I found my old 305 last week after thinking I had lost it, so I tried it out on a ride today.
It works fine, but Strava and Garmin connect can’t find it, even though the the PC beeps when I plug it in and it shows as charging.
I’ve tried it switched on and off. I downloaded the latest Garmin Express and I still can’t upload my ride.
My Edge 800 is still recognised, so it looks like a fault with the 305, not the PC. What else can I do?

I had this a couple of weeks ago – I found a soft reset of the device worked but you can try a hard reset too. (Google is your friend with regard to which buttons to push in what order…)

your 305 might need a update as well.

Mine is always playing up with Strava and GC. I find it’s normally the plugin at fault and restarting the browser sorts it.

your 305 might need a update as well

I’ve updated my 800, but the PC needs to find the 305 before it can update it. 😕
Tried a soft reset and it made no difference. It doesn’t need “unfreezing”. It still works and charges, it just doesn’t connect to the PC.

Same problem with my 305. Seems to be an issue with Windows 8 😈

Works fine on my desktop running XP Pro!

My 705 was doing similar, tried it on two laptops and still the same.
Then tried a good quality USB cable and now connecting.
Do you have to push and hold one of the mode/power buttons to put it into PC mode same as my 705 as well?
I take the laps/history off the device and use a converter to make tcx files and then upload to Garmin/Strava, always struggled for a direct upload from the device.

I had this problem with a second hand 305 that I bought. Nothing I could do would get it to connect. I phoned Garmin and they sent me a new unit for £37 even though I wasn’t the original owner – you may get it even cheaper having bought it from them.

Is Garmin Express up to date? I suspect it (Express) doesn’t play nicely with older Garmin machines. I’m still using the communicator plug-in with my 305. The 500 works ok with express.

still using the communicator plug-in with my 305

Express doesn’t work with the 305, it is still the communicator plugin so make sure you have that installed as well.

I’ve downloaded the latest version of Express and Communicator plug In, done a full reset, losing whatever data was on there, and it still can’t be found by Mrs MTG’s laptop.
I’ll take it home and try it on my PC as it always used to work on there.
I only want it as an emergency back up for 12 hour racing really.
My 800 has lasted over 12 hours in the past, but I’m not sure how much battery capacity reduces with age, so I wanted to be able to swap to the 305 during 12 hour solo events if the 800 is running low.

I’ve heard of Garmins not being recognised, but as your ‘beeps’ when plugged in, I’d assuming the PC is actually seeing the device. I’d suggest going into “device manager” and seeing if the device has been correctly recognised, & is listed or is being seen as an unknown device/not working (yellow triangle with exclamation mark or red cross next to item). If it is, delete it from device manager and tell the computer/device manager to search for new hardware (lots of info on the net to tell you how to do this).

As stupid as it may sound, my Edge 500 is only recognised by one of the 3 USB ports on my laptop.

Might be worth trying a different port (ffnarr) if you haven’t already.