What do you do if your dive computer fails?

Answer 1

If your computer fails during a dive, end the dive immediately, perform as long a safety stop on 5 meters as your air allows and leave the water. Wait at least 24 hours before diving again.

If your computer fails during a dive, wait at least 24 hours before diving again. Do not simply switch to another computer if doing multiple dives, as the new computer won't know your nitrogen load from previous dives, but will assume that you are "fresh", i.e. have no nitrogen load.

If you're tech diving, the answer is simpler; you should always dive with a backup computer and a backup plan for ascent, written on a writing slate. If your computer fails, simply switch to your backup or go to your backup ascent plan.

Addition and Suggestions:

This is an involved answer and really depends on several factors including the depth you were at, how well you were monitoring your computer, if your computer has the pressure gauge built into it and if you were diving well with a buddy. If you were monitoring your computer well such as every few minutes and then noticed it failed, it is not this big crises many make it out to be. Obviously if your pressure gauge is built into your computer then your dives are over unless you have access to another pressure gauge. In this case, you do need to ascend, performs safety stops and exit the water.

If you were paying attention to your computer as you should during the dive, while it is uncomfortable not knowing your cylinder pressure you should know roughly how much you have left as well as knowing you do not breath much at shallow depths performing a safety stop, so you should still perform a safety stop while staying neutral so you can easily ascend if it starts becoming difficult to breath from your tank.

But if you still have access to your cylinder pressure, then you have many more options. One is to ascend to a shallow depth (with your buddy) and continue your dive. The key is being an educated diver that can make smart decisions. While each diver must have their own computer (as is taught in classes), if you have maintained very good buddy contact during your dive you and your buddy will have very similar nitrogen absorption and time limits. This may be a new concept to most, but take a minute to think about it as well as do some personal experiments. At the deep depths, the times are very short and do not change much at depth, so the difference in time between 120' and 130' is very small so a diver can fluctuate in depth some from their buddy and it will not have a drastic affect on their time limit. At the other extreme the times at the shallow depths are very long it is very hard to reach them. So the morale to this part of the story is you can use your buddy's computer as a guide if yours fails and if you ascend to a shallow depth after the failure (assuming you and your buddy were diving next to each other). Try this experiment. On your next dive compare your computer's "nitrogen pixels/graph" to your buddy's, the time your computer is showing you have left underwater as well as the time limits allowed on a repetitive dive. Assuming you have the same or similar computers that calculates the times the same, you and your buddy's computers will give you virtually the same information. Again this assumes you and your buddy were diving next to each other during the dive. Therefore if your computer fails, you may ascend to a shallow depth (where there is a lot of time allowed) if you and your buddy were diving next to each other during the dive and if your buddy's computer shows that you are well within your time limits.

So now the question becomes what do you do after the dive. Do you just dive with your buddy's computer again? Well this is a definite "no". The previous procedure was an "ending the dive procedure" and only allowed you to finish the dive at a shallow depth. You also have to assume your buddy's computer will fail on the next dive. So where does this leave you. Well you don't have to wait 12 or 24 hours before diving again. You can easily go to dive tables. Many think this is not possible when computer diving unless the kept very detailed information on their dive profiles. However it is actually very easy to do. Of course you still must have access to a depth gauge and timing device for your next dive. Using a dive table as a backup may be done in several ways. The simplest is to just assume the worst case scenario and assume you have a "Z" pressure group (or whatever is the greatest on your table) and then calculate your surface interval and allowed depths and times. But you will probably find that you knew the depths you were diving to and can calculate your previous dive(s) and find a repetitive pressure group designation. This is also a good reason to log your dive after every dive so if your computer fails in the middle of the day, you can look back at what your previous depths and times were. You may also use your buddy's computer to help with your table planning. Again, if you were diving in close proximity to each other your profiles will be very similar and if your buddy's computer gives an "average depth" you may use that for your dive table planning. By definition, the average depth is calculated over the entire portion of your previous dive and this large time sample should result in a very similar average depth for both of you. Also taking into consideration that this depth will need to be rounded up for dive table purposes (such as 36 feet to 40 feet) it is a very acceptable way to plan a dive. It must be noted that average depth only works if you did your dive profile from deep to shallow.

Many divers have been taught they must use their deepest depth during the dive for dive table purposes. But this is not correct as dive computers take nonstop recordings at exact depths. The reason divers are taught to use their deepest depth is because it is simple and they do not have a way to determine average depth without very detailed depth and time recordings or without a computer or device that will give them that information ... and if a diver is using a computer they often never consult a dive table. So if you have access to an average depth from your buddy's computer it is fine to use it for planning your next dive with a dive table (again assuming you and your buddy were next to each other during the entire dive). If you want to do another experiment, start logging your average depths during your dives and compare them to your buddy's. Not only will you find them to be very similar, but you will find that your average depth is actually pretty shallow and will probably be in the range of 35 to 40 feet even if the deepest portion of your dive was to 80 feet. This is simply because most divers spend a lot of time diving at shallow depths towards the end of their dive.

So in conclusion, perform proper buddy contact during your entire dive, monitor your pressure and depth during your entire dive, and ascend to the surface or a shallow depth using your buddy's computer as a reference if yours fails (spending time at a shallow depth towards the end of a dive in essence is a long safety stop that does you good) and then plan a repetitive dive with a dive table assuming you have a pressure gauge, depth gauge and timing device available.

Answer 2

unplug it. if unplug and replug doesnt work go get it fixed not asking questions on an outdated website