Last week I was using the GPS for a trip and found two very frustrating problems and would like to know if I'm alone with these?

Upon starting up my laptop, I have found it takes a good 15 minutes to get a connection to a satellite, is this normal? And once I had a connection, there were times it would constantly say I was off of the path and recalculating the directions. However, once it got a new set of directions, it would then lose the satelite again and have to recalculate again.

One day I was in the country and thought maybe that was the problem, but it did the exact same thing in a major city the following weekend. Not sure what is going on. There shouldn't be a problem with reception because I have been able to get and keep a connection in the same vehicle before but on these two weekends the GPS just decided to freak out on me.

What kind of GPS receiver doyou have connected to the laptop and where is it located in the vehicle? Was it in the same position as usual for these problem trips?

What was the weather like? Was it cloudy, rainy?

...ken...

I'm using the GPS receiver that part of the Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 package (the black USB one) and ya, it was in the same place both times, one the USB extension wire down near the bottom of the windshield (well below the front windscreen's antenna). And both days had very few clouds and VERY sunny (and hot).

Thank you Ken for replying.

Hi phenry, make sure the black side of the receiver with the Microsoft logo faces the sky. That is where the antenna is.

re make sure backside, MS logo faces up!
OH, that's interesting! I'll give that a shot the next time, very cool suggestion. Thank you Marvin.

Perhaps they should have designed the receiver differently. The part where the antenna is should be round (not flat). And the back of the unit should be flat (not round).

Perhaps users tend to place the receiver upside down on their dashboards because it feels just natural to place it on the flat side.

I did think about that but figured the device is so small that it shouldn't matter but apparently it does! haha Thanks for the tip. I'll try that again soon.