PDA Go Slow - Bluetooth?

[chipfork]

iPAQ 3970, Emtac BT GPS, PPC2002, SanDisk 256MB SD (Taiwan), TTNAV 2.24, GPS 2.07.

The saga continues, upgraded ROM from 2.00 to 2.10 and applied the SD fix. Working fine, re-installed key software components without a problem.

However noted that when I started TTNAV the PDA ground to a halt, screen takes seconds to build/refresh - icons in Navigator would appear one at a time. Clicking on Start Menu meant waiting for 5 secs or so and then very slow. Managed to eventually close TTNAV and still slow but alternates every 20/30 secs or so between slow and normal.

Tried taking out the SD card, I'd reformatted it with FAT32 (16kb clusters), but no effect. Tried disabling the Bluetooth Radio and that seems to be the problem, disabling it seems to stop the problem. Not noticed a problem before as only enabled the radio once I installed TTNAV.

Not always slow with Bluetooth Radio on, managed to pair Emtac GPS ok and run "Crux View" but just got read errors when selecting the correct port. As soon as I start the TTNAV GPS utility that's when the slow down kicks in, stopping it doesn't seem to make much of a difference but disabling the BT Radio fixes things.

[DavidW]

The problem is almost certainly the Sandisk SD card - or at least the Sandisk SD card is not helping. Just search the forums for Sandisk, and you'll find various people's experiences, including at least one who switched away from a Sandisk SD card in a ROM 2.10 plus SD driver update iPAQ 3970 and couldn't believe the difference in TomTom Navigator.


I used a pretty similar setup myself (same versions - though a CompactFlash GPS rather than a Bluetooth one) and a good 256MB SD card and it was fine. It is a little odd that turning on the Bluetooth radio makes things so much worse, but it could just be that the bit of extra processor load with Bluetooth on makes the Sandisk card misbehave more than it otherwise does. Certainly, from what I remember, my setup worked fine with the Bluetooth radio on and an active Bluetooth connection to my mobile phone for GPRS whilst Navigator was running.

The cost of a good 256MB SD card is coming down all the time. I've had an interesting email from one of the bosses at ValueFlash today, which he's asked me not to make public. Based on its contents, I hope the availability situation for the good SD cards in the UK is about to get a lot better.


For now, clove.co.uk have SimpleTech 256MB cards (SimpleTech are about the only brand, other than manufacturer's own brands, that always seem to be 'good' cards) at 39 pounds plus VAT and shipping - you can see that offer here.

If you want 512MB, ValueFlash can probably oblige if you order an Integral 512MB SD card from them and mark the intended usage field "Must be Panasonic". If they can't oblige, they'll hopefully reject the order. This applies only to 512MB cards, and only to ValueFlash / ValueMedia (which are two web site from the same company) - apparently the latest 512MB SD cards rebranded by Integral are probably not Panasonic. This option will cost you around 100 pounds all in, depending on whether or not you want Special Delivery. I've just placed my order - I have a good 256MB card (which I'm not going to part with), but it's just too small for me now.



David

[chipfork]

David,

Many thanks, very informative. I've seen some of the comments regarding Sandisk cards and hoped mine being made in Taiwan as opposed to China might mean they were a little more reliable. Seems a new SD card is the way to go, I think Valueflash or someone similar are offering Kingston 256MB cards for £30-£40, do you happen to know if they are recommended?

The PDA seems to have come back to life, I was checking the Bluetooth pairing and rebonded with the Emtac then selected "connect to serial port". From then on the "go slow" problem has disappeared...so far. Planned a 150 mile journey today and the calculation seemed much quicker than in the past, maybe it's the ROM update, maybe formatting the SD card as FAT32 has helped. Seems stable for now but I'll certainly be borrowing a colleagues other manufacturer SD card and see how that performs.

One other question if you don't mind, how do CF cards compare to SD cards? I know there are a variety of speeds available on both formats, but if you were using say an iPAQ 2210 would a cheaper CF card be the way to go or is performance an issue?

Thanks again

[DavidW]

CompactFlash is almost always faster than SD - for a start, the interface between the Pocket PC and the memory card is wider.



SD cards - Sandisk cards are almost invariably bad, no matter where they're made.

I'm afraid I have no idea what manufacturers Kingston may be rebranding. I already gave my recommendations for 256 and 512MB. I got my new Integral 512MB SD card in the post this morning from ValueFlash - it is Panasonic as promised, and benchmarking it shows that it is slightly faster at reading and much faster at writing than my 256MB Lexar card (which I understand to be Toshiba). Certainly the 512MB benchmark figures are what I'd expect for Panasonic, and the 256MB figures are what I'd expect for Toshiba.


I've also written several hundred MBytes of data fairly rapidly to the new card with my Belkin F5U248 USB 2.0 card reader, and it is perfectly happy so far.

If you follow my suggestion of the SimpleTech 256MB card, the chances are that will be Panasonic. There are other SD card manufacturers, but usually Panasonic cards turn out best. Another alternative would be to email ValueFlash (they're normally pretty responsive) and ask if they have any 256MB SD cards made by Panasonic. I know they have 512MB, but I'm not sure about 256MB.



David

[chipfork]

Thanks David, I'll probably go for the Panasonic 512MB as I've a lot of other data and some other mapping software to install, cheers.

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