My Columbus seems to have an intermittent fault. During a 700 mile trip the interior got very hot due to the weather and the Columbus would not come on, just a black screen. Now I'm back home after another 700 miles without the unit but just now the splash screen came on and the unit worked perfectly for the next 20 minutes. When I restarted the car the display was black again and the unit is not working again. Any ideas please as to what could be wrong ?

What model Columbus is it? Does it have a microphone on the top right hand button? More likely it has a small speaker & letter i which are the earlier ones and very prone to overheating.

Yes, it has a microphone in the top right

Well, that's a good start. Can you hear the fan running behind it at all when it gets hot? Although this might not be an overheating problem, it does like to be kept cool.

 

After that, it's either hardware or software fault (I know, there's not really anything else) so first thing I'd be looking at is possibly reloading the software. If that fails, then it's hardware related which could be anything really.

Is there a way of reloading the software if the units not working?

No, unfortunately. Is it dead completely now?

 

Yes but is there anything I can do if it does come to life again as it did this morning?

I would suspect it might be tricky getting it to accept a software update. If it fails during the update then it'll be a brick. If it's a main board fault then you can only try, but if it's another hardware fault then it could easily fail just for the hell of it when it wants.

If I can't sort it up here I have to make another trip south next month but down the East coast this time is it possible to drop it off with you and, if possible pick it up a few days later on our way north?

Yep, no problem. I'll have a loan unit here to pop in for you to keep the music going too.

Great, can you send contact details to my email address, [email protected] or pm me. Luckily I still have my trusty Garmin!

Regards

Bob