4GB+ SD Cards - list of working cards?

[Milhouse]

Some N800 users have indicated that 4GB SD cards are working with OS 2007.

It might be useful to build a list of working cards by listing the following:

N800 OS 2007 Version
Card Manufacturer
Card Brand/Model
Capacity (4GB, 8GB etc.)
SD or SDHC
SDHC Class (if applicable - most likely Class 2 in most cases)
URL Link to online retailer if possible.

This might help future N800 owners with their SD card purchases! :)

[gisborne]

I'm looking for some info on this, for the N800 I'm getting on Wednesday. Can I use a 8GB card?

Bounce.

[konfoo]

4Gb Transcend @ $49...
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=203938178&adid=17070&dcaid=17070#prodInfoSec

[gisborne]

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sd_card):
Some manufacturers have produced 4GB SD cards that do not conform to the SD2.0/SDHC and are incompatible with existing SD devices, and are also incompatible with SDHC devices
The card from buy.com above would appear to be a 4GB SD card. So I'm guessing the N800 does not support SDHC and that 4GB will be our limit.

[TA-t3]

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sd_card):

The card from buy.com above would appear to be a 4GB SD card. So I'm guessing the N800 does not support SDHC and that 4GB will be our limit.
No, you can't be sure. The Treo 680 works with both (4GB non-standard as well as SDHC) afaik, even though only 2GB old-standard SD cards are mentioned by Palm. If my memory serves - it's all to be found on the brighthand forum.

[fanoush]

SDHC will most likely not work with stock N800 kernel but can be added in future. There are already such patches in latest versions of linux kernel so I guess it would be possible to backport it to N800 kernel.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=116792280315542&w=2

[Karel Jansens]

SDHC will most likely not work with stock N800 kernel but can be added in future. There are already such patches in latest versions of linux kernel so I guess it would be possible to backport it to N800 kernel.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=116792280315542&w=2

I'd really like to know whether 8GB cards work in the N800. It's just about the only thing that might convince me to buy one: Having 16GB of storage readily available.

[fanoush]

99% it does not work now
99% it can be easily added
If nobody else does it sooner, I will add it once/if I get N800.

[Milhouse]

Might also be a good idea to list those 4GB+ cards that do NOT work, and later on we can create a new thread that summaries the details of all working/non-working cards.

Anyone tried an SDHC card yet?

[in4m8ionman]

I have a 4GB PQI Hi-Speed 150 that I purchased from Fry's.

OS - Version - 1.2006.47-20

It works great.

I believe it is an SD card as I purchased it probably 6 months to a year ago

BTW - Love the N800 and it's TWO SD card Slots - I can transfer digital pics and movies from my camera MUCH more quickly that I could on my old PocketPC device.

j

[rr0123]

I just tried all my 4GB cards and all worked:

Transcend 150x
Ridata 150x
PQI 150x

[flareup]

is it best to go for SD or MMC?

any tips for UK place to buy online?

[Milhouse]

I'd go with SD for the larger capacities and lower prices, but stear clear of SDHC / SD 2.0 cards - chatting on #maemo the opinion is definately that SDHC / SD 2.0 cards won't work as there is no kernel support.

Online in the UK you can try the following (I'm not recommending these firms btw, as I've only ever used Expansys myself in the past)

Moby Memory (http://www.mobymemory.com/High_Speed_1GB_2gb_4gb_SD_Secure_Digital_Memory_Ca rds.asp)
My Memory (http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SD-Card)
Expansys (http://www.expansys.com/n.aspx?d=storage)

[flareup]

cheers - I've used moby before and it was very quicka nd seemed a good price - I'd thought MMC were meant to be the cheaper, will check out!

[cman74]

I'd go with SD for the larger capacities and lower prices, but stear clear of SDHC / SD 2.0 cards - chatting on #maemo the opinion is definately that SDHC / SD 2.0 cards won't work as there is no kernel support.

Online in the UK you can try the following (I'm not recommending these firms btw, as I've only ever used Expansys myself in the past)

Moby Memory (http://www.mobymemory.com/High_Speed_1GB_2gb_4gb_SD_Secure_Digital_Memory_Ca rds.asp)
My Memory (http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SD-Card)
Expansys (http://www.expansys.com/n.aspx?d=storage)

Yes, I can confirm that an 8 GB SDHC 2.0 card will not work. I borrowed an AData 8 GB and it is not recognized by my N800.

I'm currently using dual 4 GB Patriot Extreme SD cards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220146

[jpj]

Has anyone done comparative N800 testing on SD cards with different speed ratings? In other words, is the transfer rate bus bound or media bound? I'd personally spend more for faster cards *IF* they provide a real benefit, but not if the channel saturates before the card tops out.

[flareup]

any more info on this topic?

having done a little research into it there doesn't seem to be much difference between SD and MMC to me, is it just a case of getting the best price on a brace of 4gig-ers? MMC seems less expensive option...

[freeman]

any more info on this topic?

having done a little research into it there doesn't seem to be much difference between SD and MMC to me, is it just a case of getting the best price on a brace of 4gig-ers? MMC seems less expensive option...

I believe the pinout on the SD & MMC are very similar if not the same, but the MMC is a bit thinner, which make it harder to get as much storage as SD.

[TA-t3]

I don't think the thickness means much one way or the other, some SDs are as thin - I have one thin 512MB SD card and one thin 1GB SD card, amongst the other "normal" cards.
The biggest difference between MMC and SD is that MMC uses 1-bit transfers (i.e. it has 1 connector to transfer data) while SD has 4. But SD can also work in MMC (1-bit) mode (which has slower maximum transfer speed, obviously), and some SD controllers on some PDAs only uses 1-bit mode as well.
Now, MMC plus has extended to 8-bit mode, if I remember the article I read on wikipedia correctly.. certainly the one card I own is _stuffed_ with connector leads!

[hobbes]

Don't know if it works with the N800, but buy.com currently has a Kingston 2GB SD card for $9.95 after rebate (from Kingston). Sku is 202743332

[Mara]

The biggest difference between MMC and SD is that MMC uses 1-bit transfers (i.e. it has 1 connector to transfer data) while SD has 4. But SD can also work in MMC (1-bit) mode (which has slower maximum transfer speed, obviously), and some SD controllers on some PDAs only uses 1-bit mode as well.
Now, MMC plus has extended to 8-bit mode, if I remember the article I read on wikipedia correctly.. certainly the one card I own is _stuffed_ with connector leads!

Does anyone know if N800 can use the 4-bit or 8-bit transfer mode? If it can't then there is no benefit of getting 4-bit or 8-bit card... My guess is that the data bus is only 1-bit.

[fanoush]

Does anyone know if N800 can use the 4-bit or 8-bit transfer mode? If it can't then there is no benefit of getting 4-bit or 8-bit card... My guess is that the data bus is only 1-bit.
It is very likely (99%) that 4-bit interface is there and is used for SD cards. I don't think 8 bit mode is there and all 13 MMCmobile pins are present in the connector. This is very new standard and the connector is more complex (2 rows) and it in not very useful right now as cards are not fast enough even to saturate the 4 bit bus. I'm also not sure even 4 bits are used for MMCmobile/plus cards as this is quite new feature in linux (similar to SDHC). I guess best is to use SD cards with stock n800 firmware right now.

