Garmin 200w has trouble aquireing satellites?

plug it into a computer and update the firmware. my TomTom has done that a couple of times.

It sometimes takes several minutes to acquire satellite signal afterward.
Make sure you have clear visibility of sky away from tall buildings.
If that fails try reloading software again, go to garmin and download web updater.
1 option in this is to reload all software again.

http://www.sharc.net/gps_antenna_repair.htm

havent fixed it yet but not prepared to pay for it

Updating the firmware to the garming will help, they release a bunch of updates on that.

went to garmin and they had a direct solution

While under warranty.... yes.... Make sure it's been registered on their site before calling them and requesting an RMA number.

Good luck!

- Jim

I have a 276C that has the same problem. Garmin has a unit with this problem and is working on a solution. The problem is that the real time clock loses time when the unit is turned off and disconnected from a power source. As a result when you turn on the unit it thinks the satelites are in a different orbit than where they actually are. The unit will continue trying to aquire forever and not find the satelites. You have to select "New Location" from the menu and select "Autolocate" and the unit will start to look for any satelites in view. The unit should get a fix within 15 minutes. This is a very frustrating problem having to reset it every day. There is a new version of firmware (5.3). I don't know if the problem has been fixed with this release.

I have a Garmin Nuvi 350. I solved the problem by purchasing a Glisson GPS antenna that plugs into the external GPS connector on the Garmin antenna.

I had a similar problem, and Garmin recommended that I reset the user data by holding "Power" and "Esc" when you turn on the unit. I think it remedied my problem to some extent. However, note that this will indeed delete all of your waypoints and other data, so be sure to back them up somehow (even if it means manually writing down the waypoint coordinates and re-entering them later) if you don't want to lose them. Good luck.