Need A Lowrance Guru

Unit: HDS 7 Touch

Went out last Tuesday (5-24-16) to Wister and everything was working fine until we had a storm roll in on us. Loaded the boat and unhooked HDS 7 to put in truck while we waited out the storm. An hour later we hooked unit back up and unloaded. Turned unit on and came right up. Then the sidescan quit advancing just sat there with the last image. Turned unit off and back on. Never could get the sidescan to work, downscan worked fine. Decided to disconnect unit and look at the pins to make sure I didn't bend one when I put it back on, all looked good so I hooked it back up and after about 10 minutes of messing around with it, it went back to working just fine. Now yesterday (5-29-16) I went out to Eufaula since it was my only day off this week and turned unit on and everything worked fine, about an hour in the downscan quit working on me. Downscan shows nothing but a white screen. I powered down and back up and nothing. disconnected unit and reconnected and still no downscan. Sidescan was working just fine. Can someone give me and idea as to what is going on here. I'm new to Lowrance and these units. I know it has to be something commend with the scan part of it.

Unit is not networked and I am running the LSS2 with standard transducer. 2D worked during both issues.

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Originally Posted by crappie_jiggin

Unit: HDS 7 Touch

Went out last Tuesday (5-24-16) to Wister and everything was working fine until we had a storm roll in on us. Loaded the boat and unhooked HDS 7 to put in truck while we waited out the storm. An hour later we hooked unit back up and unloaded. Turned unit on and came right up. Then the sidescan quit advancing just sat there with the last image. Turned unit off and back on. Never could get the sidescan to work, downscan worked fine. Decided to disconnect unit and look at the pins to make sure I didn't bend one when I put it back on, all looked good so I hooked it back up and after about 10 minutes of messing around with it, it went back to working just fine. Now yesterday (5-29-16) I went out to Eufaula since it was my only day off this week and turned unit on and everything worked fine, about an hour in the downscan quit working on me. Downscan shows nothing but a white screen. I powered down and back up and nothing. disconnected unit and reconnected and still no downscan. Sidescan was working just fine. Can someone give me and idea as to what is going on here. I'm new to Lowrance and these units. I know it has to be something commend with the scan part of it.

Unit is not networked and I am running the LSS2 with standard transducer. 2D worked during both issues.

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Might try calling the Lowrance Customer Support tomorrow. Could be a short/transducer malfunction. You could google the problem too.

Here's a direct number to their tech support. They will do their best to get you going. Don't run Lowrance now but used it a lot over the years and kept it on my mobile phone in case I had an issue on the water. Lowrance Tech Support: 800-324-1356

You most likely hit the stop button by accident. read your manual for that function.

Restore to factory defaults?

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Originally Posted by DrNip

Restore to factory defaults?

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no.

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.

Wow that really stinks. . . I have always been a Lowrance fan and actually had the 7 touch with the lss. But returned it for the cheaper Garmin. Kind of glad I did. Good luck on getting it fixed.

I have had and still have on occasion that problem. What works every time for me to instantly fix it is increase or decrease the depth/distance on one or both of the down/side while moving, and my unit instantly pops out of being stuck. Once its running again, I switch it back to auto depth. The problem with my unit was due to the unit resolving super shallow or fast speeds, or very abrupt changes in depths while in auto depth/distance mode. Using reg sonar with the down and side made it worse. I hardly ever have this problem any more after re-positioning my transducer a bit higher. As an added benefit, I can read bottom now up to 33 MPH. Not using reg sonar I think has helped resolve this issue also. I didnt stop using the reg sonar for this purpose, I just have no need to use reg sonar on my console unit.

Good luck dealing with Lowrance customer service. Might just want to order a Garmin online ;)

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.

http://cdn.thehulltruth.com/images/s...er_offline.gif

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

http://cdn.thehulltruth.com/images/s...er_offline.gif

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

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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.

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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.

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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.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...79e8d2b556.jpg

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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.

http://cdn.thehulltruth.com/images/s...er_offline.gif

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

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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?

Dennishobby, When you did the electronic reset, did you save anything first? I have heard that when you do this that you will loose your waypoints if not saved to a sd card. Need to know this before I try anything tomorrow morning. I looked at my receipt to see when i actually purchased it and wouldn't you know it, it was April of last year so my warranty just expired just my luck.

I don't use the navigation system much, so I can't answer your question about saving waypoints.
My waypoints are stored in my noggin.
One pleasant surprise was one of the custom screens I'd set up and accidentally deleted came back after the reset.

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Originally Posted by Podcast

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?

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I'm going to try and go through Lowrance first, then to cabellas if needed.

DL them onto an SD card just to be safe, then set up a folder in you computer to upload them for future so you can clear the SD card.

My buddy at Cabella's called today and said that the locator package I got indeed contained the side finder. They have called Lowrance, and talked to their sales rep that said it should be good to go for a warranty replacement. I'll hold judgment until I actually have it in hand, but its looking up.

Well I have done everything I can as far as resets and updates. I did post this out on the main forum as well under electronics and someone posted how to do soft and hard resets for all Lowrance products. Here is the link. Lowrance resets are here ...:

Article Details

Found this to be very helpful. The unit appears to be working, but not 100% sure till I put it on the water to make sure. I did the latest update and re installed my waypoints.

