Altitude?

[Scott Lewis]

I had an old 2620 that broke, and courtesy of Best Buy's extended  
warranty was swapped out in store for "anything you want that doesn't  
cost more". I picked up a Nuvi 680 and while the 26XX series has a  
bit more features (more than one via point on a route, slightly more  
on screen information, etc), the battery powered, lightweight Nuvi is  
so much more portable.

I was pretty sure there was another difference too, and sure enough,  
according to Garmin.com it looks like the Nuvi's use "solid state  
memory", so they must have flash ram not the 4gb Microdrive that the  
26XX series has.

Looks like the new 7XX has some of that advanced routing that the  
26XX StreetPilot's have and that the 6XX series is lacking.

On Sep 6, 2007, at 3:22 PM, Adam Bridge wrote:

> I have to think it's the disk drive that's giving the altitude
> limitation. I have a reason for this.
>
> We have a Garmin 2620 GPS unit that we carry with us in our cars when
> we travel. Works great EXCEPT when venturing over 10,000 feet.
> Crossing the Beartooth Pass in northern Wyoming, and over the summit
> of I-70 east of Vail, CO our Garmin unit failed when it tried to
> refresh its displayed information. The unit has an internal disk drive
> with all the mapping data in it. When we descended below 9,000 feet or
> so it began to work again.
>
> Now I think that's not a Good Thing in a portable navigation unit but
> it's what I think happened. I have to call Garmin and see if they
> can/will do something about it.
>
> Adam Bridge
>
>
> On 9/6/07, LuKreme <kremels at kreme.com> wrote:
>> On 6-Sep-2007, at 00:40, Eugene wrote:
>>> On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 08:50:12PM CDT, R.L. Grigg
>>> <newslists at autonomy.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>>> On Sep 4, 2007, at 6:43 PM, Hacker Scot wrote:
>>>>> - Maximum altitude: 10,000 feet
>>>>>
>>>>> ??? What components in a computer are altitude sensitive?
>>>>
>>>> We've been told that the thinner air doesnt have the same cooling
>>>> effectiveness so it will likely casue overheating even when the
>>>> fan blows
>>>> on full.
>>>
>>> The less dense the air is, the less number of "air" molecules,
>>> therefore the less amount of matter available to carry away heat
>>> via kinetic energy.
>>
>> I don't buy that argument at all.  It's much more likely to be
>> something like the reduced air pressure increases the chances that
>> the r/w heads on the hard disk will 'crash' to the disc surface, as
>> someone else mentioned.
>>
>> However, in an imac, there could easily be other components that are
>> altitude sensitive (the bulb for the LCD perhaps?); so it's hard to
>> guess.
>>
>> I do note that Maxtor hard drives list a maximum altitude of 3048
>> meters, which must be just about exactly 10,000 feet.
>>
>> My Seagate has a non-operating max altitude of 12,000 meters, but
>> that is NON-operating.
>>
>> --
>> "There will always be women in rubber flirting with me."
>>
>>
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