Is this nuvi 2589 simply Bricked or is it a Hardware Failure?

Okay.

I'm not heartbroken, I got seven good years out of it.

Customer Support offered a while-they-last trade-in for a DriveSmart 55 with traffic, plus lifetime maps transferred from my old device, for $115. I might go with that. Is it a good deal? Or just start using my phone. I'm not driving around day in day out.

BTW I tried again with an 8GB Sandisk card and both capitalized and uncapitalized Update.txt name. No joy. It's dead Jim.

I could theoretically remove the flash chip with my hot air pencil but the outcome's uncertain and there are more rewarding things I'd rather be doing.

It was so good of you to help me troubleshoot this poor old thing.

-Dave

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Originally Posted by VintageDave [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

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Customer Support offered a while-they-last trade-in for a DriveSmart 55 with traffic, plus lifetime maps transferred from my old device, for $115. I might go with that. Is it a good deal? .....

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Not a bad deal at all, if the DriveSmart 55 is brand new and includes shipping both ways. If it's a 'factory-refurb' maybe not so hot. Or you can get both new and refurb DS55s from 3rd party sellers and still have your old one to part-out/sell. [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] ~$135 & ~$160 with free shipping to Lower 48.

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BTW I tried again with an 8GB Sandisk card and both capitalized and uncapitalized Update.txt name. No joy. It's dead Jim.

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Yeah it's dead. Update.txt, UPDATE.TXT, or update.txt are read the same. Like LDR.BIN, Ldr.bin or ldr.bin - capitalization just doesn't matter in this case.

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I could theoretically remove the flash chip with my hot air pencil but the outcome's uncertain and there are more rewarding things I'd rather be doing.

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I'd honestly rather stick needles in my eyes than go thru the drama of sourcing, installing and setting up an appropriate chip. Theoretically it's possible to use any flash memory like a microSD card but sorting wire tracings correctly is a bitch and another chip has to be properly programmed anyway. I agree, forget it and do something more rewarding is the right idea.

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It was so good of you to help me troubleshoot this poor old thing.

-Dave

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My pleasure. I'll ask a mod. if these posts should be moved from [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] to it's own discussion thread because there are so many indications of hardware failure in your device during our exchange that it might help someone else trouble-shoot when they're unable to use software methods to 'un-brick' their Garmin.
:mn: Done, with some posts slightly edited accordingly.