Thanks for all the information and help gentlemen. For I am not electronic savvy at all.

Good deal. Thanks for the link.

Quick note. It states on that link that hard resets will delete waypoints and tracks. I would highly recommend you export your waypoints and tracks to an sd card before doing the hard reset. If not you will lose all those files.

Shouldn't have to go through all this just to get a locator to work. I think all the manufacturer's are getting way ahead of themselves to try and stay a step ahead of the competition and not working all the bugs out before they put this stuff on the market.

I have the Garmin striker 7sv cost 499 works awesome! I took my hds 7 with lss back to cabelas. Sure glad I did.

Well I went up to Tenkiller to check out the unit. All I can say is it has gotten worse. I have no downscan what so ever now. Before I at least had a screen, but it was just white and wouldn't show anything. Tried creating a favorite screen just for the downscan and it just keeps coming up as the downscan screen. I even did another soft reset out on the lake and still no go. I guess I'll be calling Lowrance tomorrow after the wife's surgery.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you have regarding Garmin units...I'm running 3 soon to be 4 echomap 92sv's

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Originally Posted by TimY

Shouldn't have to go through all this just to get a locator to work. I think all the manufacturer's are getting way ahead of themselves to try and stay a step ahead of the competition and not working all the bugs out before they put this stuff on the market.

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That's happening in the Gun world as well. Manufacturers are putting out guns and letting the public do the Beta Testing, doing recalls, and coming out with Gen 1, Gen 2 and so on.

Hope you fellers get all the bugs worked out before I get on the water with my new HDS's. 12 Gen3 and a 9 Gen3 on the new Ranger... May be calling for help lol......Ranger

Not sure this will help at all and might be a worthless comment that everyone has done but make sure you have your transducer type loaded into your unit. My 7 touch showed a blank screen on DSI until I loaded the transducer type in. After that it worked great. It might be something you would overlook if you did a hard reset. I'm having the same problem others have mentioned with my screen freezing. Seems to start again after it pauses for a little bit. Usually have my depth on auto, will try changing the depth range. Thought it might need a stronger GPS signal receiver, but I don't know what that would have to do with my DSI screen freezing. Wondering if I changed my chart speed would make it better too. Haven't figured out how to do that yet. Guess I need to read my book.

I guess maybe I should mention that I have had this unit since April of last year (2015) and have not had an issue until the mentioned date on this thread. The only thing I did was take the unit off because of a storm rolling on us at Wister. Was working perfectly fine up to that point. When the storm moved out I hooked unit back up and then issues started.

Kevin, you may have a good point there after I did the hard reset. I may need to look at the transducer option if there is one cause i sure can't remember if there is or not. I will be calling Lowrance this afternoon and see what comes of it.

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Originally Posted by crappie_jiggin

I guess maybe I should mention that I have had this unit since April of last year (2015) and have not had an issue until the mentioned date on this thread. The only thing I did was take the unit off because of a storm rolling on us at Wister. Was working perfectly fine up to that point. When the storm moved out I hooked unit back up and then issues started.

Kevin, you may have a good point there after I did the hard reset. I may need to look at the transducer option if there is one cause i sure can't remember if there is or not. I will be calling Lowrance this afternoon and see what comes of it.

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They certainly work much better when you tell the unit what specific transducer you are using versus "unknown".

Called Lowrance and I'm back in business. The rep was a testy ole foreigner, after 3 comments and his attitude I asked for someone else and he really got mouthy. I simply hung up and called back and talked to someone else, plus asked for a supervisor to complain about Keith. Everything went extremely well after that. I had done everything right, but we had to go through about 15 different settings to get it back to working right. Can't remember what they all were so if you end up with the same issue and have to reset everything then your better off calling them and not asking me. This is what happens when your not electronic savvy like me.

I want to thank all that helped me in this issue. If you ever want to go fishing on TK let me know and I'll be glad to take you. Can't guarantee my unit will be working though.

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Originally Posted by crappie_jiggin

Called Lowrance and I'm back in business. The rep was a testy ole foreigner, after 3 comments and his attitude I asked for someone else and he really got mouthy. I simply hung up and called back and talked to someone else, plus asked for a supervisor to complain about Keith. Everything went extremely well after that. I had done everything right, but we had to go through about 15 different settings to get it back to working right. Can't remember what they all were so if you end up with the same issue and have to reset everything then your better off calling them and not asking me. This is what happens when your not electronic savvy like me.

I want to thank all that helped me in this issue. If you ever want to go fishing on TK let me know and I'll be glad to take you. Can't guarantee my unit will be working though.

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Glad to know everything worked out. My experience is the customer service is better than Humminbird by far. Much faster no doubt. These units took a lot of flak in this thread but they are bar none in my opinion. Glad all worked.

Well now that jiggen's problem is resolved I could use some advice re: my 12" Gen 3 Lowrance. As soon as the advisory comes up with the Agree prompt in the lower right hand corner- the whole screen darkens to the point that I can barely see it and viewing ANYTHING on it is impossible. I have the brightness at 100% and have tried a hard reset. This is a new issue for this unit but I have long suffered flickering and freezing as well. Those I can live with but it's worthless with a dark screen. Any ideas? ( save the Garmin lectures Fabio)

Find out George cause have a new 12 Gen 3 being put on my new Ranger. Just in case write down the instructions for later use lol....mine.......Ranger