HIIT.

Can anyone recommend one? I read about the Garmins 305/405 etc but they seem to do quite a lot more then I need, especially the GPS aspect

I dont mind spending the money but would rather not if I don't have to!

Cheers in advance,

Krusty_Clown

The Garmins won't really be of any use to you, particularly if you train indoors. Better off looking at a Polar heart rate monitor, or even trying one of the LIDL jobbies (non-GPS!) that they have on sale once in a while. But if you're looking for a decent HRM, then Polar are hard to beat.

elvis jones

does the 305 have a light for training in the winter evenings. Looked but can't find the answer anywhere.

Krusty_Clown

elvis jones wrote: »

does the 305 have a light for training in the winter evenings. Looked but can't find the answer anywhere.

Have a read of the owner's manual. Search for the word 'light'.

Middle Distance

Checked out a good few shops recently for the above Garmin and found the sub4running.ie is by far the cheapest supplier of garmins in Ireland. They would be as cheap as buying them off e-bay and the likes. Garmin 405 & HRM for 280 euro. Checked other places here and they were looking for 350 euro +.

eon1208

Quick question before I erase 1 months worth of runs from my 405cx... My computer broke down and between getting it fixed, training hard for DCM and work/family commitments I downloaded no data for approx 4 weeks....I downloaded everything on monday and all the runs came across but upon investigation I noticed that the batch of runs prior to 3 weeks ago (approx 9 days of runs) had the splits and distance covered showing but graphs, elevation data etc was all missing... The missing data included a couple of tough training runs leading up to the national half marathon and the half marathon itself... This was data I would like to have kept. Anyway before I delete everything from the watch and lose it forever, can it be somehow retrieved...Maybe I tried to download too much at once but it just happened that way as I was so busy coupled with the computer breakdown.....

Krusty_Clown

Middle Distance wrote: »

Checked out a good few shops recently for the above Garmin and found the sub4running.ie is by far the cheapest supplier of garmins in Ireland. They would be as cheap as buying them off e-bay and the likes. Garmin 405 & HRM for 280 euro. Checked other places here and they were looking for 350 euro +.

I'm a big supporter of shopping local and supporting local businesses, but your findings are inaccurate Middle Distance. The same watch is €228 euro delivered from Amazon.co.uk.

robinph

There is only a limited amount of memory for the watch to store the actual GPS track points and elevation, position HR for every step of the run. So once that is full the oldest data just gets deleted from the watch. It does then keep the lap data for the runs for longer as they take up less space, but you will eventually run out of space ffor that data as well.

Just have to try and download the data as often as possible from the watch to a PC so as not to loose all the data, but unfortunately those old runs are gone now except for any laps splits.

Krusty_Clown

eon1208 wrote: »

Quick question before I erase 1 months worth of runs from my 405cx... My computer broke down and between getting it fixed, training hard for DCM and work/family commitments I downloaded no data for approx 4 weeks....I downloaded everything on monday and all the runs came across but upon investigation I noticed that the batch of runs prior to 3 weeks ago (approx 9 days of runs) had the splits and distance covered showing but graphs, elevation data etc was all missing... The missing data included a couple of tough training runs leading up to the national half marathon and the half marathon itself... This was data I would like to have kept. Anyway before I delete everything from the watch and lose it forever, can it be somehow retrieved...Maybe I tried to download too much at once but it just happened that way as I was so busy coupled with the computer breakdown.....

Hi Eon, do you upload to Garmin connect at the same time as Garmin Training centre? Did you check to see if the runs were successfully uploaded to either location?

It sounds like a problem that a few people have suffered on this thread, where when the memory is full, it doesn't capture the most recent activities (beyond summary data). A good habit to get into, is to set the watch to delete activities once they have been uploaded, which will keep the watch memory free. Also upload activities to both Garmin connect and training centre, so you always have a backup.

plodder

or is it that it deletes the detailed track data for old runs in order to make space for the latest ones?

I'm in the same situation myself. I lost the USB stick about 4 or 5 weeks ago, and (if I ever find it) I'm presuming that the old run details will be gone, when I get to upload it.

Krusty_Clown

plodder wrote: »

or is it that it deletes the detailed track data for old runs in order to make space for the latest ones?

I'm in the same situation myself. I lost the USB stick about 4 or 5 weeks ago, and (if I ever find it) I'm presuming that the old run details will be gone, when I get to upload it.

It's a little unusual, but people have reported both situations in this thread 'newer runs don't have associated trackpoints' and 'older trackpoints being overwritten'. Maybe the behaviour is different based on the watch model, or maybe some people are just hitting a bug where it stops recording newer trackpoints until you carry out a hard reset.

I would expect that you will lose your older runs though (but keep the summary data).

carthaigh

Not sure if it's valid to ask what really is a Gramin support type question here but I'm getting nothing from them and maybe some of ye are Garmin experts.

I have a Forerunner 305. Working fine for last few years.
Last week it just stopped powering on.
When I put it onthe charging cradle connected to my pc via USB it powers on but I find lugging a PC out on runs tends to slow you down a bit.

I've tried the soft and hard resets without any luck.

Any magic out there?

Krusty_Clown

Sounds like your battery is cream-crackered. Others have had success with getting through to Garmin support. They tend to have a fixed fee for repairing (replacing) Forerunner watches. Did you try ringing their support line?
http://www.garmin.com/sites/uk/support/contact-support

carthaigh

Thanks Krusty, that was the next port of call. Just hoping there was a way to avoid being without it in the run up to DCM.

shels4ever

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Sounds like your battery is cream-crackered. Others have had success with getting through to Garmin support. They tend to have a fixed fee for repairing (replacing) Forerunner watches. Did you try ringing their support line?
http://www.garmin.com/sites/uk/support/contact-support

The new garmin link is

http://www.garmin.com/krusty_clown

upsidemark

I have a garmin 205 which I use for running and cycling. The face of the watch fell off one day when cycling. Nearly crashed the bike when I noticed the watch face was gone!! I found it about a mile back on the road but couldn't get it working again.....