[TA-t3]

I concur with fanoush, it's probably a 4-bit SD interface in there. The 1-bit interface is typically the I/F that's integrated into some of the XSCALE cpus. In my Tungsten T3 the CPU has this interface, but there's an extra SD interface chip too that is used instead, this one provides the 4-bit interface. IIRC the Dell Axim 30x (also an XSCALE device) uses the built-in 1-bit CPU interface, but don't take my word for it - I haven't looked at the Axim HW myself. I have looked at the T3, and it has a dedicated SD interface chip. If anyone of you are willing to look inside the Nokia you may find out things.. I'm not going to, hopefully my N800 arrives tomorrow (unless they sent it by truck for the last 2000km, which I suspect at this stage.. grr!) and I won't void the warranty :-)
I googled a bit and found this page: http://mmc.drzeus.cx/wiki/Controllers
The chip in the T3 is the W86L488 SD/SDIO Winbond chip.

You can buy MMC Plus cards many places now, and they promise to be twice as fast as SD, but I haven't seen many devices that support them (in Plus mode) yet. Some of the high-end cameras, possibly. My pocket camera handles it as just another SD, apparently.

[Milhouse]

Linux Kernel patches adding SDHC support were submitted (http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/1/35) fairly recently - hopefully they'll be incorporated into a N800 firmware release at some point in the future.

[konfoo]

Has anyone tried the 150x 4Gb Transcend cards?

Edit: nevermind, I just noticed they work :)

[Karel Jansens]

Hmmm...

As apparently 8GB SDHC cards will not work, and after some soul-searching, I decided to hold out on buying a N800, at least until (and if?) a kernel with support for SDHC becomes available.

Besides, there are enough other things still wrong with the N800 to warrant cauteousness.

[Mara]

OK... In other words the N800 should have up to 4x faster file data transfer rate with SD than N770 with MMC cards? (MMC cards had only 1-bit interface?). This is good news since the speed, especially write speed, to the MMC card on N770 was ridiculously slow... I bought external USB reader/writer and it seem to be like 3-5x faster when writing data to MMC.

Has anyone tested how long it takes to save a big file into the N800 SD card to calculate actual write speed?

[Invicta]

1-bit for MMC applies only to first generation of MMCs. 770 came with MMCmobile, which I think is latest generation and 4 or 8-bit. Thought I don't know whether or not 770 used those bits.

[jpj]

all 13 MMCmobile pins are present in the connector.

I only see 9 (standard SD).

[konfoo]

Update - 4GB Transcend 150x does *not* work. I don't know why people post that they have it working when it does not. Try copy a 100+Mb file to the card and watch it fail. 90 bucks down the tubes.

[fanoush]

I only see 9 (standard SD).
I said I don't think all 13 pins are there and also stated reasons why it is unlikely.

[fanoush]

Update - 4GB Transcend 150x does *not* work. I don't know why people post that they have it working when it does not. Try copy a 100+Mb file to the card and watch it fail. 90 bucks down the tubes.
Can be issue with USB mass storage implementation in N800 (remember they support only 2GB officially) or with specific format (FAT16/32, specific cluster size), try to reformat the card either in N800 or on PC. Or try the copy via ssh/scp.

Also check kernel log when the card is inserted via 'dmesg' in osso-xterm if 4G size is reported and also if there are any errors when the copy fails. It is very unlikely this is specific to card maker unless there are I/O errors reported in kernel log.

[fanoush]

OK... In other words the N800 should have up to 4x faster file data transfer rate with SD than N770 with MMC cards?
In theory it can be even 8x or 16x. N770 mmc slot was running at 12Mhz using 1 bit bus width with nokia kernel while SD cards run at 25Mhz (probably 24Mhz in N800). Also some newer SD cards can support twice as that (50Mhz) so I guess n800 can be made to run them at 48Mhz like with current mmc high speed hack for N770.

[flareup]

Update - 4GB Transcend 150x does *not* work. I don't know why people post that they have it working when it does not. Try copy a 100+Mb file to the card and watch it fail. 90 bucks down the tubes.

ok, before I spend out on 2x4GB SD cards on monday - what works what doesn't?!?

[jpj]

I said I don't think all 13 pins are there and also stated reasons why it is unlikely.

Sorry, I misread your earlier comment.

[jpj]

ok, before I spend out on 2x4GB SD cards on monday - what works what doesn't?!?

I also bought a pair of Transcend 4GB 150X SD (not SDHC) based on info here. Expecting arrival around Wednesday 1/17/07; will test and report back.

[konfoo]

We should just assume that up to this post none of the confirmed cards are known to work.

If you have a card, 'working' is defined by the ability to create 128Mb swapfile on it, and copy a file of at least 100Mb to it.

[Texrat]

Good points konfoo. It helps to have a standard for pass/fail.

[Mara]

I have ordered two different brand 4GB SD cards, one Kingston and one ELITE PRO brand (or call it "no name" brand... :rolleyes: ) from eBay. They better work... :confused:

I'll let you know once I receive them and my N800.

[cman74]

I have ordered two different brand 4GB SD cards, one Kingston and one ELITE PRO brand (or call it "no name" brand... :rolleyes: ) from eBay. They better work... :confused:

I'll let you know once I receive them and my N800.

Hope those aren't coming from Hong Kong :(

[Mara]

Hope those aren't coming from Hong Kong :(

Depends what do you mean with that question? Country of origin or place where they were purchased? Those were purchase from seller residing in US. I do not know where they are built, most likely in China like 99% of similar stuff... :rolleyes:

[Milhouse]

We should just assume that up to this post none of the confirmed cards are known to work.

If you have a card, 'working' is defined by the ability to create 128Mb swapfile on it, and copy a file of at least 100Mb to it.

Surely the definition of "working" is defined by the ability to copy 4GB (or whatever the card capacity) of data to the card and read it all back without any errors? :)

Could it be that some cards were reported as working because small amounts of data could be copied OK, but then beyond a certain point (1GB? 2GB?) these cards begin to fail? Testing with any transfer size below the total card capacity may leave room for error when announcing the card as "working".

[Tr1gg3R]

Can be issue with USB mass storage implementation in N800 (remember they support only 2GB officially) or with specific format (FAT16/32, specific cluster size), try to reformat the card either in N800 or on PC. Or try the copy via ssh/scp.

Also check kernel log when the card is inserted via 'dmesg' in osso-xterm if 4G size is reported and also if there are any errors when the copy fails. It is very unlikely this is specific to card maker unless there are I/O errors reported in kernel log.

After having bought two Transcend 4GB SD cards (TS4GSDC) and having a lot of problems with data disappearing from my Nokia N800 (Mostly on the internal SD card on which the SWAP fs resides) I did some digging and followed your advice on the dmesg logs.


Nokia N800 Full Boot:

BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 3:1.1.3-3.osso17) Built-in shell (ash)

Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/ $ dmesg

1: cover is now closed
[ 3.557281] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VMEM' to 1500 mV (reg 0x0a, va l 0x78)
[ 3.589202] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VIO' to 2500 mV (reg 0x0a, val 0x78)
[ 3.722229] mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 SDC 3921920KiB
[ 3.722534] mmcblk0: p1
[ 3.725280] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VDCDC3' to 3300 mV (reg 0x07, val 0x39)
[ 3.730743] tcm825x_find_size(): size 3
[ 3.730773] tcm825xsensor_try_format(): isize = 3 num_capture = 2
[ 3.730804] tcm825xsensor_try_format(): format = 0x50424752
[ 3.730834] Sensor is TCM825x
[ 3.761108] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VIO' to 0 mV (reg 0x0a, val 0x 70)
[ 3.792327] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VMEM' to 0 mV (reg 0x0a, val 0 x70)
[ 3.816375] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VDCDC3' to 2800 mV (reg 0x07, val 0x29)
[ 3.913421] Empty flash at 0x0019bba4 ends at 0x0019c000
[ 3.917022] VFS: Mounted root (jffs2 filesystem).
[ 3.917358] Freeing init memory: 108K
[ 3.975585] mmcblk1: mmc1:b368 SDC 3921920KiB
[ 3.975952] mmcblk1: p1
[ 5.126708] umac: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
[ 5.293334] CX3110x chip variant: STLC4550
[ 5.374847] CX3110x: firmware version: 2.13.0.0.a.22.1
[ 5.390533] Loaded CX3110x driver, version 0.8
[ 7.927337] tahvo: Registering interrupt 7 for device
[ 7.927825] retu: Registering interrupt 8 for device
[ 7.928710] retu: Registering interrupt 1 for device
[ 7.929107] tahvo: Registering interrupt 1 for device
[ 16.672698] MMU: OMAP dsp MMU initialized (HW v1.0)
[ 16.672882] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fff000, p=0x86b2b000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.672943] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fce000, p=0x48008000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673004] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe2000, p=0x48094000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673034] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdc000, p=0x4807c000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673095] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdd000, p=0x4807e000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673126] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fde000, p=0x48080000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673187] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdf000, p=0x48082000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673217] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe0000, p=0x48090000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673278] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fd9000, p=0x48068000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673339] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb0000, p=0x54000000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673370] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb1000, p=0x54001000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673431] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb2000, p=0x54002000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673492] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb3000, p=0x54003000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.673553] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb4000, p=0x54004000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.735137] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fce000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735168] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe2000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735229] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdc000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735260] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdd000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735290] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fde000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735321] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdf000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735351] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe0000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735382] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fd9000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735443] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb0000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735473] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb1000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735504] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb2000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735534] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb3000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735565] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb4000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.735595] MMU: unmapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fff000, sz=0x1000
[ 16.736663] MMU: OMAP dsp MMU initialized (HW v1.0)
[ 16.736816] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fff000, p=0x86b2b000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.736877] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fce000, p=0x48008000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.736938] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe2000, p=0x48094000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.736968] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdc000, p=0x4807c000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737030] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdd000, p=0x4807e000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737335] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fde000, p=0x48080000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737365] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fdf000, p=0x48082000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737426] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fe0000, p=0x48090000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737457] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fd9000, p=0x48068000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737518] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb0000, p=0x54000000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737579] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb1000, p=0x54001000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737609] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb2000, p=0x54002000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737670] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb3000, p=0x54003000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.737731] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0fb4000, p=0x54004000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.765838] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0028000, p=0x86b84000, sz=0 x1000
[ 16.766113] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0100000, p=0x86400000, sz=0 x100000
[ 16.766296] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0200000, p=0x86500000, sz=0 x100000
[ 16.766601] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0400000, p=0x86600000, sz=0 x100000
[ 16.766754] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0500000, p=0x86b90000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.766815] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0510000, p=0x86ba0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.766906] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0520000, p=0x86bb0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.766967] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0530000, p=0x86bc0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.767028] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0540000, p=0x86bd0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.767089] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0550000, p=0x86be0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.767181] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0560000, p=0x86bf0000, sz=0 x10000
[ 16.767242] MMU: mapping in ARM MMU, v=0xe0570000, p=0x86700000, sz=0 x10000
[ 17.175476] omapdsp: IPBUF configuration
[ 17.175476] 512 words * 16 lines at 0xe0200000.
[ 17.175659] omapdsp: found 5 task(s)
[ 17.175872] omapdsp: task 0: name pcm3
[ 17.176330] omapdsp: taskdev pcm3 enabled.
[ 17.184997] omapdsp: task 1: name pcm_rec1
[ 17.185516] omapdsp: taskdev pcm_rec1 enabled.
[ 17.194702] omapdsp: task 2: name pcm1
[ 17.195190] omapdsp: taskdev pcm1 enabled.
[ 17.204010] omapdsp: task 3: name audiopp
[ 17.204498] omapdsp: taskdev audiopp enabled.
[ 17.210571] omapdsp: task 4: name pcm0
[ 17.211090] omapdsp: taskdev pcm0 enabled.
[ 18.008514] EAC mode: play enabled, rec enabled
[ 18.310394] omapdsp: mmap info: vmadr = 40000000, padr = 86630000, le n = 2000
[ 18.947204] g_file_storage gadget: File-backed Storage Gadget, versio n: 28 November 2005
[ 18.947296] g_file_storage gadget: Number of LUNs=2
[ 18.949981] drivers/usb/musb/tusb6010.c musb_platform_enable: dma not reactivated
[ 20.617370] EAC mode: play disabled, rec disabled
[ 22.215728] Loading 3826.arm firmware
[ 22.457794] (c)opyright 2004 Conexant
[ 22.457855]
[ 22.457855] build info: PRISM SoftMAC
[ 22.457855] creator: [kvalo]
[ 22.457885] date: [06/11/28-15:03]
[ 22.457916]
[ 22.464782] CX3110x: MAC address 00:19:4f:9e:96:2a
[ 22.473663] No power saving
[ 22.766967] Adding 129780k swap on /media/mmc2/.swap. Priority:-1 ex tents:134 across:158464k
[ 26.775604] EAC mode: play enabled, rec enabled
[ 26.991851] Scan complete, scanned 13 channels
[ 27.016113] Full PSM
[ 27.044799] No power saving
[ 28.882629] Scan complete, scanned 13 channels
[ 28.907623] Full PSM
[ 28.928192] No power saving
[ 31.082000] Dynamic PSM
[ 31.082061] PSM timeout 4000 ms
[ 31.834472] Dynamic PSM
[ 31.834564] PSM timeout 1000 ms
[ 32.011535] ERROR in pdlp_calculate_stats(): o[j-1].timestamp is < 12 8
[ 34.396026] EAC mode: play disabled, rec disabled
[ 42.852447] EAC mode: play enabled, rec enabled
[ 42.949584] omapdsp: mmap info: vmadr = 4000c000, padr = 86610000, le n = 2000
[ 45.254119] EAC mode: play disabled, rec disabled
[ 51.567077] EAC mode: play enabled, rec enabled
/ $

(My apologies for the layout)

As you can see both the 4GB SDC are recognized as 3921920KiB.

As seen here:

[ 3.722229] mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 SDC 3921920KiB
[ 3.722534] mmcblk0: p1
and here:

[ 3.975585] mmcblk1: mmc1:b368 SDC 3921920KiB
[ 3.975952] mmcblk1: p1

The only difference, in what I can find, is the voltage on the 2 cards.
I am not sure if it has something do with things, but here they are:

[ 3.725280] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VDCDC3' to 3300 mV (reg 0x07, val 0x39)
and:

[ 3.816375] menelaus: Setting voltage 'VDCDC3' to 2800 mV (reg 0x07, val 0x29)

So far my little "research".

I will continue testing with larger files on the SD cards but strange enough I haven't had any of the symptoms again since I formatted and wrote over the empty space and data on both of the cards.

Too bad I did not do a dmesg before while there were still problems.

The one thing are the different voltages (3300mV over 2800mV)

:confused:

[konfoo]

The recognized size is correct. Does your transcend work now? Hmmm :)

[Tr1gg3R]

So far so good.

I keep my fingers crossed though :D

[boerner]

Some additional information about high capacity cards in Linux...

http://intr.overt.org/blog/?p=42

Looks like it won't be long now until support enters the mainline kernel.

[Tr1gg3R]

Some additional information about high capacity cards in Linux...

http://intr.overt.org/blog/?p=42

Looks like it won't be long now until support enters the mainline kernel.

Wow that looks really good.

Time for me to do a lookup on compiing a Maemo 3.0 kernel.

Anyone that can point me in the right direction?

[Jerome]

Just a quick note: I bought a Transcend 4GB card and it appears to work on my N800:
-size is reported as 4GB
-swap works
-no complains in dmesg, voltage reported is 2800 mV
-I copied over 1 GB of mp3 on it and can access the data

[konfoo]

Please list your card's model number. Manufacturer name alone is useless.

