SDHC 4GB Limit

[johnhu_2005]

I just noticed the 4GB limit on SD/SDHC cards while I was installing some maps for Garmin Mobile XT.

I am currently using Lenny's L11 WM6.1 ROM on a Dell Axim x51v. So it recognize SDHC cards by default. I have a 16GB Sandisk SDHC and it just sees 4 GB.

Any way to make it utilize all of the space available?

[Box]

I'm running the same ROM on an X51v and it sees all 8 gig of my card.

Are you sure your card is 16gb, are you able to access all 16gb on your PC?

Have you checked whether you can load the card up with more than the memory meter says?
Perhaps it can read all of the card but the meter is showing it incorrectly.

[johnhu_2005]

I can see all 16GB while viewing the PDA on my PC.
Then if I use Garmin's MapInstall tool, it only sees 4GB.

I'll look further into this.

[chrisjc]

Is it the mapinstall tool or the memory meter on your Ax that only sees 4G?

[KimChee]

Have you ever tried to load more than 4 gigs on the card? That's the first test I would run. Hopefully you didn't buy a fake, that's the first thing that came to my mind. I've got a generic in house 8 gb sdhc and I have all 8 gb.

[bigbop]

I'm also running Lenny's L11 and have 3 Kingston class 4 16GB SDHC cards loaded and can access all files. That was one of the first things I tried when I got the 16GB cards.
I will try to see if it's a limitation of the Garmin app as I also have a 16GB CF card that my maps are on. If it's an addressing issue, it should show up when using the CF card as well.

[johnhu_2005]

Ok, tried it out. Took an insane time to transfer those files. It is an limitation of the Garmin app. I have both a Sandisk 16GB SDHC and a Kingston 16GB CF. Both are bought from NewEgg, so no risk of fakes/bogus. Thanks for those who helped!

[bigbop]

Please be aware that SD cards have two methods of transferring data - serial and parallel (nibble - ie: 4bits).
The transfer rate is overall, slower than with a CF card which uses either an 8 bit or 12 bit data transfer path (normally 8bit).
One of the issues with SD cards is that the PDA software needs to take into account the worst case specs for a serial transfer of data to the card and that some SD cards won't work as their specs are actually outside of what the PDA can handle. This was true of earlier SD cards, but most SDHC cards now are fairly consistent (Except for fakes, of course).
In any case, I like to keep my data on the CF card as the data transfer is much faster for reads and writes than with the SD cards.
What I normalld when transferring large amounts of data to/from an SD card is use a USB-2.0 SDHC reader/writer (available for $4 these days) as it's just so much faster than trying to do it on the Axim.

[johnhu_2005]

So I have Garmin data on my CF and multimedia on my SD. I think I use my Axim more as a GPS than a media player. Therefore, I believe I am good.