Slow address lookup

treefrog · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 26, 2003 Posts: 6

Hi Everybody!

I've just got the Axim X5 (400/64) with Tomtom 2. I've installed TomTom on a 256MB SD card (manufacturer: 'Integral' from Expansys).

The problem is that entering addresses takes ages. If I enter the first few letters of a city, I have to wait around 20 seconds for the narrowed-down list to appear. Is there something wrong with my setup - perhaps a very slow SD card?

Thanks,

Dave

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:24 am Post subject:

Entering the first couple of letters on a city I usually find really quick come back in less than a second, but when you start getting down to searching street level, depending on the city you enter, you can find it will sit there for 10-20 seconds.

Scooby2 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 31, 2003 Posts: 2

Mine (iPAQ 2210) also takes about 20 seconds rather than at the speed indicated in the manual.
I have the main prog/GPS in main memory but the maps are on 256Mb SD card.

Stephen

longwori · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:37 pm Post subject:

I have a 2210 and 256MB SD card and I also had the same problem although mysteriously, it seems to have improved over time (totally illogical I know) and is now reasonably quick but nowhere near as fast as on a Compact Flash card.

I loaded the maps onto my SD card a few times and seemed to get different response times depending upon how I loaded them up. I have tried loading the maps using the Ipaq docked in a cradle, loading them using the TomTom installer and a card reader and also copying them from the Compact Flash card that I used to use in my 3630 using the 2210 to do the copying. Depending on the way I loaded them up, I either got fast address look-up OR fast route calculation (not both)??????

I do not understand the logic of this at all. I ended up putting up with slow address look-up and fast map calculation (by letting TomTom load the maps onto the SD card in the 2210 when it is docked on the cradle) and I am sure that over time the address lookup response has improved. Why this should be is beyond me!

Good luck

Erintech · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:08 pm Post subject:

I am also experiencing this problem.

2210
Sandisk 256mb SD card
TomTom 2.24

I had to re-install TomTom a few weeks ago, and saw a much improved lookup, but more recently it is taking much longer - maybe 10 - 20 sec to find the city. Having found the city, the streets are located very quickly.

Yesterday I defragged the SD card. It went from file fragmentation of 38% down to 0%. Sounds great - but seems to have have no effect on said lookup speed.

I've researched SD card transfer rates. The Sandisk runs at 2Mb/sec whereas others manage 10Mb/sec. But I'm unclear whether this matters - the 2210 may not support the higher speed anyway.

Regardless: it seems from the observations of myself and others in this thread that there is definitely some variation in performance which needs a fix...

(ps - I've read of some users having compatibility issues with Sandisk SD, where it fails to work at all. Is it perhaps possible that I am seeing a card which works, but with variable performance? However, to test that hypothesis, I've tried copying a large file from SD to memory, and seen 2Mb/sec, which is up to speed...)

treefrog · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 26, 2003 Posts: 6

I would have thought that if you initally copied the TomTom maps to a freshly formatted / blank card, then they wouldn't have been fragmented in the first place. In this case, defragmenting won't have any benefit.

However I and a few others have been having severe problems with the iPaq 1940 and Sandisk SD cards:

http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=192470

The Sandisk cards seem to be corrupting data written to them, check out the tests on this site:

http://freespace.virgin.net/jon.crawford/theproblemlist.htm

You could try these to see if your card is writing ok. I found that most errors occur as the card starts to fill up.

If you've got a 64MB machine you can also try loading the same map in ROM vs. SD card to compare speed. This might show if it's the SD card that's the problem. I've found that rather than using the Switch Map option in TomTom, it's often easier to just navigate to the directory of the appropriate map and run the map (which loads TomTom).

Of course, all of these tests should be run on a fresh installation / hard reset.

Kind regards,

Dave

Erintech · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 4:57 pm Post subject:

Still bothered by this, so thought I would try to wake the topic!

On my iPaq 2210, with the maps on SD I type (from map page)
Find location icon - address

Then for "city" type in "edinb" and start timing

It takes 18 seconds to list matches.

Thought it would be interesting to see other peoples results..

Btw - as an IT person myself (Oracle databases, C, etc) I would expect a simple lookup such as this to have a sub-second response. But I know nothing of working on the PocketPC/SD achitecture. Maybe the city names are embedded in the map file so the whole map file needs to be scanned off SD??

DavidW · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 7:27 pm Post subject:

It's slow - though Navigator 2.22 and later do help by remembering the last so many entries for both town and streets within those towns.