Anyways...to cut a long story short... I contacted garmin UK. My watch was out of warranty. They told me to send them the watch and they sent me out a replacement. They have a fixed fee which if I remember correct came in just under €60.

The replacement watch as far as I can tell looks brand new. It was expensive to get fixed but alot cheaper than buying a new watch!!

http://www.garmin.com/sites/uk/support/contact-support

carthaigh

Costs 50 to get a replacement from Garmin plus whatever postage it costs you to ship the bust one to them.

Looks like it's a common problem and a post from the Garmin forum (below) aligns with what I suspected as I've had 2 garmins go belly up after a 'wetting'.

"I broke down and carefully pried the case apart. It looks like the seal had failed and sweat had shorted out the contacts. I cleaned the contacts with an eraser and popped the unit back together. IT WORKS!! So, right now I have electrical tape wrapped around the unit so that I can wear it for my lunch run. I will have to silicone it up this evening! Just a circuitry problem after all!"

I had shipped mine off before I read this. Think I'll give it a go the next time I have problems.

Krusty_Clown

carthaigh wrote: »

Costs 50 to get a replacement from Garmin plus whatever postage it costs you to ship the bust one to them.

Looks like it's a common problem and a post from the Garmin forum (below) aligns with what I suspected as I've had 2 garmins go belly up after a 'wetting'.

"I broke down and carefully pried the case apart. It looks like the seal had failed and sweat had shorted out the contacts. I cleaned the contacts with an eraser and popped the unit back together. IT WORKS!! So, right now I have electrical tape wrapped around the unit so that I can wear it for my lunch run. I will have to silicone it up this evening! Just a circuitry problem after all!"

I had shipped mine off before I read this. Think I'll give it a go the next time I have problems.

Well hopefully they'll give you a new/reconditioned unit, so it won't happen for some time to come. 50 quid plus postage is a pretty good deal (admittedly it would be better if they didn't fail at all!).

RayCun

Posted off my 305 to get fixed, got two back in the post today.

(Okay, I assume that one of them is knackered and they're only sending it back so I can mount it on my wall)

Salty Dog

This is probably a stupid question but what's the difference on the 305 between "Time - Avg Lap" and "Pace - Avg" ? Is the former a better option over a marathon when you manual take each split - is it giving the avg over 26 laps as opposed to the avg over 26.X which you actually run ?

Or does it make any difference.

Thanks,
Salty !

Krusty_Clown

Time - Avg Lap: average time to complete each lap so far
Pace - avg: average pace over the duration of your current run

If you have your laps set to ever mile, or every km, then both values are going to be pretty close. If however, you have your lap set to some other value (e.g. when you pass a particular point, or every 5kms, then Time - Avg lap will display the average time it takes you to comlpete each of the laps.

So let's say lap 1 (5k) takes you 24:00
Lap 2 (5k) takes you 26:00
Time - Avg lap: 25:00
Pace - avg: 5:00

Salty Dog

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Time - Avg Lap: average time to complete each lap so far
Pace - avg: average pace over the duration of your current run

If you have your laps set to ever mile, or every km, then both values are going to be pretty close. If however, you have your lap set to some other value (e.g. when you pass a particular point, or every 5kms, then Time - Avg lap will display the average time it takes you to comlpete each of the laps.

So let's say lap 1 (5k) takes you 24:00
Lap 2 (5k) takes you 26:00
Time - Avg lap: 25:00
Pace - avg: 5:00

Thanks Krusty.

plodder

Salty Dog wrote: »

This is probably a stupid question but what's the difference on the 305 between "Time - Avg Lap" and "Pace - Avg" ? Is the former a better option over a marathon when you manual take each split - is it giving the avg over 26 laps as opposed to the avg over 26.X which you actually run ?

Or does it make any difference.

Thanks,
Salty !

To add to Krusty's explanation:

"Time - Avg Lap" is only gets updated at the end of each lap. But, I guess it doesn't depend on GPS, if you record the laps manually. So, it's presumably more accurate - so long as you press the lap button correctly at each marker. The last lap (the 0.2 miles) will screw up this number though. But, by that point you don't care (because you've finished )

"Pace - Avg" is the average pace of the whole run so far, and it's updated constantly, but is dependent on GPS. So, it's likely to be less accurate, but doesn't depend on you pressing the lap button.

Personally, I don't like to have to touch the watch once I start. I've messed it up too many times. So, I'd just use overall elapsed time, with a pacing band. And probably have either Pace or "Pace - Avg" showing on the watch as well, just as a backup. Though since pace is affected by GPS inaccuracy you would want to take account of that for a marathon.

Krusty_Clown

plodder wrote: »

To add to Krusty's explanation:

"Time - Avg Lap" is only gets updated at the end of each lap. But, I guess it doesn't depend on GPS, if you record the laps manually. So, it's presumably more accurate - so long as you press the lap button correctly at each marker. The last lap (the 0.2 miles) will screw up this number though. But, by that point you don't care (because you've finished )

Good point Plodder, it could be a useful data field during a marathon, but you'd want to be sure you hit every single mile marker. Miss one, and the data field is screwed up completely. I've run a few where I've watched for the mile markers and missed them completely.

robinph

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I've run a few where I've watched for the mile markers and missed them completely.

Which is why I just stick with the unreliable GPS'ed miles. They are not accurate, but it does at least give me a simple way of seeing where I was faster or slower without being dependant on having spotted a marker.