If Your GPX Appears Broken, Try This.....

[Reno Chris]

So a couple weeks ago I was out detecting with my GPX 5000 and all was going well. Steve Herschbach and I were hunting a spot where there are several patches in a comparatively small area a few hundred yards up to a quarter mile apart. At the last place of the day, I took out my GPX and turned it on, and it sounded weird (the 5000 goes through a specific set of tones on boot up and I know what is normal). I looked at the display screen and it was off - it looked the same as when the detector is off. It was making some faint sounds and I waived some metal objects past the coil and it did make a weak sound as the metal went by - but it was obviously malfunctioning and with the screen off, I could not adjust the sound upward even if I wanted. I tried a second power cord and that made no difference. I tried another coil - also no change. So I sent the unit into minelab for repair. They rebooted the unit to all the factory presets and it worked fine. Apparently this happens sometimes that the computer gets itself set to some weird setting and it wont run right  unless reset to the presets. Turning on and off is effectively a partial re-boot, while retoring factory pre-sets is a full and total reboot. Sometimes that is what it takes.

So, the moral of this story is.........

 

if you find that your Minelab GPX 4000 to 5000 model seems broken, try a different power cord, try another coil (both these I already knew), but also try rebooting to all the factory preset settings.
Here is the procedure from the GPX 5000 manual:

To restore all Factory Preset settings:

1.Turn the detector off.

2. .Press the On/Off switch down and hold until the Reset Defaults menu appears (approximately. 5–6 seconds).

3. Turn Function Select to the right to select All Settings (as shown on the diagram).

4. Turn Setting left or right to restore all Factory Presets.The detector will restore Factory Presets and re-start.

 

Just thought this falls into the category of stuff worth knowing if you own a GPX detector.

[fredmason]

Chris, another issue that can cause problems is turning the detector on and off in rapid order; that may cause the computer to get confused...

 

Fred

[Sourdough Moe]

On 6/12/2014 at 5:53 AM, fredmason said:

Chris, another issue that can cause problems is turning the detector on and off in rapid order; that may cause the computer to get confused...

 

Fred

it is called coil overload 

[LukeJ]

You can also experience 'coil overload' when toggling between timings too fast.

[IdahoAl]

Thanks, good information to know.

[schoolofhardNox]

All very good information. Thanks guys. I'm not in a nugget area, so it's beaches and cellar holes for me. The 5000 is a killer at the beach. No complaints on it. Now the reliability of their DD coils is another matter