Sandisk SD card problems?

[Jason Dunn]

For the past few months, I've seen scattered reports of people having problems with Sandisk 128 meg SD cards and their 3800 series iPAQs. I could never see a pattern to the problem, so now that I have both pieces of equipment I'd like to see if I can reproduce the problem myself. Where should I start? For those that had problems, were there certain tasks that triggered the problem in a repeatable fashion?

[AKBishop]

My fiancee's 3800 stopped reading her Sandisk 128MB SD card after she put a Palm SD card in hers. I don't know if it was just a strange coincidence or what. I could still read her SD card in my 3800, but she couldn't read hers or my SD card (both Sandisk 128MB).

We both have CarePaqs so we just got hers replaced and the new one works fine. I told her not to put any Palm cards in... just in case. ALthough I did mention she should give her SD card to her friend and ask him if he wanted to see the videos that were on there on his Palm. :twisted:


On a related note... has anyone else thought about putting a thin coat of black paint on the top of the SD card so that when in the iPAQ, it matches the coloring?

[Master O'Mayhem]

I have both Sandisk and Kingston 128mb cards... my kingston comes up on both my 3870's no problem, i have to reinsert the sandisk one about 5-6 times before it will work.... wierd.. :cry:

[Master O'Mayhem]

I know ALOT of people have had problems with it and media player..... start there...

[Kilmerr]

It is not the cards, I don't think, SanDisk is simply the most popular card out there. In addition, Compaq has had problems with their 'cards' or so they say, and that very well may be, but I have found from my own use and several friends use that the iPAQ itself is eating SD for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Either 5 people all got defective units or the iPAQ itself is the problem. Yet ANOTHER problem with the 38xx series. VERY poor Cleartype, backup prgram problems, battery life drains, backlight problem, off and on problem, dark colors problem...I am dismayed at the poor quality in ALL the Pocket PC 2002 machines, not to mention the OS itself.

[bblock]

This is a bit off topic (but only a bit)... anyone know when 256MB SD cards will be available? If now, where can a person buy one? I'm in Canada, but can buy in the US if I have to (rather not, though, thanks to the softwood lumber tariff and all - I live in BC).

Thanks.

[jdhill]

Slightly off topic, but I had problems with Sandisk 64 MB SD cards in my Casio E-200. I tried two Sandisk cards in two different E-200s with the same problems: Most MP3s would not play in Media Player. Other files seemed to randomly appear and disappear. I finally got a working 64 MB SD card from Toshiba. Perhaps the problem is with Sandisk rather than with the iPaq. :(

I have two 64 MB MMC cards from two different companies and have not had any problems with them. :)

[fmcpherson]

Jason, try installing an application on to the card. Then do a soft reset and see whether the 3870 locks up until you remove the card. That is the behavior that I have with my 3870 and a Sandisk 64 MB card.

[Kilmerr]

Perhaps the problem is with Sandisk rather than with the iPaq?? I don't think so.

2 reports of bad cards from 2 differing companies, hmmm, same OEM?....and my SanDisks work fine on anything OUTSIDE of the 38xx. And my problems are not limited to the SanDisk per 38xx. Any card eventually goes bad or acts weird. Compaq is doing a 'recall' of "specific' ones...and now reports all over of SanDisk. Sure funny the common thread has been the 38xx. Regardless, another black mark....

[timothyt]

I wasn't personally even aware that flash cards could be formatted differently, but FlashFormat allows you to check and reformat flash media:

http://www.handango.com/affiliate/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&platformId=2&productType=2&productId=14294&sectionId=0&catalog=30&affiliateId=135&programId=15

According to the description, it fully supports SD cards and "you can also use it to perform integrity checks, repair allocation errors, and re-format storage cards to original conditions, wherever and whenever you need it".

Might be worth a look...

[DeitelC]

I have trouble with Media Player on my IPAQ 3850.

