Morning all of you,

I'm fighting for some weeks against a GO 910 I bought "as is" on eBay, with a defective HD and no available backup. I have an experience on 3 others GO 910 thanks to the numerous interesting posts here … and which have all been successfully upgraded to the last 915 maps.

That time, I am facing to a strange problem , and did not find any similar echoes on the web :

I first replaced the HD by an Compact Flash (CF) 8Go (with ZIF adaptor), plugged the USB cord, than formatted the CF. Everything ran well.
I than loaded the same configuration than my previous TT :

Bootloader 5.5242
NC 9.510
Map Europe 915.5074

Activation OK with Fastactivate and a copy of ttgo.bif stored in the map folder.

Problem : the TT reboots continuously.

Action 1 : I renamed the .dct file : the reboot stops and ask for a map. Conclusion : the problem seems being located on the map.

Action 2 : I than tried to load the smallest 915 map available (Hong Kong) : the TT runs well.

Action 3 : I loaded both Hong Kong and Europe: when choosing HK, everything OK, but once switching to Europe : app crash and reboot.

Action 4 : I kept both maps and loaded one more map : Europe West (less than 2Gb) : only HK runs, both Europe maps lead to endless reboot.

Action 5 : I thought something wrong on the bootloader,

than changed it for the "oldest" compatible (5.5229) : only HK is usable.

Than incrementing to 5.5242 : both HK and Europe West are OK, but not full Europe.

Notice A: If choosing Europe west as first choice, the TT reboots. The procedure must be :
1 – Choose first Hong Kong
2 – Change map to Europe West

Notice B : after a normal shutdown (no reset) from a Europe West map, the restart is OK.
After reset, need to first load HK map.

Action 6 : upgrade BL to 5.5259 : nothing better

Action 7 : upgrade to 5.5274 : Full Europe finally runs, but again, trough HK first…

Action 8 : after shutdown and restart, again continuous reboot, and no more way to switch to full Europe… even after reset (and deep reset – 20sec)… So I enjoyed Full Europe for some minutes only

I know this Compact Flash upgrade is very few mentioned in our community, but is there any hope here ?

Maybe...
I would simply try the X10 versions from my installers
They are modified to cater for a CF instead of a HDD.

Thank you for this tip. I remember having used it at first, without success (the NC ran well, but same reboots with large sized map). But I will try again this evening and come back for confirmation.

Bad news... I formated the CF, ran the universal installer, selecting x10, added the system and ttgo.bif files, than loaded the Hong Kong map, activated by Fastactivate : everything OK.
Than I loaded the Europe West map, activated, and... again the endless reboot...
I renamed the .dct file of Europe West map to .dct.1, the system ran well back again.
I renamed back to .dct and did the same .dct.1 for the Hong Kong map : endless reboot...
It seems being a managing problem of CF... or ???

jackjean wrote:I renamed the .dct file of Europe West map to .dct.1, the system ran well back again.
I renamed back to .dct and did the same .dct.1 for the Hong Kong map : endless reboot...

You cannot do this. The file extention has to be .dct. You are creating a .1 extension file, & there is no such extension in the world of satnav!!!

I think he just changed the extension so the map is temporarily unusable and to avoid activating the map again if the DCT is just deleted.

It should not really mater how big the map is as you have 64mb of RAM available.
However the pre-fetching can be affected if there is a handling problem with the storage.
Since a CF is often faster than these tiny HDD drives speed should not be the issue here.
I assume a handling problem with big files as the CF is addressed in a slightly different way, but I have no good idea on how to overcome this problem.
Since you already have the installer at hand, check what happens if you use the Memory Boost version for 32mb devices - it uses a different kernel module.
If that version works I might be able to integrate this kernel into a 64mb version and will replace the normal X10 version in the installer.

@tendriver : The .dct renaming method I used was simply to check if it helps against bootloop, and it helped !
The first trial I did after using the installer + Europe map was unsuccessfull (bootloop).
Since I am getting tired to load, unload, format, such big files (~15 minutes for each) I found this way "comfortable" to let "ignore" these large files. In fact, all maps are visible (displayed in the choice of maps), but of course not selectable.

@Downunder35m : you wrote "Since a CF is often faster than these tiny HDD drives speed should not be the issue here"
I find the speed of CF at least equal or slower than HDD, loading files from Windows takes 3 - 5 minutes more, and bootup (after reset) seems also longer...

You also wrote "check what happens if you use the Memory Boost version for 32mb devices" : may I understand that I should try the choice of NC dedicated to GO 32 Mb RAM ? I find this tip interesting, since bringing something new to test, after several weeks "bootlopping" myself ;-) .
I will try this this evening, once being back from Germany...

Yes, correct, try the 32mb version as it uses a different kernel.
But in general users upgrade to a CF either the HDD is dead or because they want more speed.
And you do realise that the bootloader handles the internal data transfers as well?
I think playing around with to get the highest version number is part of your problem.
Search for my rescue bootloader and install it - either the 5.5112 or the 5.5128, especially if the data transfer from PC to TT is very slow and the same transfer in a card reader much faster.

I did all what you recommended : BL 5.5128 (after rescue with 0.000), than NC for 32Mb devices, than Europe West 915.5074
Totally successfull ! And very fast after a sleep status...
But... with full Europe map 915.5074, again bootloops.... could be due to the 32 Mb RAM optimized, instead of 64 ?

Very disapointed... I tried to redo the same clean install as described above, staying with Europe West, but impossible to leave this endless bootloop. Why is it not possible to get twice a good function???

I don't think your reboot is related to the CF, the bootloader was not suitable but I have seen other members posting similar problems with the big maps.
Of course you can simply try the normal 64mb version again, but I'm afraid the result with the reboot will stay the same.
The only "solution" related to this on the TT support forums is that either the Navcore or the map has corrupt files in it.
Navcore can't be the problem in your case, but did you try it with two maps on the device?
I mean for example install the HK map and set the TT up so all works fine.
Now add the EU map and use the menu to switch to the new map.
Did you have any problems unpacking the map or transfering it to the TT?
Is the map downloaded from here and did you already a different map of similar size?
Just trying to rules out problems here...