Slow SD card read speeds for iPAQ rx3115

Hi everybody,

The reason I run into this problem is that I am already filling my iPAQ rx3115’s 56Mb of RAM with programs so I am forced to use the SD card to install both data and programs. As everybody expects, running things from the SD card is slower than from RAM but for my PDA it seemed to be way too slow. At first I suspected the SD card but as you will see in my tests, things turned out to be more interesting.

My PDA: iPAQ rx3115 with original BIOS 1.00.10A (no ROM update so far)
SD Cards:
- PNY 512Mb (regular) bought half a year ago
- SanDisk Ultra II 1Gb (borrowed recently from a friend)

All tests where performed in the following conditions:
- PDA powered via the wall charger
- Bluetooth off
- Dockware disabled
Tests were performed in the order in which they appear in the row. All values reported in the table are Mb/s. See the attached PDF for the table.

I also run some of the tests after a hard reset, and the values are similar. This rules out any software that I might have installed on my PDA as being the problem.

Conclusions:
- rx3115 (at least mine) seems to have a problem with reading from SD cards. Using a high performance SD card did not improve reading speed (we see a decrease in performance in some cases) but it helped for writing speed slightly
- reading speed influenced heavily by the activation of the built in wireless adapter (100% improvement in Pocket Mechanic, 50% improvement in file copy tests)
- performance reported by Pocket Mechanic for writing speed is not representative of the actual file-copy test writing speed (which is what we care in real world applications). I know the results of these file-copy tests are not very reliable because they were run only once but still, there is a huge difference.

I think someone run into something similar, but changing the software seemed to help them:
http://davesipaq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7531

Now, if this makes any sense to someone, please step forward and let us know. I am really puzzled (and disappointed by my rx3115).

I will be posting this message to the following forums to maximize the chance of running into someone that knows what is happening (don’t bash me, it is not cross-posting and I worked too much for these tests):
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=113
http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=47
http://davesipaq.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=67
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showforum=21
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/f...categoryId=273

I did not manage to find other SD card tests for rx3115s on the web so if someone knows any please post some links. There are lots of tests on other PDAs. Here are a few links I run into if you are interested:
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showt...7&page=5&pp=25
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=28211

Mihai