If I copy a large amount of MP3's to my Sandisk 128MB SD card, some of the songs are cut short, even thought they are reporting the correct file size. I have copied files throught Activesync, my Sandisk card reader, and my Imation Flash n Go reader. I have also formatted the card in Windows Explorer and the the Imation format utility and no matter what methods I use, I still have problems.

DeitelC

[T-Will]

I have a Sandisk 32 MB MMC that I use with my Toshiba E570 and sometimes when I turn my E570 on it will rename the paths for the cards and I'll have to pop it out and them back in to get it to set it back to the right pathname. I've never had it stop working though.

[royiel]

I posted in BrightHand about SanDisk 128 SD card. My problem went away after I disabled McAfee VirusScan 6 on my XP Machines. When I dock VirusScan would check my iPAQ. knock-on-wood.

[wangsanegara]

I also had the same problem with San Disk 64Mb MMC. After a log period of inactivity, the 3850 failed to recognize the card. I have to soft reset the iPAQ to make the MMC recognizable.

A.W

[klein22326]

I have an Ipaq 3800 with a Sandisk 128 Mb SD card. Only problem I've experienced with it playing WMAs or MP3s with Windows Media Player. Files will play for a time, then the sound goes silent. The same files play flawlessly when stored in main memory or on a CF card. The sound drops out at random places during playback. Once it drops out it doesn't come return unless I hit the stop icon in WMP and then start play again. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. Sometimes the files will play all the way through. Pretty wierd!

[THRichards]

I have the same exact problem as klein22326. He nailed it perfectly...

[Freak]

Had the 64M Sandisk MMC Card for a while without really ever removing it from my 3850 & it intermitantly was gone to a point where it was not recognized at all & couldnt be read in an Casio E105 either so I got it replaced. Its definitely not just the iPaq.
Hey when I reset my iPaq it says 1.14 but my friend just got one from Compaq direct and it displays V1.15! anyone know what is going on?

[Willa]

...On a related note... has anyone else thought about putting a thin coat of black paint on the top of the SD card so that when in the iPAQ, it matches the coloring?


Ok - I realize this is OT - but I thought I was the only one shallow enough to do something like this! LOL! Didn't use paint, though - thought it might flake off into the SD slot. I used a permanent black marker. Needs the occasional touch-up... Never had a problem with my 128 MB SD card (touch wood).

[DrSpook]

My E-200 will write to the SD card properly, its becomes extremely intermittant when it has to read from it. If I write to the card from the E-200, remove card and check the data on a sd/mmc/cf reader, all the data is there. 7 out of 10 times, If I try to read the data on the E-200, the directory structure will be seen, but the data within the directories will not be there.

I returned my first E-200 based on this issue, but got the following email from Casio Tech Support:

I have gotten more information regarding the problem that you are having
with a SD card and the E-200 unit. It seems that the problem may be
related to a compatibility issue between Sandisk SD cards and Pocket PC
2002 units in general. If you do have a Sandisk SD card I would suggest
checking the compatibility list of SD cards on the attached link and
using one of the listed instead. If you have anymore question please
reply to this address.

http://world.casio.com/asia/ce/product/fr_e200_h.html

Thank you,
Casio Tech Support


Well, that just stinks, I can't return this Card, so I need to get another one to test this out. Anyone know a good place to buy a toshiba SD card?

Dr. Spook

[gregh]

There's a known issue with a batch of Compaq branded SD cards, there is a Compaq advisory out, posted on my web site (in my sig)

regards,

greg

[alex_kac]

I too have issues with the SD and the 3800 series. It just sometimes refuses to be used. I've already had to format it twice as well. So for now, its my Mazingo driev and anything else temporary. Nothing permanent will go on there.

[Peter Fry]

I have been getting baraged with problems related to books being read on SD cards on PocketPC 2002's in just the last few days. I've found a few things out that hopefully fit into some grander jigsaw puzzle.

PocketPC 2002 devices when turned on unmount and then re-mount SD cards. Compact Flash and Smart Media cards never did this. The message that gets sent to all active applications that the state of the hardware has changed can come *after* your application has been told to re-draw via WM_PAINT messages. Gack!

