FastBlueLion

Hi all,

I'm new round here, but have a number of years experience of Ipaqs. Very very impressed with the forums!!

I've just replaced my 3630 with an HX4700 and am very pleased with it. I bought a 1GB SD card from Aria, and all went well. I copied my TomTom maps to it, and I was very happy. A couple of days later, I loaded TomTom only to find it said the maps were not available. I ejected the SD card and re-inserted it. Nothing happened. I went into the About screen in Settings, and it showed Expansion slot in use. I couldn't see the SD card though. I was quite annoyed because I needed to use TomTom for work. I eventually got it to work, after removing and replacing it many times. I tested the SD in my Dad's 2210, and in a mates 3970, as well as a Dell Axim. Worked every time. This made me think I'd bought a dodgy ipaq. Only problem being, every time I put a different SD card in, it works fine. The only conclusion I can come up with is the SD card is a cheap one (£35 ish) and isn't as compatible. I've tried formatting it but it's still intermittent.

Any ideas anyone?

Many Thanks

FastBlueLion

Quorlan

Funny, I'm having a similar issue occassionally with a PNY 1GB SD card. Worked fine for a couple weeks then one day I went to play a video file off the card and it wasn't there. Ejected and reinserted the card and it showed up again. Then last night in the midst of watching a video file it started to stutter and eventually stopped playing. I closed betaplayer, reopened it and my file was no longer available. I closed betaplayer again, ejected the SD card, reinserted and my file showed back up and ran okay again. Weird.

Q

__________________

FastBlueLion

Phew! Thought I was the only one! Mine is a little more of a problem, because it's nearly everytime I use the Ipaq, it loses the SD card. I'm still inclined to believe it's the SD card, as the about screen shows the slot as "in use".

Anyone else got this problem? Or heard of it even? I've found nothing on the web to say there is a problem like this! The only other thing, I don't know the make of SD card. I'd assume it's unbranded. Cheapest I could find. I'm going to order a dearer card, so does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

FastBlueLion

sugar_cube

I use a 512Mb Lexar SD card with no problems - maybe it's to do with the size of the card?

Quorlan

I wouldn't think the size of the card would be an issue, but now that you mention it, I used to use a PNY 512MB card and NEVER had a single problem with it (which is why I bought the same brand again - especially after some of the nightmares I had with some older cards from a different manufacturer). Still, seems odd to me.

Q

__________________

FastBlueLion

Just thought I'd post an update,

It seems as though the SD card starts working after a while. I've been sat online for about 30 mins. When I put the HX4700 into the cradle, it wasn't seeing the SD card. Now it is. I think I'm going to experiment tomorrow to see if I can narrow down the circumstances and work out why it's doing this!

FastBlueLion

LJ50

I bought the cheapest 1Gb card I could find the day after buying my hx4700. £50 for a Sandisk one, not the cheapest on the market, but the cheapest I could get my hands on that day. It's been in the iPaq constantly since, and I have never, ever had a problem.

So if you think the problem is the cheap card, well I can recommend the Sandisk one at a price that isn't bad at all.

gplana

I've got several Sandisk 1G standard-speed SD cards (I keep different customers on different cards). Haven't had any problem with them at all.

Quorlan

Well, first, I misspoke above. It's a 1GB Lexar card (not PNY as I thought - my 512 card is PNY). And the card bit the dust yesterday. Went to copy some files to it, about 75MB copied before I got a device I/O error. Formatted the card and tried again, same deal. Tried a different card, worked just fine (I was doubting my card reader for a moment there). So I ran the card back to CompUSA and exchanged it for another. So far no problems, but now I am taking my experieces with the vanishing card in the PPC as a sign of a card going into failure. If I were you, I'd replace the card that keeps vanishing on you before it vanishes with all your data

Q

__________________

sugar_cube

Sound advice, Quorlan - I'll be keeping a closer eye on my SD cards from now on!

True

Just to add my experience: my Sandisk 1gb card has had no issues - never disappeared, etc... works fine.

Quorlan

I've had no further troubles since replacing the SD card that finally failed completely. I definitely think a card that appears/vanishes randomly is a good indicator your card WILL go bad, so replace it if you can.

Q

__________________

pgerrish

Originally Posted by True

Just to add my experience: my Sandisk 1gb card has had no issues - never disappeared, etc... works fine.

Also have used Sandisk 1GB SD in 4700 with no problem but it did take a while to realise that I had to reformat it in my card reader as FAT32 as otherwise everything told me it was full after a few hundred meg of MP3 files. Came as FAT, nothing in the literature mentioned this. Similar problem with 512Mb SD in my SPV C500 smart phone,cured by FAT32. Why do they do format them as FAT32 as the full capacity cannot be used otherwise?

Paul
Sheffield

StowAway

I am using a Lexar 1 GB SD without any problems and I did not have to re-format. I access files readily and my backup files are mapped to the SD without any issues in either doing a backup or reloading from the backup!!! Have we decided what the problem really is?

SonicJMC

I've had problems with SD cards in my Toshiba. Try this... Go to Radio Shack and get yourself some electrical contact cleaner. Don't bother asking the idiot at the counter, he'll sell you tuner cleaner wich is strictly for TV tuners.
Clean the card's contacts, let the cleaner dry completely, give that a shot. That fixed my SD probs on the Toshiba.