GPS Bluetooth hang when TomTom gets busy

nashogg

Hi,

GPS - CRUX II/BTGPS Receiver

PDA - Compaq iPAQ H3970 (Built in Bluetooth)

64MB RAM

ROM 2.10.10 ENG

Pocket PC Version 3.0.11171 (Build 11178)

Processor PXA250 (Revision B2)

128MB SD Memory Card

Bluetooth

Module Type BC-01

Radio Revision 1.0

TomTom Navigator 2.02 (327) - English, Great Britain

TomTom GPS 2.02 266/331

The full UK map is loaded to the 128MB SD card.

I have a problem with my TomTom 2.02 (also evident in 2.0).

Frequently the GPS module will stop communicating with the Bluetooth GPS receiver. This is characterised on the GPS status screen by a freezing of the blobs running from the satellite icon to the PDA icon. When communication is normal the blobs are animated, strobing from left to right. Turning bluetooth on and off on the PDA usually has no effect, and in most cases only a reset of the PDA will fix it.

The problem most often happens when TomTom is recalculating a route, but may also happen when switching back and forth between TomTom functions.

On the GPS screen the bluetooth slider is set over to the far right (TomTom logo showing on the PDA icon), and as of v2.02, the EMTAC Wireless GPS driver is selected against 'Bluetooth serial port com8', with a tick in the check box.

For me, this problem blights an otherwise excellent product, requiring a PDA reset and a restart of TomTom in the car, which is both tiresome and dangerous while trying to drive.

All my observations lead me to believe it is not a fault with the EMTAC receiver. Two of my colleagues who have similar set-ups also experience this problem.

Could anyone give me guidance on eliminating this problem from an otherwise truly outstanding product?

Many Thanks and Best Regards to all

alienrider

Hi,

I am no expert on this but I have heard talk on these forums about making sure you have an up to date version of the GPS drivers. If you do a search through this forum and the Emtac forum you should find the details on why, where and how to do this.

Hope this helps,

B
_________________
A difficult problem can be solved more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would Bagpuss handle this?" ;-)
Setup: Garmin 3950LMT + PGPSW CAMS

Oldie

nashogg,

"On the GPS screen the bluetooth slider is set over to the far right (TomTom logo showing on the PDA icon), and as of v2.02, the EMTAC Wireless GPS driver is selected against 'Bluetooth serial port com8', with a tick in the check box."

My setup is the same as yours expect that I am still using ROM 2.0. I have not experienced the problem that you describe with TTN 2.02. However, I am puzzled by your description of the GPS screen. Is it the one with a World map? If so I have a PDA icon with Zzzz on it on the left and I keep the slider to the left. The other icon is a loudspeaker and I have the slider to the right.

The Zzzz slider is associated with power management.

Richard

Oldie

Now I see!! If the slider is moved to the right the Zzzz changes to the TomTom logo.

In another thread about Zzzz Dave posted the following

"zzz will allow your Pocket PC to turn off depending on your power off settings when on battery or powered, when pushed to the right, the Pocket PC will keep the Pocket PC alive, and will never power down. Good if you want to fill up the car and you won't have power for 2-3 mins."

This means that your settings were better than mine. Perhaps the problem is with the iPAQ ROM version. There certainly have been problems when people have upgraded the ROM. I decided to stay with 2.0

Richard

nashogg

Hi Richard,

<<Now I see!! If the slider is moved to the right the Zzzz changes to the TomTom logo.>>

Yes, cute isn't it! - I must admit I wasn't sure what the Zzzz and the TomTom logo were about - When I first installed it I had Zzzz showing, and I couldn't get comms established with the GPS receiver at all. A friend who already had a system showed me the slider, and moving it to the right established the communications. I have left it there ever since (but then I only ever use TomTom in the car, where it runs off a 5 volt supply so I guess powersave is not an issue).

I am not sure if I can 'back rev' to 2.0, but will look in to it.

Thanks

Neil

aero

Yes you can revert to ROM Version 2.0. Download it from the iPAQ site.

Interestingly you say the problem occurs when re-calculating a route. Thus TTN2 must be accessing the maps which are presumably located on your SD card? One of the problems with iPAQ ROM version 2.1 is accessing data from an SD Card - perhaps this is causing it to hang?

I had to downgrade to ROM 2.0 due to excessively long route calculation times with v2.1.

nashogg

Thanks

I will give it a try

Neil

nashogg

Aero/Oldie,

Thought you, and anyone with this problem might be interested to know that I downgraded version 2.10 of the Compaq ROM on my iPAQ 3970 to version 2.00 as per the suggestions here and..... all my problems went away

No more GPS hangs over bluetooth, and additional bonus - the excruciatingly long waits when searching for locations, and application hangs (which I hadn't mentioned in this post) have also gone. On the strength of this result, a friend did the same and bingo, same result.

There is definitely an issue with TomTom 2.x and the iPAQ Compaq ROM 2.10. Where the problem lies I don't know, but if you don't need the 2.10 ROM, go back to 2.0, and discover how the TomTom software is supposed to work!!

Thanks for your help in this forum.

Best Regards

Neil

aero

Thats good news Neil, and thanks for getting back to us.

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