[Jerome]

I don`t think that Transcend sells more than one model of 4GB SD card (and one SDHC, which is reported to fail in the N800). The card also says "150x".

Curiously, since yesterday my 1GB RS-MMC is causing problems. Maybe there is some incompatibility when using different cards at the same time? It used to work, however, so more tests would be necessary.

[flareup]

I have two questions that would clear this issue up for me to go ahead and buy cards

1 SD v SDHC - is the HC "high capacity"? I thought that related to the above 2GB side of things - what is the difference then?

2 "working" - I really don't care at the moment if I buy a 4gb that only works to 2gb capacity but then will work as 4 with a future OS upgrade, what I want to know if that it will work at all?

cheers.

[Milhouse]

1:

SD <=4GB - byte addressed cards. 4GB is the max (was supposed to be 2GB, but some manufacturers have produced 4GB cards - device compatability is questionable, some may work, others may not)

SDHC >= 4GB - block addressed. 32GB is the max. Not supported in the N800 yet, needs a kernel update.

2:

A 4GB SD (and not SDHC) card that doesn't work today most likely won't work in future. The compatability of 4GB byte-addressed cards is not really part of the SD standard, although some cards obviously do work just fine in the N800. If you have a 4GB SD card that doesn't work it's not likely to be a N800 driver issue but most likely a problem with the card itself.

[flareup]

cheers mate. cards on order, will let people know.

liking the sound of 32gb though - so a possiblity of a 64gb 800 at some point?
that would definitely do away with my ipod :)

[jpj]

I don`t think that Transcend sells more than one model of 4GB SD card (and one SDHC, which is reported to fail in the N800). The card also says "150x".

Sorry, not true. Their full size 4GB SD cards include:

TS4GSDHC6 - HC Class 6 - requires kernel support
TS4GSDHC - HC Class 2 - requires kernel support

TS4GSD150 - Legacy 150X
TS4GSD80 - Legacy 80X
TS4GSDC - Legacy, unspecified (lowest) speed

I'm using the term "Legacy" rather than "Standard" for non-HC cards, since 4GB is outside the original SD specs and presumably varies by manufacturer.

I have two TS4GSD150 cards arriving Wednesday 1/17. Will report back.

[fanoush]

I'm using the term "Legacy" rather than "Standard" for non-HC cards, since 4GB is outside the original SD specs and presumably varies by manufacturer.
There is nice explanation here
http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/special-sd.html
The 2GB limit is because of FAT16 limitation being part of SD specs, not on lower level (i.e differencies between cards). Problems on lower level start already over 1GB. 4GB is no worse than 2GB on low level. So it does not vary by card manufacturer how it is done but by 'reader' manufacturer how it is read.

[Jerome]

Sorry, not true. Their full size 4GB SD cards include:

TS4GSDHC6 - HC Class 6 - requires kernel support
TS4GSDHC - HC Class 2 - requires kernel support

TS4GSD150 - Legacy 150X
TS4GSD80 - Legacy 80X
TS4GSDC - Legacy, unspecified (lowest) speed

I'm using the term "Legacy" rather than "Standard" for non-HC cards, since 4GB is outside the original SD specs and presumably varies by manufacturer.

I have two TS4GSD150 cards arriving Wednesday 1/17. Will report back.


I can't find those references here, but it seems that I have the TS4GSD150 then. It works so well that I ordered a second one. ;-)

[jpj]

There is nice explanation here
http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/special-sd.html
The 2GB limit is because of FAT16 limitation being part of SD specs, not on lower level (i.e differencies between cards). Problems on lower level start already over 1GB. 4GB is no worse than 2GB on low level. So it does not vary by card manufacturer how it is done but by 'reader' manufacturer how it is read.

Thanks for the link, it's very informative. Now I understand why my RAZR V3m phone works with 1GB microSD cards but not 2GB. Hello Moto...

[jpj]

I can't find those references here, but it seems that I have the TS4GSD150 then. It works so well that I ordered a second one. ;-)

That's good news; I'm relieved. :)

[penguinbait]

Has anyone tried the Transcend 8GB?

http://www.monstronix.com/ts8gsdhc-p-285264.html

seems really cheap for 8GB

[penguinbait]

Does anyone know how the transcend sdhc 150x compares to the kingston. Kingston seems to have class 2, 4, 6

Are these industry standards or kingston standard? I am hesitant to purchase transcend before I understand the differences. I am gonna be booting off this thing, I am thinking the class 6, looks like the way to go?


Speed class logo indicates device performance.
guaranteed minimum DTR
2 MB/sec.
guaranteed minimum DTR
4 MB/sec.
guaranteed minimum DTR
6 MB/sec.

OK, I now see that transcend also has a class 6 4 and 8GB card.

http://mxflash.stores.yahoo.net/sd4.html

[Milhouse]

Has anyone tried the Transcend 8GB?

http://www.monstronix.com/ts8gsdhc-p-285264.html

seems really cheap for 8GB

8GB => SDHC => No worky (until future firmware update). :(

[Beefy6969]

1:

SD <=4GB - byte addressed cards. 4GB is the max (was supposed to be 2GB, but some manufacturers have produced 4GB cards - device compatability is questionable, some may work, others may not)

SDHC >= 4GB - block addressed. 32GB is the max. Not supported in the N800 yet, needs a kernel update.

2:

A 4GB SD (and not SDHC) card that doesn't work today most likely won't work in future. The compatability of 4GB byte-addressed cards is not really part of the SD standard, although some cards obviously do work just fine in the N800. If you have a 4GB SD card that doesn't work it's not likely to be a N800 driver issue but most likely a problem with the card itself.



Just want to confirm that my 4GB Transcend TS4GSDC is giving me alot of problems. It is very flakey. One minute it seems to work, the next minute it doesn't. This is even after I formatted it with my N800. Plugging in the USB cable will not detect it either. Virtual memory also will not work. At this point, I don't know what else to try?

[Jerome]

Caveat emptor: the word is that SDHC cards do NOT work on the N800. Any card over 4GB or stating a "class" (as in "class 2", 4, 6...) is a SDHC card.

[Tr1gg3R]

After all these good and interesting posts I am sad to report that my N800 died and will no longer boot :(

After contacting Nokia NL we agreed to send it back to Belgium today for an exchange. (This because it is within the 7 days legal period.)

I serious consider buying a second N800 for my dev needs.....
( To have one "use" and "dev" machine just in case.)

To be continued.

[flareup]

ok can confirm that the 4gb cards I bought

http://www.mobymemory.com/proddetail.asp?prod=SD%5FMOBYMEMORY%5F4096%5F001

work perfectly. filled them up with various audio, video, jpgs, pdfs and text data and everything is good, can move from card to card in 800, everything opens, plays, the lot.

one quick tip - the internal card only gets recognized when you put the back cover back on!

[jpj]

Another happy camper here: Transcend TS4GSD150 ($66.08 each, see link) working fine. Took roughly 30 minutes to fill one card with high quality VBR MP3s (lame --alt-preset standard, 52 albums, 922 files) over a USB connection. All accessible and playing fine. Next task: suck down a bunch of maps... ;-)

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=BA22932

[Beefy6969]

Can everyone confirm if swap/virtual memory works on their working 4GB SD card. Which brand and model number are you using?

[SkwrHdz]

.

N800 ordered from TigerDirect - ETA Friday PM!!!!!

Is there any logic to the thought that perhaps if one were to stick to a 2GB card for the internal slot for swap/virtual memory etc one might get away with using a Transcent 4GB 150x in the external slot as perhaps the N800 would write less frequently to the external than the internal slot?

