Thread: IMPORTANT! If you want HELP in case of a bricked Garmin device, please follow this

Today I managed to use an old PC with USB 2.0 ports.

I'll try to describe what I realised: when pressing the START / STOP button while the device is OFF keep pressing while plugging in the USB cable, UPDATER.exe instantly recognizes it as FENIX3 V4.50 (which is weird because if I do not press that button it is always V9.60) and I was able to re flash it successfully I filmed it with my phone.

However after releasing the START / STOP button it just restarts and nothing else happens, no Mass Storage Media or anything... I tried to fiddle around with hex editor with this .rgn to change .RGN to .XGN, or .IMG to .XMG .... the only thing that this resulted was that the Diagnostic startup screen where the watch gets stuck now says ROM (2mb) check ....FAIL and watch light flashes.... also trying to re flash with the quickcure3 file it gives me an error message that says something like this: The garmin device is unable to program the requested memory region.

I was able to re flash it a lot of times trying with different .rgn files, and I could also get back where the diagnostic screen ROM check returned to PASS.... so I guess I was doing something. But this procedure was done only with the START / STOP button press procedure. Without pressing that button I could not re flash. I have no idea what that button does while the watch is OFF and get's connected to the PC. And why does it show like it is V4.50 instead of V9.60... I never read anything like this behaviour. When releasing that button USB connection gets lost and the watch restarts. Do you know of anyone that had any success of repairing a Fenix 3?