Question for the Suunto Gekko owners

[patientjob]

Hello everybody,
i am the (until last Tuesday at least) happy owner of a Suunto Gekko dive computer.
The Gekko was bought from the internet at 2008 and till now it has 30 dives.
Till last Tuesday when i had my first night diving everything was working fine. Before hitting the water i activated the instrument and did all the required prechecks. The battery indicator was at 4 segments (the battery is still the original one) and all the segments and sounds were the expected.
The problem appeared when i started the dive and it was the fact that the computer refused to activate the dive mode. All the time there was the screen of the dive mode but no recording of the dive happened, neither while diving neither at the logbook or the dive history.
In all other aspects the computer functions like before except the problem with the dive mode (which as you can understand is a major problem) :shocked2:.
The only reason for this behaviour that i could figure till now, is the remote possibility that i did not convert the Gekko back to it's original state after using the gekko2vyper program, but as i said this never happened before and i doubt that i neglected the conversion.
Therefore the question is:
Anything like that happened before to anyone?
If yes what were the required steps for returning the computer to it's original state?
PS: The water sensors seem to work fine (the AC text appears on the display and i could not see anything clogging the depth sensor)
Thanks in advance

 

[patientjob]

Somebody?
Nobody??

 

[Diver0001]

Take the computer out of the rubber boot and make sure that all of the contacts and the pressure sensor are free of "goop" that might be stopping it from working correctly. Clean it up and soak it for an hour in luke warm water

If that doesn't solve your problem then it's electronics. I've heard about Suunto computers failing like this (although mine never has) and usually it means something is broken.

R..

 

[Bubbletrubble]

It appears that the depth sensor (or something in the hardware circuitry indicating depth) is not working properly.

Follow Diver0001's advice. Clean the contacts well. Do an extended soak in warm, fresh water.
There may be something obstructing the depth sensor, and hopefully the extended soak will dissolve/loosen it up a bit.

The gekko2vyper program shouldn't be affecting the depth sensor or any of the other electronics at all.

If cleaning doesn't do the trick, I suppose it's worth a try to replace the battery. (I realize that the computer is indicating a sufficiently charged battery.)

It's certainly possible that the depth sensor is malfunctioning/broken. If that's the case, the best you can do is get a replacement. If you purchased the Gekko from an authorized Suunto dealer, then I believe that your computer came with a 2 year limited manufacturer's warranty which has already expired. I suppose it couldn't hurt to contact the retailer and ask what you should do. Suunto (or the retailer) may fix it for free, offer to give you a refurbished one, or give you a discount on a new computer. You never know if you don't ask.

 

[Tom Smedley]

Try a cold reboot by taking the battery out and while you're at it replace with a new one.

 

[ReefHugger]

Hi patientjob,

I'm in a similar situation with wife's Gekko (bought in the UK). Worked great (she loves it) for about 40 dives and then 'low bat' indicator. Installed new battery and now it won't 'compute'. Boots up fine and goes through all the menus, AC comes on when submerged and goes into dive mode but goes no further. Even tried another new battery (different brand) - same result.

Like you inspected sensor and contacts - looked like new.

Much too expensive to ship back to the UK.

Should you find a solution, please do post it.