Any expert or experienced opinion/advice on this?
.

[Jerome]

Can everyone confirm if swap/virtual memory works on their working 4GB SD card. Which brand and model number are you using?

Works on Transcend TS4GSD150, used internally (did not try it externally).

[Unhinged]

I applied the linux SDHC patch by Philip Langdale and recompiled the kernel. I can now see both my 4GB SDHC cards. I can write and read too. However, I just tried creating a 1.8Gb file using dd and after a short time I got a reboot. Only seems to have written 60Mb of it. Still, I doubt it'll be long before we've got SDHC support :cool:

[img eL]

about the 8gb SDHC, currently how does it act with the n800? can read & write up to a certain point on any of the 8gb's? or none at all?

[jpj]

about the 8gb SDHC, currently how does it act with the n800? can read & write up to a certain point on any of the 8gb's? or none at all?

Any SDHC will have zero functionality until kernel support is in place.

[Unhinged]

However, I just tried creating a 1.8Gb file using dd and after a short time I got a reboot.
Turns out this is another bug. The patch seems to be working absolutely fine and I've managed to utilise all of my 4Gb SDHC card. You can get the kernel image here (http://www.unhinged.eclipse.co.uk/rx-34-kernel-sdhc). Use it entirely at your own risk. I flashed it with:

flasher-3.0 -f -k rx-34-kernel-sdhc

[chadsawyer]

This is great news. I'm expecting my n800 tomorrow, and almost ordered a pair of 4gb cards. Looks like I'll wait a week or so... 8gb isn't much more

EDIT
what the heck, I ordered the cheap 8gb card from newegg. $69.99

There isn't a 4gb limit other than the sdhc spec is there?

[freeman]

Turns out this is another bug. The patch seems to be working absolutely fine and I've managed to utilise all of my 4Gb SDHC card. You can get the kernel image here (http://www.unhinged.eclipse.co.uk/rx-34-kernel-sdhc). Use it entirely at your own risk. I flashed it with:

flasher-3.0 -f -k rx-34-kernel-sdhc
BTW, what else did you compiled in the kernel?
any chance ext2/3 and smb are in there?

[Unhinged]

BTW, what else did you compiled in the kernel?
any chance ext2/3 and smb are in there?

Nope, sorry. It's the absolute standard kernel but with the SDHC patch applied.

[jpj]

The patch seems to be working absolutely fine and I've managed to utilise all of my 4Gb SDHC card. You can get the kernel image here (http://www.unhinged.eclipse.co.uk/rx-34-kernel-sdhc). Use it entirely at your own risk. I flashed it with:

flasher-3.0 -f -k rx-34-kernel-sdhc

Hmmm ... 10 days from launch to working SDHC ... what took so long? LOL

Seriously, I'm impressed. My RAZR V3m shipped with a common bug that limits it to 1GB microSD, and it will undoubtedly retire with the same bug unfixed.

How many CE platforms are this open to _major_ functional improvements, user initiated no less? Not many, I'd say. Sorry to gush off topic, but this is great.

I'm also sorry I jumped the gun and bought a pair of 4GB SD instead of holding out for 8GB SDHC to work. Who knew? Oh well, memory is like money, you can never have too much. (Any bets on 32GB cards in 2008?)

[chadsawyer]

Got the a-data card from newegg. Reports 7.5 usable. What is the dd command to create a file to test it?

[Unhinged]

I'd avoid using dd to test. I did this when I first built the kernel and the device rebooted after a short while. I first thought this was a problem with the patch but to be sure flashed the original rootfs back to the device and tested again and still got the reboot. I've reported it as a bug.

I was doing

dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/mmc2/big bs=1M count=100

Instead, I've used the mass storage driver to copy stuff onto it.

[chadsawyer]

Got 2 gigs of data on it, things were going well. Rebooted, and my bluetooth DUN to my razr wouldnt work. Rebooted again, and I was left with a white screen. Took out the 8gb card and it would boot. Put the card back in and it works.

I am 99% sure there is some relationship between the 8gb card and stabillity, but it *could* be something else. BTW, I havent touched the RSS reader so far out of fear....

[Unhinged]

Hmm... I've had the white screen thing on occasion myself but I had a feeling I'd had it with the original kernel, perhaps I was wrong. I take it it's the first time for you? I haven't got anything bigger than a 4Gb card though I'm using two of them and it seems to be working just fine at the moment. I'm using 94% of one card and 37% of the other and no ill effects at all that I can report.

I can't comment on the bluetooth as I don't have a mobile phone. My bluetooth keyboard however's working fine but I guess that's a little different to pairing with a mobile.

I'm new to the MMC stuff so I don't really know what I'm talking about... but, the patch I've applied is one that's for the kernel head and subsequently there's been quite a few changes in between the N800's 2.6.18 kernel and where the head's at currently including, I believe, significant speed increases. It looks like the SDHC patch has been accepted for the 2.6.21 kernel. Hopefully someone that does know what they're talking about will be able to do a more thorough job than I and fill in the gaps.

[chadsawyer]

Gonna try to fill it up tonight. Will post on the results. Using it mobile today, and very impressed. MoSt capable mobile device that ive had. Wish rdesktop and a new flash plugin was available.

[chadsawyer]

I cannot get over 4gb on the 8gb card. When I try to exceed it it claims insufficient disk space. I made an iso of a cd and placed it on my 1gb sd card, and kept renaming it and copying it till I got the error.

[Unhinged]

That's a shame. With any luck, what with the developer codes going out this week, it'll not be long before there's a 'proper' kernel available. Fingers crossed.

[Karel Jansens]

ok can confirm that the 4gb cards I bought

http://www.mobymemory.com/proddetail.asp?prod=SD%5FMOBYMEMORY%5F4096%5F001

work perfectly. filled them up with various audio, video, jpgs, pdfs and text data and everything is good, can move from card to card in 800, everything opens, plays, the lot.

one quick tip - the internal card only gets recognized when you put the back cover back on!

I've ordered 2 of those 4 gig babies. They arrived this morning and are already in NaB00. The internal card is happily churning away with 128MB of virtual memory and about half a gig of assorted books and movie clips.

Many thanks for the tip. Maybe other Europeaneaneans might be interested, as -- for Belgium at least -- they're not a bad deal at all: Less than EUR 125.-, tax and shipping (3 work days) included.

8 gigabytes on the road! woo-hoo!!!

[flareup]

I've ordered 2 of those 4 gig babies. They arrived this morning and are already in NaB00. The internal card is happily churning away with 128MB of virtual memory and about half a gig of assorted books and movie clips.

Many thanks for the tip. Maybe other Europeaneaneans might be interested, as -- for Belgium at least -- they're not a bad deal at all: Less than EUR 125.-, tax and shipping (3 work days) included.

8 gigabytes on the road! woo-hoo!!!


no probs mate!

I took mine on a trip over the weekend and found the combined 8gb very agreeable. Just need a good way to make audio playlists and then I can virtually retire the (very tired) ipod and to work out which mPlayer I should put on to watch all those vids I've slapped on the cards!

[Unhinged]

I don't know whether they ship anywhere other than the UK but I got my 4Gb SD (SDHC) cards for 18 pounds sterling each: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101120

[Karel Jansens]

no probs mate!

I took mine on a trip over the weekend and found the combined 8gb very agreeable. Just need a good way to make audio playlists and then I can virtually retire the (very tired) ipod and to work out which mPlayer I should put on to watch all those vids I've slapped on the cards!

Have you tried PLCreator?

https://garage.maemo.org/projects/plcreator/

It appears to be approved for the N800.

