Helix 9 DI Shutting Down

Been running this unit for a few years and starting to have a bunch of issues. Did the most recent update and the graph worked for a couple trips. Then, it wouldn’t find bottom and the charts and tracks took forever to load. The DI would also skip and lag even at idle.

Today, I fired it up and after a few minutes it shut itself down. I fired it back up and restored the factory setting. It worked for 10 minutes and then shut down again.

Doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to the issue. Graph is direct wired to the battery and has a rear ducer and front ducer off the Terrova.

Anyone seen this before?

Think I give them a call, any possibility of going back to the previous software version to see if that would straighten it out. Then reupload the newer firmware to a formatted card to see if there was corruption?

Good luck Matt, tell us what your outcome is, I’m interested.

I’m going to try and call them this week. I’ll post an update when I have one.

check your voltage

May be your on and off switch is getting bad happened to my nephew`s it was doing the same as yours. Or he would turn it on and it would keep starting up and shutting down.

Check all the connections for corrosion I use Dielectric grease on all of mine.

Spoke to Humminbird today and they suggested to make sure I was on the right update….1.83. Thats correct and the self diagnosis says ok.

Voltage is a bit low but this is on a battery that has the master switch on over night (my fault). I plugged into the charger and it immediately jumped up but I’ll check it again after a full charge.

Connections and everything seem ok. Next option is to ship it to them to diagnose unless there are other suggestions.

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Humminbird units get VERY finicky with low power. They also work best with CLEAN power (meaning you want to make sure to run a direct power wire to the battery, not a fuse panel)

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Humminbird units get VERY finicky with low power. They also work best with CLEAN power (meaning you want to make sure to run a direct power wire to the battery, not a fuse panel)

Matt Moen wrote:

Graph is direct wired to the battery and has a rear ducer and front ducer off the Terrova.

I was under the impression that he had that already covered?

didn’t see that…

I need to think about this – the graph can be shut down through my master power switch which tells me it’s not direct wired. Maybe I should run a couple of leads direct to the battery and see if it changes. Wish it wasn’t so damn cold but I can test it on the river this weekend.

Still seems strange this would happen now….it’s a new battery (Odyssey series 27). I’ll plug the unit in tonight on a full charge and see what voltage it reads.

Try just jumping a couple of wires “loosely ” to a battery and hook it up like a bill hilly. That will give you a quick idea. Nothing fancy mind ya, vice grip, alligator clamp or the like.

I had similar issues with my Helix 7 at the bow of my boat. It would shut itself off and the bottom reading wasn’t the most clear, had some interference. My initial thought was low power because of the shut off happening, but I’m not sure that’s really the case due to the bottom reading and interference. This happened near the end of the season so I didn’t get around to troubleshooting and fixing the issue before I put the boat away for the season, so I’m interested to see if you find a fix. No idea what software version mine has.

@blank

If you hold down the View button you’ll get to a setup screen that shows your software version and the voltage to the unit. That’s the screenshot above.

There is no reason old software versions won’t work. Honestly, it seems the upgrades usually do as much harm as good. My next boat will have a Panoptix not networked to anything and trolling motor where the footpedal has spotlock so I don’t have to worry about syncing all the devices. I spend too much time screwing around with gadgets than fishing.

Yeah, I know where to see it, but the boat is in storage and haven’t gotten around to turn the unit on to look at it. I purchased the unit this past spring, a G2N unit, so I’d assume it’s the latest or second latest version.

I agree with the software versions. I don’t understand how something could work just fine, then not, and say it’s a software issue. They aren’t like PCs that are connected to the internet and other stuff that could infect it with a bug or anything like that.