Lake Master HB chip

I had my first personal experience with the Lake Master HB chip in my 997 this weekend. I’ve got to say I was impressed with the detail of the lake bottom. I really like the depth highlight features as well.

However I was terribly disappointed with the incredibly slow load/response time of the chip. While cruising, it would load extremely slow cutting the screen in half sometimes. I played with the scale anywhere from 500 feet up to .5 nautical miles.

While sitting in the driveway, I found it terribly inconvenient to digitally scout a lake 250 miles away as it took minutes to load that map as I scrolled North.

I’ve experienced this in my 997 (with updates) and Dad’s 898 (New).

Same experience here. Found the chip to be fantastic with detail when up on Rainy Lake but was very dissapointed in load time when first starting with the chip, panning off the page or motoring at 30mph.

Not sure why but my Navionics chip is at least 10 times faster to load, maybe more.

This past week was up on the Bay of Green Bay and was not impressed with the Lakemaster chip. If you are headed out there, Navionics all the way. But on other lakes I might as well throw the Navionics overboard.

I guess each chip has it’s bright spots.

Thanks Nic. That’s what I thought. Dad has the pre-loaded Navonics on his unit and I’ve already got the Navonics chip. We were thinking, “use the Navonics chip when running high speed use the Lake Master when fishing/trolling a spot. “

Hi guys,
The slow Lakemaster and Navionics Platinum chart performance of the Humminbird “legacy” boxes (the old 900 series, the current 700 and 1100 series) has been well documented around the chat boards on the internet. The owners of those units have found that they are better off using the much smaller (file size) Navionics Premium chips. The problem the “legacy” boxes have is that their processor is not fast enough to execute much larger file sized (and more featured) chips. Basically ALL mapping chips contain a downloadable program file plus a map set (IE. the lake maps). The 2010 Humminbird 800 and 900, and 2011 1100 (maybe new 700 – I believe their getting a Ethernet port added – so why not new processor internals!) boxes all have (or will have) the new processor/co-processor package added just to handle these new larger chips.

Take care,
Roger

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Hi guys,
The slow Lakemaster and Navionics Platinum chart performance of the Humminbird “legacy” boxes (the old 900 series, the current 700 and 1100 series) has been well documented around the chat boards on the internet. The owners of those units have found that they are better off using the much smaller (file size) Navionics Premium chips. The problem the “legacy” boxes have is that their processor is not fast enough to execute much larger file sized (and more featured) chips. Basically ALL mapping chips contain a downloadable program file plus a map set (IE. the lake maps). The 2010 Humminbird 800 and 900, and 2011 1100 (maybe new 700 – I believe their getting a Ethernet port added – so why not new processor internals!) boxes all have (or will have) the new processor/co-processor package added just to handle these new larger chips.

Take care,
Roger

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Thanks Roger. That’s what I told my dad. The processor is to small. Hopefully that is something they’ll address in the future.

Will this be addressed for the 2011, 1100 series or higher?

From what I understand the new Hbirds will be dual processors.

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From what I understand the new Hbirds will be dual processors.

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Good to know. Doesn’t help those of us who have already dropped 3K plus. Oh well, I guess instead of dual processors, I’ll be running dual map software.

My 997 runs GREAT. Not sure if the updated software helps (I assume it does), but on Rainy this last week the chip was AMAZING. I would run ~ 42mph top end and never lose the chart, zoomed in relatively close.

I set the shallow water highlight to 10 foot (red), the depth highlight to 30-40 foot (green), with the depth contour setting at 3-4 or so, meaning varying shades of blue between 10 feet and 100+.

AWESOME looking at that map. Told exactly where the reefs in deep water (or deep holes in shallower water) and very shallow 0-10′ water were located at any instant.

Sorry to hear you are having issues, but just as an FYI, mine is running Great!!

I’ve got some GREAT screenshots of the depth/shallow hightlight I could post if/when I get them off of the unit…

Mike

I have an 1197… 50+ MPH and 500’ zoom range and I don’t have any issues at all running the data HEAVY Lakemaster Rainy chip.

Just a thought here… how is your map orientated? If you have it “track up” you’ll see much slower load times if you don’t have the latest updates. Try “north up.” I’m not sure why but many have reported that adjustment to make a big difference in load speeds.

FYI…

I ran BOTH North up and Track up in my 997 on Rainy… No issues with newest software updates for me on either setting…

The only slowdowns I had were due to waves, moose, or busted prop blade…

The reason I asked was, I have a 987 on the dash now and am looking to upgrade the Dash unit and move it to the bow in the next year or two. Also thinking to to see what 2012 might bring as well??

Anything in the ole’ crystal ball?