[Karel Jansens]

I don't know whether they ship anywhere other than the UK but I got my 4Gb SD (SDHC) cards for 18 pounds sterling each: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101120

I don't want no steenkeen' cheap cards, man! I want the expensive stuff! :D :D :D

[trendystyle]

Adata turbo 150X 4gbworks perfectly(virtual memory 128MB, etc.):)

[yumheart]

Is there any chance that the 8gb card could be partitioned into two 4gb partitions and would thereby allow use of all the space?

Did you notice any problems with the iso file(s) on the 8 gb card after you made the copies? In other words is the card usable for now as a 4gb card without any problems?


I cannot get over 4gb on the 8gb card. When I try to exceed it it claims insufficient disk space. I made an iso of a cd and placed it on my 1gb sd card, and kept renaming it and copying it till I got the error.

[chadsawyer]

My initial inabillity to get more than 4gb on the card seems to be due to a bug in the file manager app. I had no problem using the whole 7.51gb of formatted space, but I copied data there via xterm. The memory applet in control panel reports correct, and mp3´s play from the card.

On a side note, if the n800 formats the card through the file manager app, it only shows 2gb.

It appears the file manager app is to blame. Do 4gb cards act similarly when formatted through file manager?

Maybe Ill install midnight commander or something.

8gb useable, quite sweet... :)

EDIT* after I cross the 4gb limit, the file manager app functions fine again. I can copy to and from the card. Just need to get over 4gb of data on thecard, then file manager works.

[Milhouse]

The File Manager app is probably formatting the card using FAT16 (2GB max volume). In future updates the File Manager may need to choose between FAT16 and FAT32 (8TB max volume) depending on the size of the card/partition.

[Mara]

I have ordered two different brand 4GB SD cards, one Kingston and one ELITE PRO brand (or call it "no name" brand... :rolleyes: ) from eBay. They better work... :confused:

I'll let you know once I receive them and my N800.

Well.. the ELITE PRO card came today and it DID NOT WORK! :mad: It works fine in my USB card reader but the N800 does not recognize it at all.

There is not much specification data available on the outside of the box or in the card itself, for sure it does not say anything about SDHC... maybe it is SDHC card after all? How could I find out other than flashing the special kernel?

Hopefully I get the other card (Kingston) tomorrow... Wish me luck... ;)

[chadsawyer]

Not meaning to offend, but did you flash your n800 with the sdhc kernel?

Millhouse, you are correct about the file manager formatting fat16. I had formatted it fat32 when I had gotten it to work. Any hope for ext 2 or 3 in the kernel? I never had a 770, but I know I saw an alternate kernel supporting ext 2/3.

How would one go about compiling their own kernel? I have the sdk installed, as well as the nokia binaries, and a vm running on vmware. I have made my own x86 kernels for years. Is there a make menuconfig or make xconfig? Or do you have to edit the config file by hand?

[Mara]

No I didn't... I wasn't planning to be that brave yet...

My backup solution is to use my 2GB card from my phone to save some MP3's for my overseas trip... The second card is the old 1GB MMC card from 770 where I have all the MaemoMapper maps stored...

I'll rather wait a while to see the SDHC kernel is working 100% stable and/or Nokia comes with a new OS with SDHC support?

[chadsawyer]

You have most likely gotten an sdhc card. Thats how mine acted. Install xterm and execute dmesg after plugging in the card. What are the results?

[Milhouse]

To get ext2/3 support try "apt-get install e2fsprogs" as root - not sure if it works on the N800. If it does work, you should be able to create ext2/3 partitions natively. You got mkdosfs as standard which may allow you to create a FAT32 filesystem using "mkdosfs -F 32 ..."

[Milhouse]

7dayshop now has 4GB SDHC cards for £17.99 - previously they were standard SD cards for the same price (which are now currently out of stock).

4GB SDHC cards: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=102050

4GB SD cards: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101120

No idea what this shop is like, or the quality of the cards but they're damned cheap (for us Brits anyway!) :)

[Mara]

It says something like JFFS2 warning: (1067) jffs2_sum_write-Sumnode: Not enough space for summary, padsize = -52

Then after a while there is a lots of EAC mode: Play enabled, rec enabled and right after that they are disabled.... this keeps going on.

[Mara]

The 4GB Kingston 4GBFE card (if it is even Kingston? They do not say they make that part number at all... :confused: ) was detected by N800 properly, it did report the free space correctly but is not really working right: By looking dmesg log it says file system panic everywhere... and I was not able to create swap partition in it. So put the 4GB "Kingston" card into the blacklist as well. :mad:

[Milhouse]

SanDisk 4GB SDHC Class 2 is working just fine with the N800 SDHC kernel.

The SDHC kernel seems stable given the limited amount of testing so far - I certainly haven't noticed anything unusual yet, and all apps seem to be behaving themselves. Thanks Unhinged (and Phil Langdale of course!) :)

[yumheart]

Adata 8gb card from Newegg working perfect with the SDHC kernel for me. Installed in the internal slot with 128mb swap on it... Gonna get another one for the external slot next week.

[Milhouse]

Had an unexplained reboot using the SDHC kernel - no idea why, I just found the N800 stuck at the "Nokia" screen after I'd left it idle and on battery power for a few hours. Have rebooted, it's recharging now as the battery was almost finished - probably not related to the updated kernel as there have been so many reports of random reboots, but thought I'd mention it. Will keep an eye on it and post again with updates.

[Unhinged]

Milhouse, both my cards are the ones from 7 Day Shop and they're just fine. I don't have any qualms buying from them.

Chadsawyer, as for compiling your own kernel it's easy if you follow this guide (http://maemo.org/platform/docs/howtos/howto_kernel_guide_bora.html). You need to apply the SDHC patch which requires a bit of editing as the patch is not taken from the 2.6.18 source but if you're familiar with patch then it's not hard to apply the bits patch can't manage. The bog standard kernel does come with ext3 modules though so as far as kernel supports concerned I don't think there's a problem. Whether the ext3 file system tools are available is another matter.

[mwiktowy]

The File Manager app is probably formatting the card using FAT16 (2GB max volume). In future updates the File Manager may need to choose between FAT16 and FAT32 (8TB max volume) depending on the size of the card/partition.

Also keep in mind when you are testing the capacity of your 8 GB cards, even Fat32 formatted cards have a 2 GiB/file limit. So a single dd command will die before it will fill up your card with a big file. You will have to have four files minimum.

[brendan]

i have seen mention of this 8GB patch for the kernel. where would i get this kernel that has been patched? can i use the flasher program to put it on a n800? i have not gotten in the habit of compiling my own kernel, and dont want to risk anything going wrong.

[Milhouse]

Check post #73 in this thread. It's not an 8GB patch - it's a patch adding support for SDHC cards which should in theory support card capacities between 4GB and 32GB.

You need to use the Linux flasher and flash only the kernel. Seems to be working OK - I had a single reboot within 24 hours of applying the SDHC kernel, but in the 3 days since then it's been stable.

[yumheart]

The SDHC patched kernel has been working fine for me as well. I have an Adata 8GB sdhc card in the internal slot...

[bobpaul]

Also keep in mind when you are testing the capacity of your 8 GB cards, even Fat32 formatted cards have a 2 GiB/file limit.

Would it be possible to format the card as ext2/3 to over come this limit? Is support for ext2 in the kernel, or would that require an additional kernel?

This would require editing /usr/sbin/mmc-mount, but I don't see that as a big deal.

If ext2/3 support was present what I would do is create 3 partitions. A swap partition, a large ext2, and a small vfat. On the vfat I would include an installer for one of the many Win32 ext2 filesystem drivers for the occasional time I might plug into a windows box with usb or via a card reader. Although I don't really have need for files over 2Gib or an 8GB card even. :)

[lhanneus]

I want to buy a PQI 4gb and 150 X , does it work ?
link (http://www.padeg.be/description.php?lang=1&path=24&sort=Article&page=0&id=2189)

I'm a total newbie , does I need a kernel or other things and how to?

