Himalaya & new SD: lock ups

[edsub]

Since I have a new SD card (tried Sandisk 512MB now using Extrememory 1GB) my Himalaya is suffering frequent lock-ups when I am running TomTom 3.03 (with TomTom GPS 3.07) and I end a phone call.
Also the device is reacting much slower in general with the new card in: Sometimes when trying to answer a phone call vai my BT headset the call simply isnt transfered (but after few secs in the same call transferring does work)

When I put in my 'old' Kingston 256MB everything is fine. I did not change anything else.

Filesystem on all cards is FAT.

Any clues ont this???

[sorci]

good question. also happens to me on a sandisk 256mb. but i can't attribute it to the card for sure YET..

[edsub]

Since I did not change anything at all, I must be the SD . . .or at least my Himalaya together with my SD . . .

[Anonymous]

Hi,

It has to do with the SD card. I have an Apacer 256MB SD card and also tested HP branded 128MB SD card. Everytime that the card is in the SD slot the machine is slow. Slow to switch on (about 2 seconds) delay and 5 seconds delay to switch off. Most noticable is to activate the bluetooth setting page. Clicking on the BT icon on the lower right hand corner, at times takes between 5 to 30 seconds for the page to display. Selecting any options will also cause delays and closing the page also causes delay. I have tested this countless of times. Remove the SD card everything goes back to normal (that is no delay at all).

The problem presists from the first version of ROM ie 1.52.00WWE and now the 1.60.00WWE. I wonder if it is resolved in higher version of the ROM.

Regards,
Kueh.

[ammar]

Hey guys,

This file should fix SD cards stability issue.
this was provided from i-mate support site.

hope it will work :wink:

[edsub]

Thanks for the patch, but I have some extra questions on this:
- Is the patch for Himalaya specifically?
- Is There a reason why some devices act differently on certains SD cards (I have had he same behaviour with a Sandisk 512MB, that card is widely spread, also in the himalaya world)
- What is causing the behaviour (ie what aspect of the Himalaya or the SD card, can we detect such SD card from the outside (ie via a blacklist wiht model/serial numbers)?

[ammar]

Thanks for the patch, but I have some extra questions on this:
- Is the patch for Himalaya specifically?
- Is There a reason why some devices act differently on certains SD cards (I have had he same behaviour with a Sandisk 512MB, that card is widely spread, also in the himalaya world)
- What is causing the behaviour (ie what aspect of the Himalaya or the SD card, can we detect such SD card from the outside (ie via a blacklist wiht model/serial numbers)?

yes the patch is designed for himalaya.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Drivers\SDIO]
"SDMemory"="0.15.00 HIMA"

I have no idea why some SD react differently???
me and a friend of mine both have i-mate and went together to by Kingmax 512 SD ! guess what ? mine did work smoothly , his card was hanging the device all the time!
so same SD brands also act diffrently on different devices. :!:

[edsub]

I did not run the patch yet, but I checked the registry.
Guess what: This value is allready set.
The following values apear to be present under the SDIO key:
Common = 0.15.10 HIMA
SDBusDriver = 0.15.00 HIMA
SDMemory = 0.15.00 HIMA

Any other suggestions??

Is it stated on the iMate website for what ROM version this should work? I have a 1.72.00 / 1.72.903 (T-Mobile 1.72.192 based) ROM

[superperry]

@edsub:

I am using your created Homecooked ROM 1.72.903 without any problem regarding SD 1GB. Have you tried different vendor other than Sandisk (eg. from friends that have same size card)?

I am using Lexar 1 GB SD, without any lock-ups so far (finger crossed). :D

[ammar]

I did not run the patch yet, but I checked the registry.
Guess what: This value is allready set.
The following values apear to be present under the SDIO key:
Common = 0.15.10 HIMA
SDBusDriver = 0.15.00 HIMA
SDMemory = 0.15.00 HIMA

Any other suggestions??

