Trouble with Garmin 160 Fishfinder

I’ve got a Garmin 160 bought new that is starting its 7th season on my boat. I’ve always had some trouble with it and especially noticed it yesterday. Spent yesterday working two rods on P4 dragging jigs off my bow. The 160 is bow-mounted on my PD50 and I noticed after several hours of use it would fail to read the depth or display the bottom and instead would just flash the horizontal bars beneath where depth displays. I checked the transducer, batter power, cabling, etc and everything is fine. My 250 at my console operated just fine all day. Has anyone else had this trouble with this model where it just gets a gremlin in it and goes wacky . Powering it down and back up didn’t help anything at all. I once spoke with a Garmin rep at a sports show and he mentioned something about a software problem on ’98 models that the factory could fix. Does anyone know how to fix it? Thanks for the help.

I would give garmin a call: 800-800-1020

Hope you get ‘er worked out.

Can you plug the bow unit into your console unit to rule out a bad transducer? Also check to make sure the transducer surface is clean.

I use to have a 240 that did the same thing and I almost kicked a field goal with it.

Thanks for your suggestions. I tried switching the units and the problem followed the 160 so I don’t think its the transducer. I’ll see if Garmin will help me. Good fishing.

Does anyone have an A/C PC adapter cable, 18 pin(US)to plug in the Garmin 160 to household 110V and the 9 pin serial port on a computer for a software download off Garmin’s website? I’d like to borrow or buy it from you. I believe the p/n is 010-10276-00. Garmin wants nearly $70 for one including shipping costs. Seems like a lot for a one time software dump. Any help is appreciated.