[Milhouse]

Assuming the PQI is SD rather than SDHC you do NOT need a modified kernel - the stock Nokia kernel should work assuming there is nothing unusual about the PQI card itself.

If the PQI 4GB card is SDHC (aka SD 2.0) then you WILL need the modified kernel referenced in post #73 - without it the N800 won't be able to access the card at all. In order to update the N800 with the modified kernel you need to download the flasher 3.0 utility from maemo.org and run it on a Linux x86 PC (or use a LiveCD distro). Post again if you need more flasher instructions and your proposed card is SDHC/SD 2.0.

[Robette]

Hey just wanted to let everyone know to exoect 16GB SDHC cards this year. Panasonic is one manufacturer who has stated this intention.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07010710panasonicsdcards.asp

Pretty predictable development but it's nice to have it in writing.

[Milhouse]

Transcend 8GB Class 2 SDHC for 101 EUR/68 GBP/130 USD here (http://www.memory-configurator.com/products/description/8Gb_Transcend_High_Capacity-SDHC-Secure_Digital_Card_Class_2/index.html) - very, very tempting... :)

[fpp]

I just read some news predicting that flash memory prices might drop by as much as 50% this year due to overproduction.
Caveat emptor :-)

[heavyt]

I just read some news predicting that flash memory prices might drop by as much as 50% this year due to overproduction.
Caveat emptor :-)
Man that must be bad news some where, but not in my house! :)

[Milhouse]

I just read some news predicting that flash memory prices might drop by as much as 50% this year due to overproduction.
Caveat emptor :-)

I would expect the price of flash memory to drop anyway, and a 50% drop may or may not happen - it's a bit like waiting for the next new device and not buying the current one, you'll be doing it forever! :)

www.memory-configurator.com also has Transcend 4GB SDHC cards on sale for £24 which I thought good value for a name-brand card.

[roegerp]

Hi,
I'm thinking about buying a large SD-card for the internal slot. Do you think the speed of the card does matter (swap-file..)? Or will the "slow" card feel the same? Any experiences?

[vol]

I've got two Adata 8gb SDHC cards in my n800 right now and it is working great. I've had no reboots since installing them and uploading around 2.5gb to them so far. They are formatted fat32, is anyone using ext2 with their sd cards? I would not be able to mount them on my windows work box anymore but I use debian 99% of the time. Any other drawbacks to using ext2?

[Puck]

roegerp Hi,
I'm thinking about buying a large SD-card for the internal slot. Do you think the speed of the card does matter (swap-file..)? Or will the "slow" card feel the same? Any experiences?

I'm in the same position. My N800 is on its way and I am going to invest in a couple of large cards: but do I buy SD cards or go to the trouble of flashing and buy SDHC? Are there real user benefits in terms of speed, or is it just that SDHC can go over the 4GB limit?

I'd really appreciate the advice as I really want to get some cards ASAP. I'm a bit of a newbie so flashing makes me feel a bit nervous, but I will learn how to do it if SDHC brings me real benefits. Thanks.

[tjb]

Is everyone who is using SDHC cards using the kernel from post #73? I can't seem to write over 2GB even though the card is recognized as being 7+GB. I have two AData 8GB cards.

I also broke one by trying to reformat it to use smaller sectors using mkfs.vfat and now I can't seem to make a vfat filesystem that is both 8GB and recognized by the N800. Best I can do is 2GB. Any ideas appreciated.

[brendan]

vfat has a size limitation of 2GB. you need to format it in fat32 or ext2/ext3 to get a single partition over 2GB.

alternatively, you can create multiple 2GB vfat partitions to use all the space on the card

[tjb]

I think that FAT has a 2GB limit and VFAT under linux includes support for FAT32 and up to 8TB.

[fanoush]

anyone tried new kernel from http://intr.overt.org/blog/ ?
I wonder if 4GB transcend 150x is faster with this kernel. It includes high speed (50Mhz bus speed) SD mode needed to fully use 150x mode of this card. could anyone with this card post output of time dd if=/dev/mmcblkX of=/dev/null bs=16384 count=10000 ?

Thanks.

[Milhouse]

Just flashed it...

/dev/mmcblk0 is the internal slot with 128Mb Nokia mini-SD
/dev/mmcblk1 is the external slot with 4Gb SanDisk SDHC


/home/user # uname -a
Linux Nokia-N800-51 2.6.18-omap1 #3 Tue Feb 6 22:30:15 PST 2007 armv6l unknown

/home/user # df
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mtdblock4 2048 2036 12 99% /mnt/initfs
none 512 64 448 13% /mnt/initfs/tmp
/dev/mtdblock4 257536 89892 167644 35% /
none 512 64 448 13% /tmp
none 1024 60 964 6% /dev
/dev/mmcblk1p1 3971584 192 3971392 0% /media/mmc1
/dev/mmcblk0p1 122742 114688 8054 93% /media/mmc2
/home/user # time dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/null bs=16384 count=10000
7688+0 records in
7688+0 records out
real 0m 16.32s
user 0m 0.00s
sys 0m 0.75s
/home/user # time dd if=/dev/mmcblk1 of=/dev/null bs=16384 count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
real 0m 21.03s
user 0m 0.00s
sys 0m 0.42s

[fanoush]

the test reads 160MB so with 128MB card it ends earlier. But both speeds are around 7.5-8MB/s.

I wonder if Transcend 150x 4GB SD or Kingston 2GB mmcmobile is faster. Kernel contains also high speed and wider bus feature for mmcmobile cards so Kingston one should be definitely faster than before and similar in speed with 150x SD cards.

[Unhinged]

I think that FAT has a 2GB limit and VFAT under linux includes support for FAT32 and up to 8TB.
I can't recall off the top of my head what the default kernel settings are but it's possible that large file support isn't turned on which would cause you this issue. That's not to say that you couldn't write multiple 2Gb files to your SDHC card or is that what you're saying?

[tjb]

I flashed the new kernel but things are not much better for me. I've got 4.8GB on my 8GB card by scp'ing video files over. But whenever I try to turn swap on to that card, I get errors

[31025.502105] FAT: Filesystem panic (dev mmcblk0p1)
[31025.502136] fat_bmap_cluster: request beyond EOF (i_pos 117353478)

and the filesystem is put into readonly mode. I have to reboot to get it back.

It's like the swap applet doesn't understand partitions >2GB but when I use scp to copy a file over, it works file. Like part of the OS is >2GB aware but not all.

Is all this stuff working for others? Maybe my card is corrupt or something but there doesn't seem to be anyway to fsck it. I can't find fsck.vfat.

[tjb]

OK, so I removed the video files and got the filesystem under 2GB of data. I then could add a swap file. Strange which apps can write over the 2GB filesystem boundary and which can't. I know scp has no problems.

[jon_lingard]

ok, again, i am a total newbie and would apprciate some step by step help please? i have absolutely no experience in linux, none, nothing. i know there are alot of peopl out there who are in the same boat as me so maybe a step by step instruction guide could be produced then posted on here as seperate thread?

i have bought the N800 and also have a transcend 4Gb highspeed 150X SD card from mobymemory.

i know i need to flash the kernel, whatever that is, to enable me to use the full amount of the card. I want to use the 4GB card in the internal slot for Music, pics etc but want to use another 4Gb, or 8GB card for hotswapping videos whilst away.

I need to know how to flash the kernel to make this work. Please do not refer me to post 73 as this means nothing to me and is just a window full of symbols.