I've changed the Palm Reader to check if the book file still exists on hardware change messages and WM_PAINT's. If the file doesn't exist, wait 1 second and try again. If the book is still gone, gently close the book. Auto-scroll speed is suffering because I have to hit the SD card before each draw. My only other alternative is to keep more information in memory which is a trade-off, I'd like to avoid.

Icky.

I have to agree with the Casio technical support person. I have been getting these bug reports from every type of 2002 device, but only if the book lives on an SD card. Any application that doesn't store all of its data in memory instead of only reading as necessary (any well-written application that reads large files) might have problems with the device being turned on and off while it is running.

I hope that information helps. I'm in my final testing of this, and hopefully will have a very safe version up today or tomorrow.

-peter fry
palm digital media group

[Janak Parekh]

For those of you with WMP problems, part of the problem is WMP itself. It's not particularly good at playing MP3's. I tried out Pocket DivX over the last couple of days and found it to work perfectly - nary a skip with 160kbps VBR MP3's. I'm using a 128MB Sandisk SD card, btw.

Some people have reported success using WMP with Toshiba or Lexar cards, although I don't know what file format they're using. I guess it's possible that the iPaq is slightly faster with these as opposed to the Sandisk...?

It is also known that the iPaq 3800 series has a slow (so-called "1-bit" or somesuch) performance problem with SD cards. Check the authorized Compaq forum on PocketNow for more info. This becomes particularly noticeable when playing videos. Fortunately, I just use the SD card for MP3's, so the aforementioned solution works great for me (except that I want 1GB SD cards :D)

From all the above points, it does appear that the combination of the iPaq, the Sandisk SD card, and WMP poses some performance problems. I found replacing WMP to be the easiest solution.

As to the folder name changing: this is a known problem with WinCE3/PPC2002. No clue as to when MS will fix it.

--bdj

[ipaqpocketpccanada]

Not sure if you were familiar with this or not...

http://wwss1pro.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=1000&prodid=2183|iPAQ%20H3800%20Series%20Pocket%20PC&source=MH020123_CW03.xml&dt=3

[Janak Parekh]

Yes, but that's only Compaq-branded SD cards here. Does anyone know who manufactured the Compaq SD cards?

--bdj

[Ed Hansberry]

PocketPC 2002 devices when turned on unmount and then re-mount SD cards. Compact Flash and Smart Media cards never did this. The message that gets sent to all active applications that the state of the hardware has changed can come *after* your application has been told to re-draw via WM_PAINT messages. Gack!

THis must be why my 3800 takes about 2 seconds after turning it to become useful. :evil:

[Kilmerr]

I have to agree with the Casio technical support person. I have been getting these bug reports from every type of 2002 device

iPaq 3800 series - performance problems per the "1-bit" issue, is universal, WMP and SanDisk this, videos, eBooks, that. It doesn't matter, you will have problems. Not the fault of SanDisk or any application itself. The bottleneck itself creates some glitchy problems unto itself. iPaq, the Sandisk SD card, and WMP is just the most common functional use of. Eventually the card gets eaten and one has to start all over again. Copy that backup file to the desktop, pronto. iPAQ seems to eat cards quicker than most tho, hence the performance issues could be related.

But upon further testing, I have to agree with Peter. Not just the iPAQ this is a Pocket PC 2002 problem itself. Sigh. Basically don't use SD with ANYTHING Pocket PC 2002 I am finding out. Yet another bug in Pocket PC 2002. Not SanDisk, not just the iPAQ, Pocket PC 2002 itself.

[Howard]

Hey when I reset my iPaq it says 1.14 but my friend just got one from Compaq direct and it displays V1.15! anyone know what is going on?

When you install the latest SoftPaq for the 3800 from Compaq's web site, it upgrades your ROM from 1.14 to 1.15. Just be sure to do it on A/C power, because if the the process is interrupted, you'll have to send it in for Compaq to reload the O/S.