Support Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products. (part two)

New to the thread. Don't see other companies on here but do they as many problems as Rand Mcnally GPS does?

 

That's really hard to say as there are no other threads like this one where someone is willing to take the time to run a support thread for the other GPS units on the market.

 

My TND720 consistently freezes about 2x per day, resulting in me having to unplug the device from power, let it shut off, then wait up to 10 minutes to reboot.

I have done a diag and repair on the device, then did it a second time just to verify everything is ok according to the dock software.

I have no other electronics in the window, and there's about 2-3 feet between the CB and the GPS.

I really like using the Tracks feature, but using the feature causes the GPS to freeze at least 2x a day guaranteed.

When I just use the GPS alone with none of the other features, it freezes 1-2x per day.

I like to use the Wifi enabled features as well, but that causes another guaranteed freeze and also causes the map to glitch. If I do a wind speed overlay (or any other actively-colored overlay), the overlay will flash and redraw constantly, even when I shut off the Wifi connection altogether.

When the GPS freezes, it will either give me a low memory error which recommends a reboot which I do. Or, it'll pop up a Windows-like box, play a bell sound, and it says the application has encountered an error and must close. These types of crashes take 10 minutes to recover from.

 

I am not an expert but could it be a power problem, is the unit getting full power all the time, if you can try using the a/c cord running from your inverter and see if it does the same thing.

 

I'm very computer savvy so your instructions wouldn't be troubling to me. Please let me know what to do. I have a very interesting piece of information you may like to know, too.

Nearly every time I connect to the computer to check for updates, it'll say I have an update available, so I apply it. Then I view the changelog which seems to always show the same thing. If I have a corrupted cached file then I'd imagine that would cause this 'issue'.

So, I have a suggestion, and probably the easiest one you've ever seen: date each update in the changelog. Even if it's a small update with no changes that we would see, just PLEASE date the changelog with even the smallest of release notes. This would solve my suspicion of whether my updates are even working or not.

Also, can you tell me what the purpose of the expandable memory slot is (aside from the wise answer that many may want to give being that it takes a memory card, lol)? If I throw a card in there will the tracks get recorded to it, leaving the internal memory free? Is there anything I might be able to do to free up some of the RAM that I am clearly running out of? (Yes, I understand the difference between the storage memory and the active memory used by the applications in the device).

 

Mark-Looks like I won't make it home till early September as my August plans changed due to a very lucrative offer in LA, Ca. I couldn't turn it down even though it meant canceling home time.

Sadly, my third 720 temporarily faded away and died enroute to LAX today. This is in addition to the charging connection problem I've had with the current 720 I'm using and also the previous two. The connection won't stay engaged to the unit and charge the battery as the red light flickers on/off, rarely getting to green. If the last two are any indication, it's not long for this world.

I'll let you know when I'll be home in September and will likely forward all three 720's to the address you provide.