HDS gen2 non touch 4.0 upgrade warning!

Just a heads up on what I just learned after I upgraded my HDS gen2 to the 4.0 software. Lowrance has programed the new software to screw up the depths on the contour lines virtually making the old lake master chip worthless to use. My sugestion to you is not to upgrade unless you plan on buying a new insight chip. So much for for the other 6 lake master chips I have. I called and told Lowrance they should make poeple aware of this on the update page. Not happy!!!

You must not have done the other updates on your Gen2. I lost LM capability a while ago.

http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/lowrance_1190663/

I’m just kind of curious why you updated. I bought the only upgrade was for capability with motorguide.

Nope, my units had the 2.5 version software, which the lake master worked great in. I have been a fan of Lowrance for many years, but when they do stuff like this and not make you aware of what the upgraded software will completely do is wrong. If the units worked with the chips when you bought them they should never have messed with it. Poor customer relations and very dirty pool. I have pushed for a lot of customers to buy Lowrance throughout the years, but this might have just pushed me over the edge. I got a kick out of the customer service rep saying we cant fix it to make it work with the lake master. I laughed at him and said you programed it to not work, did you not? Then you should be able to correct it. The almighty green back wins again!

I was thinking of going with a new Motorguide and that was the only reason. The mapping also had some enhancements to the upgrade which allowed for different capabilities into shading the contours and zooming in and out faster.

Go to a retailer and see if they have the older up-date chips and have them up-date (go back) to your previous version. I purchased a new to me HDS8 Gen2 this spring to go with my original HDS8 Gen2 and it needed to up-date back so all my mapping chips worked. Took about 3 minutes and I was ready to go.

So reverting the software worked. Thats funny when I asked the Lowrance rep about reverting it back he said the lake master chip still would not work. I have a copy of the 2.5 version. I will have to try it then. Thanks!

John Gildersleeve wrote:

So reverting the software worked. Thats funny when I asked the Lowrance rep about reverting it back he said the lake master chip still would not work. I have a copy of the 2.5 version. I will have to try it then. Thanks!

I picked up an HDS8 gen 2 this spring and will give it a go this weekend. It’s still got the original 1.XXX software but you can only get the 4.0 from the lowrance website. I’d like to take advantage of some of the newer updates but likely don’t need all of the features of 4.0. Any chance of getting a copy of the 2.5 update?

The older Lakemaster chips for Lowrance are worth as much or more than you piad for them. That doesn’t halp much since the new chips cost twice as much. They sell fast too. Lots of older Lowrance units out there that will only work with the older cards.

I upgraded my software this spring and have been wondering why my contour lines where so inaccurate and have been reading the Manuel trying to figure it out. I have called Lowrance and asked about the contour lines being off and the person I talked to didn’t have any suggestions. thanks for the heads up!

I bought a lowrance insight pro 15 chip. It appears to be the same chip as the old lake master chip. The only issue I see with it is the vegitation green crosses clutter up the screen. Anyone figure out how to get rid of the green crosses?

John Gildersleeve wrote:

I bought a lowrance insight pro 15 chip. It appears to be the same chip as the old lake master chip. The only issue I see with it is the vegitation green crosses clutter up the screen. Anyone figure out how to get rid of the green crosses?

When on your Chart screen in the menu somewhere(I can’t remember right off hand) you can turn off the vegetation overlay along with all other kinds of stuff. If you can’t find it I’ll fire up my graph and right up the steps.

I realize I’m a bit late to the party, but for anybody wanting to roll back to previous software versions, they are all available here:
ftp://software.lowrance.com/

Thanks for that great link with all the updates, Much appreciated.

After a weekend using the Insight chip I am pleased to say that the chip is identical to the latest version of the lake master chip. I am going to try reverting back the software on of one my 8’s back to the 2.5 version. I have a bunch of lake master cards for different areas and don’t feel like I need to spend more money on new chips.

I have been using the Lowrance Lake Insight chips since 2012 and I can assure you they are every bit as good as the LakeMaster chips you are accustomed to. The ONLY thing I don’t really care for is the color of the contour lines being purple. Aside from that there is a BONUS with these chips in that you get Lake of the Woods and Rainy River on the same chip as all of MN. That was two chips for Lakemaster.
I run Navionics, LakeMaster and Lowrance chips all at the same time. Navionics works better for the area of Lake of the Woods I fish in Canada, but otherwise the Lowrance chip is my goto.
One nice feature added with version 3.5 is the ability to SHARE mapping chips between networked units. That is sweet. I actually stumbled across this before it was supposed to work with an older SW version, but will really save a guy some money.