Problem after loading Tomtom maps to new SD card

eDsuB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 07, 2004 Posts: 36

I tried a reformat of the troublesome card with FAT32/2048bytes clustersize (optimal for TomTom).
This makes the card useable with TomTom 3, BUT: Displaying POI's defintely lock up TomTom. And restarting TomTom while driving locks up the Pocket PC (probably due to the higher data demand at startup by TomTom.
So . . .this card is definitely a no-go.

BUT: Reformatting (also did a low-level format) can be a solution for cards that perform on-the-edge like my Kingston, which i will try to reformat after I found a good new card (dont change anything thats not broken unles you have o good replacement!)
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eDsuB

T-Mobile MDA Vario IV
TTN7 / iGo8

eDsuB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 07, 2004 Posts: 36

Can there be given any advise on Kingmax (60 speed) sd-cards.

On dutch webshop specifically (they sell also dane-elec, lexar, kingston and sandisk) recommends these for MDAII PocketPC's. 512MB sell for 60 euro.
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eDsuB

T-Mobile MDA Vario IV
TTN7 / iGo8

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:31 pm Post subject:

Probably the best thing to do is ask the vendor for the markings and compare to the three types we know are troublesome.

Sandisk has a code of xxnnnnxx, where x is a letter and n a number (very early Sandisk are xxnnnn - but I can't think you'll find any of those new now). Recent Sandisk reports are much better, but some people still find them rather slow in Pocket PCs.

The type of card like the Integral "High Speed" that I had to return has a code of xnnnnnnnnnnn (that's a letter and 11 numbers). It's very small, portrait format at the bottom of the back of the card with the contacts at the top. These cards are sometimes described as 66x.

Finally, there's the type of card you currently have. I'm not entirely sure of the format of the code, but it's something like SD<size>MnnSnnnn, followed by MADE IN TAIWAN. A description of what those codes look like (portrait or landscape, position on the card) would be useful for reference. It sounds like these cards are sometimes described as 32x.

I got a 1GB Lexar 32x SD card in this morning's post, courtesy of Rob at ValueFlash, which he'd agreed as the exchange for the 1GB Integral "High Speed" SD card that I bought from ValueFlash for mutual testing.

It's the Made in USA type that I believe is either Lexar's own design or made to a Lexar specification. The 256MB card of this type that I tested seems fine, so hopefully this one will be too. Hopefully by the end of the day I'll have some results.

If the Lexar is as good as I hope, I think this may become my recommendation for 1GB. Panasonic brand is very expensive, and I think the rebranders have stopped rebranding Panasonic cards because they're so expensive (they seem instead to be branding various cards from manufacturers that nobody seems to recognise).

Lexar 32x seems reliably to be this "Made in USA" design, and Made in USA is visible on the card insert before destroying the packaging as some sort of confirmation. The card may not be the best performer out there, but if it's reliable and isn't likely to switch underlying manufacturer, it may well be the safe choice.

David

jspss · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 19, 2004 Posts: 21

DavidW · Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject:

I guessed it may be with it being Integral "High Speed". My experience is that those cards with a letter followed by eleven digits are bad - you've helped confirm that. I hope you can return it for a refund or exchange for something else.

I've now loaded some maps and other data onto the Lexar 32x 1GB SD card (Made in USA) I received earlier today. The initial impressions are good - I tortured it for a bit in a card reader and failed to break it, and will try it "on the road" with TomTom Navigator tomorrow. Indeed, map panning in TomTom Navigator's Map view seems more responsive than with my faithful Panasonic (badged Integral) 512MB SD card.

I'll try to benchmark this card over the next couple of days - though real life experience matters more, really. I've formatted it FAT32 2KByte clusters with backup FAT - the default FAT16 with 16KByte clusters really doesn't suit the data I have on my memory cards.

David

WSquared · Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:17 pm Post subject:

David,
Can you explain what problems you saw with the Integral HS SD card? As I mentioned in my other post, I have the Play branded HS SD card which appears to be a rebranded Integral card, based on the code on the back(S41004282912). It seems to work fine in my x50v with tomtom. But, upon re-readin this thread, you mentioned the spead of panning in the map view within tomtom. I have noticed that this is not instantaneous on mt X50v. I don't have another SD card to compare with, so I installed the 30MB Southwest map into in the x50v's built-in storage. Panning around in the Map view on either map(Great Britain on SD, Southwest in built-in storage) there is almost no noticable difference. I think the 30MB map might be ever so slightly quicker(very difficult to tell), but this may be due to it being a 30MB file rather than a 101MB file.

I don't know if the panning speed actually is a big issue, but I'm a geek, so I thought I would give it a quick test. Smile

Rgds, William
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Dell Axim X50v
TomTom Nav 3 BT
1GB High Speed "Play" SD card
Nokia 6310i
Seidio x50 mount

DavidW · Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

See this post.

David

eDsuB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 07, 2004 Posts: 36

As I am quite happy with my 256MB Kingston (Toshiba manufactured) SD card, i was wondering whether buying a 1GB Kingston will be a good idea or not. I saw an offer of this SD for just over EUR 75.
Can anyone confirm the behaviour of this card in a PocketPC with TomTom (preferable an O2 XDA2 / T-Mobile MDA II / iMate / Qtek 2020).
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eDsuB

T-Mobile MDA Vario IV
TTN7 / iGo8

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