End Of The Road For Garmin Forerunner 305?
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Spent some time last night updating various software versions for my Garmin Forerunner 305Yesterday I thought I’d failed to charged my Garmin 305 correctly and therefore didn’t/couldn’t use it on my 15 mile long run. Today, despite being on charge for almost 24 hours, the same thing happened and the screen went blank as soon as I removed the unit from the charging cradle.
I searched online for a solution, but the news isn’t good; it appears the battery inside the wrist unit will no longer hold a charge and is actually quite a common problem. Several newsgroups, forums and even the Garmin web site suggested a soft reset — which is performed by pressing the lap and mode buttons at the same time, and then pressing the power button to switch the unit on — but this didn’t help at all.
I also read several blog posts where 305 owners had taken their units apart to check the battery connections - a bit too drastic a solution for my liking. I guess I’ll contact Garmin in the next couple of days to find out what my options are, but my gut feeling is that a repair will be almost as expensive as buying a brand new unit with full warranty.
I’ll let you know what Garmin comes back with….
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Comments
Hi Steve
I have had my Garmin Forerunner 305 for about 2 years until I encountered the same problem as you describe. I called the Garmin Support in Switzerland and told them about the issue and they informed me that it is very likely the battery of the watch. I asked what the approximate repair costs would be because my warranty expired long ago. They told me that he could not tell but I just should send the watch in and they would look what they could do. The good news is, 2 weeks later I got a brand new Garmin Forerunner 305 for no costs ad all. Free replacement even with expired warranty. So, my advice to you is, send it in 
Cheers
Daniel
I just got my watch back from Garmin support this past Friday; very fast turn around, although mine was under warranty still. My problem was that I had water inside the unit under the display, and it would flood any time I ran in the rain, so it had trouble downloading data to the computer.
I guess Muddy Buddy didn’t do mine any favors; my own fault really…
Glad you got yours back though!
–Steve
My 305 suffered from tiny water damage… it dried out and worked. the little rubber buttons had been pushed with a fingernail too much…holes.
Then i dropped it bad.. case cracked.
I’m considering a 405.
Rather than running and just training, I like to go for hikes and record the tracks. Forerunner is not designed with this use in mind.
Could a (position) data logger and a heart rate data logger be correlated in a laptop?
l8r
How long have you had yours?