Is my dive computer starting to die?

[PsyWulf]

I'd go with bad contact on the cradle

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[chrpai]

I guess it's not possible to say something as nice as possible and not have someone get their sensibilities offended.

 

[Craig66]

I guess it's not possible to say something as nice as possible and not have someone get their sensibilities offended.

It is not about sensibilities. The original poster wanted advice as to what to do with his computer. He did not ask for advice as to whether or not he's diving practices should be dictated by a computer. We are all aware of the deficiencies of a computer and that at the end of the day we are responsible for confirming that a dive makes sense.

Let's answer his question without becoming the dive computer police.



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[Colliam7]

I have a Suunto Gekko dive computer. Last night I was downloading the 2 dives from last weekend, and an extra dive showed up.:shocked2: It was dated for 8/7/14 , it showed a very sawtooth profile with depths reading from 10'- negative 37'. (How is it possible to dive to -37'?)
The time & date settings are correct on my display. This "dive" does not show up in the logbook mode, just on my laptop. The 2 dives that I made last weekend showed up & look to be accurate.
Anyone else have any issues like this?

In my experience, the things that go wrong with a dive computer include: 1) user error, in setting parameters before the dive, 2) battery failure, 3) depth sensor failure, 4) display failure, and 5) failure of the connection for uploading data. I am sure there are other failures, but this has been my experience.

For me, failure #1 is far and away the most common computer failure. But, depth sensors are susceptible to failure, and the indication of a negative depth dive is suggestive of a possible problem with the depth sensor. I have had two computers fail because of faulty depth sensors. In one case, the unit was showing me diving repeatedly, to 3244 feet for one minute. (Yes, I am a stud diver, as I did those dives with a HP000 on my back.)

Most computer manufacturers buy sensors from third party vendors. Sometimes, they get a bad batch, or just a bad unit. It happens.

I have had a display fail, and display bad data. And, I have had a number of cases where the connection to the computer just didn't want to work at one point. I disconnected, walked away, tried the next day and it was fine.

And, I have had supposedly new (at least, less than 6 months old) batteries fail.

Battery replacement / recharging is probably the easiest (and least expensive) user 'fix'. If that works, go diving. If it works for a while, and you start seeing other negative dives, or very deep dives, think about replacing the computer, because it may well be a faulty depth sensor.