Is it stated on the iMate website for what ROM version this should work? I have a 1.72.00 / 1.72.903 (T-Mobile 1.72.192 based) ROM

The patch is advised to be use on ROM 1.72.
the reg value in my last post was to show that it is designed for himalaya.

find below full reg values for the patch. i have checked on my device and it seems that Driver\active\47 is missing!!! so this patch is adding it.

this is according to my ROM 2.06 se.
i did't try the patch because i don't have SD problems, please let me know your feed back. is it working?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Drivers\SDIO]
"SDMemory"="0.15.00 HIMA"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\Active\47]
"Hnd"=dword:00627c40
"Name"="DSK3:"
"Key"="\Drivers\SDCARD\ClientDrivers\Class\SDMemory_Class"
"ClientInfo"=dword:006103e8

:wink:

[edsub]

Ok, thanks for the update (yesterday I want able to open the cab).
The 47 key was missing with me.
Just ran the patch, I will let you know the results. . .

@superperry: The situation before running the patch: I have NO issues with my 256MB Kingston. I DID have the issues with a new Sandisk 512MB. For that reason the shop took it back and I bought the 1GB Extrememory instead. Also with the Extrememory 1GB I DO have the issues.

[edsub]

Unfortunately running the patch did not solve the lockup-issue.

Maybe it has something to do with the characteristics of my SD card. As you might know just the Sd card label is not enough to identify it.
Could anyone please post the model no & country of manufacture of cards that do and dont work?

Does work:
Kingston 256MB - SD-256B1 - Japan
Doesn't work:
SanDisk 512MB - ??? - China
Extrememory 1GB - SD1GBM04S0449 - Taiwan

[pleun]

I use a Sandisk 1 GB from china and a Sandisk 64 MB from Taiwan
both of them work just fine.

[edsub]

Pleun: no issues with TomTom either?

[pleun]

Nope, I have benelux, austria, germany, france, switzerland and major roads of europe on it plus a load of MP3 , no problems yet.........

btw just upgraded to 2.20 SE rom, must reinstall all applications, but so far so good :lol:

[pleun]

re installed tt3, sprint db and some databases, no problems so far, looks good. I'm now 2.20.07CHS

[Z-man]

kingston 128,
trancend 128,

both working....

just one question.... the trancend package indicates it runs 45X, how come when i benchmarked it using pocket mechanic it only scores 5.5X read and 1X write?

[edsub]

The actual speed is the result of combined capabilities of the device & the card.
My SD Cards also perform around 5.5x read and <1.0x write . . .

This SD-Card sh*t is really annoying me. WHAT could make the difference???

[edsub]

Just a warning before you use the SD patch posted above.
After I installed it, I saw it did not solve my problem. That's just bad luck.

BUT: After I installed it my Bluetooth headset stopped working. Even worse: I wasnt able to bond it anymore (incorrect pin). I was able to bond it to my old Nokia phone, so the headset was ok.
Uninstall of the patch did not solve this.
Neither did a soft-reset.
Had to hard-reset :cry:
Lucky me I had a pre-patch backup!! 8)

I still hate it I cannot determine from the outside if any SD card will work on my Himalaya!!!!!! :evil:

[edsub]

COULD it be the card speed that creates the issues I have.
My benchmarks (using Pocketmechanic trial):
Works:
Kingston 256MB Read 0,87MB/s (5.9x) Write 0,01MB/s (0.1x)

Problems:
Extrememory 1GB Read 0,81MB/s (5.5x) Write 0,10MB/s (0,7x)

Can anyone post his benchmarks??

[edsub]

come on! Can someone please post his/her SD benchmark results from PocketMechanic (I attached a trial version you can just run on a PPC).

[pleun]

Works : Sandisk 1 GB read : 0.22 MB/s write:0.02 MB/s
Works : Sandisk 64 MB read : 0.16 MB/s write:1.#R MB/s

with default options in pocket mechanic

[edsub]

My GOD, and I thought I have slow SD access!!!
@pleun: I bet youre also able to use POI's in TomToom without lock-ups??

I get lockups with POI's enabled. I really thought that was caused by the lousy SD speed. . . .
Now Im thinking there's something really wrong with my Himalaya!

[pleun]

Never had any lock up with tt3 whatsoever. (apart from known issue with GPS disabled). Never paid any attention to poi really, just checked and there's 5 boxes ticked.

