I took the boat out yesterday and my lowrance would feeze on the "don't rely on this product as primary source of navigation" warning and the alarm would sound non-stop until I take the power cord out. At this time none of the buttons would work, the only thing I could do is unplug it. I bought a navionics card maybe a month ago and tried it out 2-3 weeks ago with no problems. After messing with it I noticed it would only freeze and lock all the buttons and sound the alarm if the navionics card was in the unit. I think my HDS 5 is a gen 1 model. Has anyone heard of anything like this happening? I'm not entirely sure what to do.

What card are you running in that unit?

Navionics hotmaps premium south-S6

Sounds like you need to update your unit. Go on the Lowrance site and follow the instructions. You can also YouTube it.

That's what I would try first. Easy, fairly fast, and free.

Thanks, that is only a 2GB card, so it shouldnt be locking it up. Have you tried doing a software update on the unit?

Thanks guys, I'll try to update the software on the unit this weekend. Hopefully that fixes the issue. The unit came with the boat when I bought it 2 years ago, so who knows when it was last updated.

Did the software update fix your issue?

I was finally able to do the software update today. The unit recognizes the card now but when I change the map from lowrance to navionics, the whole screen is white and stays that way. I'm not sure what the problem is now.