I suspect your Sandisk card is not helping - they tend to be slow, particularly those where the penultimate character of the code on the back is earlier than N.

I tried my test on an iPAQ 3970 running Pocket PC 2003 (ROM 4.00.08), TomTom Navigator 2 2.24 using the full Great_Britain map, and a Lexar 256MB SD card. Lexar cards can be many different brands relabelled, including Sandisk - but this one is Japanese (Toshiba, I think).

I had matches in less than 3 seconds. I know my map files are defragmented - and, though it probably makes no difference, my card is formatted FAT32 with a 2KByte cluster size.

Certainly I'd try soft resetting the iPAQ and, if you have a way of doing so, defragmenting the SD card (either a defragmentation program on your iPAQ if you have one, or if you have a card reader, you can usually use that with a defragmentation program on your PC).

David

treefrog · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 26, 2003 Posts: 6

Hi,

I've tested it on my Ipaq 1940. It takes about 1.5 seconds so the delay doesn't bother me! I'm using a 256MB Panasonic SD card (from Empiredirect), as these are reliable with the 1940 (Sandisk cards seem to have problems). The SD card has never been formatted and the maps were put on as soon as I got it so shouldn't be fragmented.

I have to say that I've had rotten experiences with Sandisk cards - which when they work seem to be slow, but I'm sure some are ok.

The Panasonic I'm using has this text on the back:

D000 BP3GD 002027
RP-SDH256 MADE IN JAPAN

Be interested in other people's results. Tomtom was very slow on my old Dell Axim - don't know if that was the Axim or the (rebadged) Sandisk card I had in it. It flies on my current configuration :-)

Dave

Ianh · Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2003 9:50 am Post subject: I'm alright JACK!!

Sorry for showing off, but I have a very old iPAQ 3630 using a NAVMAN 3000 and a 128MB CF Card - I've just tried the 'EDINB' test listed earlier I get a response that fast I couldn't time it, so that proves it not the TTN software at fault, it's the hardware.

Erintech · Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2003 1:52 pm Post subject: The solution! - down to 3 seconds

I've replaced the Sandisk SD card with a Lexar. Copied the files to the new card via the PC (over Activesync. Must get a card reader.)

The lookup now takes only about 3 secs.

Card details

Old card:

Sandisk 256MB SD card AR0305MM Taiwan
5% fragmented. Verifies OK (Softwinter StorageTools)
Fat32 Sector 512 Cluster 32Kb (changed from default - didn't make much difference)

New card:

Lexar 256Mb High-speed 32x Japan. Details very faint, but looks like D000 BK3JE 004839
Fat16 sector 512 cluster 16KB

DavidW · Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:46 pm Post subject:

Note that the penultimate character of the code from the back of that Sandisk card is an M - that implies it's one of the older design. The newer cards have an N there - I'm not aware of anything later than N at the moment, though there may be some out there.

The "N" cards aren't perfect, but they're better than those earlier than N. This just goes to show just what an impact a slow Sandisk SD card can have on performance.

As you can see by comparing the serial number with one posted higher up the thread, your new "high speed" Lexar is seemingly rebadged Panasonic. Lexar apparently don't make their own SD cards - instead they rebadge cards from other manufacturers. My 256MB Lexar, which isn't the High Speed type (it's from before they were available) is, I believe, rebadged Hitachi or Panasonic (it lacks the D000 coding that would pretty much confirm it as Panasonic), though it performs really well.

I gather that shortly after I bought my card, Lexar switched to rebadging Sandisk cards for their standard range. I'm not sure what current Lexar standard SD cards are; I think they switched back to Japanese sourced cards which tend to be the faster, more compatible sort.

My current recommendation for SD cards remains as SimpleTech (usually cheapest from ebuyer.com) - though I see no reason not to also recommend the Panasonic cards from empiredirect.co.uk that Dave (treefrog) is using, save for one report I found on the net saying that Panasonic class SD cards as accessories and only give a 3 month warranty. I think that was in the US, however.

When I was working with Jon Crawford and others on the various problems with SD card performance in general, and compatibility with the Dell Axim X5, we found that SimpleTech cards were invariably one of the Japanese types that perform well and don't have compatibility problems with the Axim X5.

David

Phreakster · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 16, 2003 Posts: 19

Panasonic SD card rules u all! Its also surprising how only panasonic will say on their 256MB cards that they have a transfer speed of 10MB/s whereas other memory cards company will stay quiet and throw a load of garbage spec at you.

Trust me its much better to spend a little extra and know that your data won't be corrupt the next time you switch on your ipaq.

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