Never got the impression that SD was slow, so don't know if you should trust these benchmarks ?

[edsub]

mmm, seems I have a more serious problem then.
It doesnt matter if I check 1 POI or 5: As soon as I check 'Show POI' ttn3 locks-up if my speed (ie the data throughput from the maps) gets above a dertain value.
Since I dont care about showing POI I did not look deeper into it. But if youre able to not have any lockups with your SD card-performance, there HAS to be something wrong with my SD interface in think . . .

[NeilM]

There has been a lot of comment on Pocket GPS World (http://www.pocketgpsworld.co.uk) about this subject.

TomTom hits the card very hard in terms of R/W operations; some cards simply do not respond in sufficient time so TT returns an error.

Cards affected are generally ALL made in China (though not all Chinese cards are affected!) and Sandisk appears to be the worst offender.

Advice by PGPS is to only buy cards not made n China, or go for the more expensive "Ultra" cards.

Haing said that, my Sandisk (Chinese) 1Gb card has always worked OK with TomTom and PocketMusic, but access can be slow at times loading map graphics.

The slow perforance of these affected cards has also been implicated in the FAT errors and corruption in some SD cards- applications terminate before the R/W cycle has completed leaving End of File errors and a corrupt FAT or corrupt sectors.

[Anonymous]

I only have a 256MB Kingston memory made in Japan, and everything works fine, even with TT (I'm now using 3.07).
Anybody with Transcend memory around?

RE: club imate patch, description is not very useful. They just state:

Device Support - SD Card Patch for i-mate™ Pocket PC
This page includes a patch to resolve stability issues with certain SD cards for the i-mate™ Pocket PC.

Seems they are saving words....

[edsub]

Only thing the iMate sd-patch did with me was creating INstability

I know about the stress of TomTom on SD-cards, but the nechmarks of pleun as compared to mine really make me worry!!

How about someone posting some more benchmarks

[superperry]

Here's my Benchmark result:

Lexar (32X) 1GB - Read: 0.83MB/s(5.7X); Write: 0.08MB/s (0.6X)

Lexar 256 MB - Read: 0.79 MB/s (5.4X); Write: 0.05 MB/s (0.5X)

Sandisk Ultra II 256 MB - Read: 0.09MB/s (0.6X) Write: 0.06MB/s (0.4X); is this what Sandisk called "Ultra II"?
shame on them... :)

I don't have any problem on all of this SD card so far...

[edsub]

Yesterday I had some discussion with one of the guys from pocketgps.co.uk.
Basically one should avoid:
1. Sandisk (the Ultra cards are ok, but much more expensive)
2. Cards that have one letter and 11 digits on the back (all faulty)

In other threads I read:
3. It is best to avoid all China made cards
4. Lexar appears to be very stable (especially the US made ones), so is Panasonic but those are more expensive
5. The Ultra cards do not offer better speed, as the speed is limited by he SDIO i/f on the device.
6. Toshiba cards are not the fastest but they're stable as well

I found out (after being hinted) that for best TomTom 3 performance
7. Only put maps & poi files on the SD
8. Format (even try a lowlevel format) to FAT32 with a 2048 cluster size

Keep in mind that there are more brands than manufacturers. My Kingston 256MB appears to be a Toshiba in fact.

I would like to see some comments on the (high speed) cards by PQI, PNY, Kingmax that are sold at reasonable prices on ie. eBay. Especially reviews while using TomTom, Phone / Internet & POI simutaneously. When you try that, a lot of cards simply close down under that stress and you will have to reset the device. . . .

BTW: Luckily I could bring back my Extrememory 1Gb card and got my money back. This card was better (much better after lowlevel format and format to FAT32/2048) than the 512MB Sandisk, but in the end it locked up when TomTom, Internet & Poi were active. Had to reset. Could not restart TomTom either when driving (lockup immediately). For now I am sticking to my 256MB Kingston.

[pleun]

I take it you only have the maps and POI files on the SD as adviced?

[findus]

Not sure if you want any more benchmarks, but I use a Viking 512MB SD card (although the back of the card says Toshiba) and I don't have any problems. Am upgrading to a 1GB in the next week or two, so if anyone has any advice on the best one to buy i would be very grateful!

