Thread: Need A Lowrance Guru

Originally Posted by dennishoddy

My Lowrance HDS7 Touch has been stopping too. Sonar, side finder and down scanner all at once. I have all three of them on the screen. Haven't really put a pattern to it yet. Sometimes it stalls after making a run across the lake and coming back to trolling speed, and other times, it just stops. Power off/on cures it for awhile and I have messed with the stop button which sometimes restarts it, and sometimes not.
My side scanner is having issues as well. The right side works great, but the left side appears to be dead. I can select right only, left only, or both. Nothing works on the left side.
Unplugged and replaced the cables a couple of times that didn't help. Guess I'll use that tech support number above tomorrow. I've got a trip to Greers Ferry coming up, and it would sure be helpful. Unit is only 3 months old so I'll possibly get to check their warranty.

Let me know what they tell you when you call them. I'm stuck working long hours right now and Thursday will be the first chance for me to look at mine and try some of the things mentioned.

Thanks in advance for the help guys I'll let you know if it goes to working.

I have to tilt my motor up a little bit to be able to scan on the left side of the boat. I was also having trouble with my side scan fuzzing out and noticed one of the screws holding my side scan transducer had loosened up a little. When I tightened it up, it fixed the problem.

Originally Posted by Crappie Reaper

Do you have the latest software version in your HDS 1.0.41.99? http://www.lowrance.com/en-US/Softwa...DS-Gen2-Touch/ It contains improvements of the sonar auto ranging.

I copied and pasted this off another forum. There may be a more recent update.

This^^^ before anything else. I have two 7 touch units on my boat and found that keeping these up to date is always beneficial. It has even solved a GPS issue I've had as well. The software that these units run is fantastic and catastrophic at the same time. There's no other unit out there with the personalization these units have however that creates software that is much more complicated to write. I've put serious thought into getting a Garmin but I can't stand the "old school" software setup they run and not having the personalization of a Lowrance. They also want an arm and a leg more to get a comparable unit, just not worth it IMO.

My HDS 7 would not show any detail when I was stopped. Screen kinda washed out when I stopped and it always shut off on it's own like it was getting hot. Talked to lowrance and installed all updates and it done the same thing so I sold it and bought a Garmin. Have the old 510C on the front of my boat for years and still love it. Don't have these problems with the new Garmin. Never got the HDS to work like it should have.

Everything Fishers said for me too! exact problems. Exactly what Josh said about customer service. You will have better luck prying a t bone out of the mouth a pit bull or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex! I love my images from my Lowrance, but they come at a price for me. After my last Lowrance Customer service issue, I said I would never buy another one. To date, I have only seen twp people post a picture from a Garmin, so I am not sold. I did see Jimmy Houston promote Garmin images, those images needed a little photo shopping before they hit the public.
I hope you guys customer service dealings are different.

Originally Posted by crappie_jiggin

Let me know what they tell you when you call them. I'm stuck working long hours right now and Thursday will be the first chance for me to look at mine and try some of the things mentioned.

Thanks in advance for the help guys I'll let you know if it goes to working.

I called them while on the lake today. I suspect the customer service rep I talked to didn't have English as his first language, but that seems to be the norm for customer service now matter where you call.
First thing we did was to do an electronic reset of the unit. Hold down on the page button, and hit the power button. Release the power button but continue to hold the page button until you hear a beep.
My hearing sucks so bad I didn't hear the beep, but it did bring up a page to reconfigure the unit. Nothing more than select English, etc. Easy to get through.
I didn't get any stalls where the screen froze, but I'll give it time to see if it actually helped.
My issue with the structure scan left side not working is another issue. While talking to the customer service rep about it, he said that if I had the receipt for the transducer, and could email a pic of it to them, they would replace it.
I told him that the transducer came with my unit in a bundle, and was not bought separately. Gave him the SN of the unit, and he said it did not come with the locator.
My receipt shows differently, so we may be fighting an issue there.
I have a buddy that works at the OKC Cabellas sporting goods hunting section where I bought the unit, so I forwarded a pic of my receipt and UPC number to him to see if he can get some inside info for me.
I know company's make special packages for the big box stores that are not offered anywhere else. Hopefully I fall into this category because another transducer is a couple hundred bucks if I remember right.
Here is the receipt I believe the bdl shows it's a bundle package.
Ruger builds rifles to be sold strictly at Walmart. It's not uncommon in the industry.

Originally Posted by Crappie Reaper

Do you have the latest software version in your HDS 1.0.41.99? http://www.lowrance.com/en-US/Softwa...DS-Gen2-Touch/ It contains improvements of the sonar auto ranging.

I copied and pasted this off another forum. There may be a more recent update.

I found out that I'm at version 4.0. and need to be at version 5. something. I'll be doing the upgrade.
Looked online, and it does offer significant improvements to the features, most of which I'll never use, like Sirius radio, etc.

With that receipt you should be taken care of even through Lowrance. Also, it looks like you purchased this much less than a year ago, has Cabelas offered to help return the transducer or package for a new one?