Anyhoo, here are my results:

Read : 0.80 MB/s
Write 0.01MB/s

[edsub]

this indicates that Toshiba cards might not be the fastest (especially in writing) but they perform quite good overall.
From my findings I would recommend a Toshiba, Panasonic or Lexar card

[mephistodan]

well after upgrading from lexar 512mb to kingmax 1gb i experienced some problems...
first of all sometimes the system just can't find the storage card anymore as if it's not there... a soft reset will let it remember..
sometimes i can browse my card to see nothing.. completely free.. even if i checked the free space i would see it as if it's new..
ofcourse i have to reset.. sometimes even if i reset the card won't display its contents, and the only solution is to remove the card and inserting it and reseting with x repeatings of every step with random order and it will come to life.
the last time i couldnt do anything and i have to reinstall the 100+ programs i had on that card
and now i have a complete backup of the card contents..

this problem really bothers me but i can't do nothing since i'm in syria and shipping the card to U.S costs more than its price..
anyone have experienced similiar problems??
my lexar 512 and fuji 256 never had any issues though..

[edsub]

@pleun: sorry for late reply. Yes only maps & poi on sd.
It appears that some cards simply 'close down' when stressed too hard. Apoparently TomTom stresses the SD (too hard in some cases). The speed is not the issue. Its the continuous reading from more than 1 file like TomTom does. That also clarifies why some people (like me) get errors when they open POI's.
from what I have read, it definitely is NOT the Himalaya SDIO i/f

[bernhard74]

Hi,

my Sandisk 1GB "normal" :

Read 0.14MB/s
Write 0.07 MB/s

Labeled BB0410WW "china"

Poor performance!!!

[edsub]

@bernhard74: I noticed data throughput is not holy here. There are members that have a good functional system with figures similar to yours.
More importan is the stability of the sd card under high pressure. SOME cards (incl Sandisk) simply collapse / close down when stressed, resulting in lockups of the system of the software.
Do you encounter lockups when ie using TomTom?

[edsub]

Can anyone conform good operation of a Kingston 1GB SD card ??
I reckon it is Toshiba manufactured as my Kingston 246MB is Toshiba as well.
Anyone????

[bakerk]

Benchmark on my 512MB Viking type 2008F-40EF0 is as follows

Read 0.84MB/s
Write 0.02MB/s

I use TOMTOM 3.03 with the TOMTOMGO maps and have no problems with it at all except soft resets take a while unless I jack out the card to do it.

[axbl]

I have read about this problem in many posts in many forums.

I have mailed TomTom a suggestion for fixing this problem.

They have mailed my suggestion to the developpment crew.

But they say "... only if many user have problems we will fix it ..."

So please, mail your problem to:
http://support-de.tomtom.com/cgibin/de.cfg/php.exe/enduser/acct_login.php

See my german post http://www.pocketnavigation.de/board/tid50337-sid4f7e41b0c92ccbc90d97c3af9d5b23c3.htm

[bernhard74]

@ edsub:

the card gives only poor performance, but it works quite stable.
I got no problems on SD card access, like mp3 playing or navigation like tomtom. It shows only some "lag" time, about 5 seconds on start of tomtom and on navigating manually on the map.

But I bet, they can build faster SD Cards :evil:

[mjvv]

Today I bought a new SD card and my lock-up problems are over! It's working fine now! My old card was a Kingston 256MB, with this card I always had to switch off the Telephone function when I was using TomTom 3.07.

The new card I bought is a Apacher Hi-Speed 512 card, according to their site is the Speed Rate up to 60X( 9MB/sec ). I bought it at Mycom (http://www.mycom.nl) for €49,-

http://www.apacer.com/apacer_english/product_html/sd.asp

[mjvv]

Speedtest results:

Apacer High Speed 256MB: Read: 0.35MB/s , Write: 0.26MB/s
Kingston 256MB: Read: 0.86MB/s , Write: 0,02MB/s.

I'm a bit disapointed, only the writing is faster. But I'm happy my Qtek doesn't lockup anymore!