Thankyou very very much for your patience, i know its frustrating for you all to deal with linux virgins like us! ...thanks.
Jon

[euchreprof]

I am a total newbie also, but I believe the 4GB Transcend 150x works right away without having to do all this complicated kernel stuff... I have been reading that you need to put the kernal in for 4Gb - 8GB Transcend SDHC cards though.

[Mophile]

Not to put you off or anything, Jon, but I'm a "Linux virgin" myself and have realized that I'm better off waiting for Nokia to release a new software version - which should happen in a few weeks time.

To be able to flash a new kernel to the N800, you must use a Linux system (afaik), and that alone is a showstopper. For me at least.

[oceans777]

I have a 4GBTRANSCEND SD TS4GSD150 R card coming next week from Newegg so I will post the results with the N800.

[rattis]

ok, again, i am a total newbie and would apprciate some step by step help please?

I need to know how to flash the kernel to make this work. Please do not refer me to post 73 as this means nothing to me and is just a window full of symbols.

Thankyou very very much for your patience, i know its frustrating for you all to deal with linux virgins like us! ...thanks.
Jon

I'll start by pointing the way. There are a couple of different ways to get a linux box working on your system. You can buy a usb that has one pre-installed (damn small linux, as well as others), vmware with unbuntu (the method others here have used), or bag windows completely (my preferred method). Note, the first two will make linux run in a window, in windows. You could cheat in step 3 by using a live cd, but then you'll have to mount drives, and dl things before you run the cd.

After you get a box working with linux:
1) download and save the image (see post 73 for the link).
2) get the flasher program from maemo.org
3) connect your tablet to the box.
4) run the command in post 73 from a terminal window. (maemo.org has a decent howto on this). The command does most of the work (after getting a linux box set up).

[fpp]

I have tried several times to run various Linux images inside VMWare, and never succeeded in getting them to "see" the 770 plugged into USB (although the USB printer and removable media did work).

To flash the tablet I always use a Knoppix live CD. Recent versions automount everything in sight (hard disks, NTFS partitions, USB keys, CD-ROM) so you just have to click on the icons... In typical setups (DSL router with DHCP) networking "just works" too, so you have a choice of pre-downloading stuff in Windows before the boot, or once in Knoppix.

Flashing has always been fast and reliable with this method. Each time I waste half an hour trying a new variant on VMWare and then end up doing it in five minutes with Knoppix :-)

[Milhouse]

I would recommend using the kernel in the blog post referenced in post #124.

[holly]

I have a Transcend 150x 4GB SD-Card.

At beginning it was working with 4gb and was very very slow!!! To copy one mp3-file via USB to the sd-card I have to wait for 2-3 min.!
Now I have reseted the N800 and if I look onto the card with the filemanager I will only see a 2gb card!?

Whats going wrong?

I'm also havin another 4GB card (4gb PLATINUM). If I put it into the external slot he told me that there is a new card, bu if I click on it in the browser I receive a message that there were problems to read the card!?

Pleas help me, I am getting crazy :confused: :eek:

holly

[Milhouse]

If you reformatted the 4GB card using the N800 file manager application, the card has been formatted using the FAT16 filesystem and this filesystem only supports a maximum 2GB partition. You need to reformat the card on a PC using the FAT32 filesystem in order for the full 4GB capacity to become available to the N800. The N800 does support FAT32 it's just that the file manager application is programmed to only format cards using FAT16.

Also, as it's a Transcend try using the Serial check page from this (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=37232#post37232) thread to ensure you have an original card (you may need to find the equivalent page on the Transcend German site as your signature suggests you are German!) :)

[DCr33P]

Ahhhhhhh, I returned my not-working 2gb extrememory card and ordered a 4gb transcend 150x yesterday. It should arrive tomorrow. Please Please Please don't tell me that I made a mistake, again :eek:

<german>
Hey holly! Wie gehts denn so? :D Wo hast du deine Transcend gekauft? Amazon.de? Ich glaube, dass ich deinen Nick mal im telefon-treff Forum gesehen habe... ;)
</german>

[holly]

thanks for the transcend-service-link... it is an original :)

Now, I have formatted the two (internal=Transcend 150x and external=Platinum) card with fat32. If I copy files from Windows to the N800 internal slot (150x) it will take 1 sec per file (70kb). For a 5MB-File (mp3) it will take 4-5 sec.

Isn't it a litle bit slow?


thx, Holly




<german>
Hey holly! Wie gehts denn so? :D Wo hast du deine Transcend gekauft? Amazon.de? Ich glaube, dass ich deinen Nick mal im telefon-treff Forum gesehen habe... ;)
</german>

Ja, bin auch im TT aktiv. Habe jetzt angefangen ein deutsches N800-Forum hochzuziehen. Vielleicht schaust Du da ja mal vorbei!?
http://www.n800.de

Gruß, Holly

[DCr33P]

Bin dabei ;)

Ok, in english now...
It seems that the card is definitely too slow. There is a SD speed test thread (actually, there are two) and the one guy has about 7.5mb/s read speed and 6.5mb/s write speed with his 150x 4gb Transcend card. This is a limit of the device, not of the card. I doubt if any card could reach significant higher transfer rates, because the n800 seems to be the bottleneck right now.
Have you tried to change the slot? Move it to the external slot and find out what happens. You can use dmesg to check if something is very wrong.
1mb/s transfer rate is not normal. I will receive my transcend card tomorrow (I hope so) and I am going to do a complete check, then I will report.
I hope this time it was no "Griff ins Klo". :D

[sungrove]

I've read most of the messages in this thread and have found it quite interesting. I think I can handle formatting my as yet purchased 4 gb SD cards for the fat32 needed to be able to use the whole card but I need some help with how to do that. I do have a usb Compact Flash card reader made by Lexar Media, but it is for the 50 pin cards that I use for my camera. Do I need another card reader? I also own a windows xp sp/2 computer. So, is formatting a card something I'll need software for on my windows computer or will I find what I need built into windows? Well, I wish I knew how to update to the new kernel, but that is well beyond what I know how to do.

Thanks in advance,
Neil
happy n800 user and Gizmo customer
Seattle

[Milhouse]

You'll need a multi-format card reader that includes support for the SD (and ideally, SDHC) format. All multi-format card readers will support SD but only more recent card readers will include support for SDHC - you may want to bear this in mind when purchasing. Multi-format card readers are dirt cheap these days.

You won't need any extra software on a Windows PC - FAT32 is supported by default. Plug the card reader in to a spare USB port, insert your SD card into the reader and XP will mount it as a mass storage drive on your computer - right click the drive in the Windows File Explorer to format it.

[NokNok770]

There's a sd card on woot.com for 24.99. Does anyone have this card and if it works on the n800? Hurry...anyone?


Connect3D 4GB Secure Digital Memory Card
$24.99

[brendan]

i just ordered 2 A-Data 8GB SDHC cards from newegg.com for $118.20 delivered.

[abarrow]

Buy.com has Connect3D 4Gb cards on sale for $29.99.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204336095&adid=17653&dcaid=17653

I've got one in my N800 and it seems to work fine. I did have to format it in another computer, however.

[rhouge]

There's a sd card on woot.com for 24.99. Does anyone have this card and if it works on the n800? Hurry...anyone?


Connect3D 4GB Secure Digital Memory Card
$24.99

Got mine from woot delivered last week and works perfect. One in the internal and one in the external. Happy Customer.

[Nanocore]

Just another satisfied customer, just put in my second 8GB Transcend memory card. Both cards running great. Pulled them out of the package, put them in the slot (s) and they worked. When looking at the details there appears to be 7.5GB available.

[Nanocore]

Sorry, left out the obligatory ...and yes, these are the the SDHC and yes I did the firmware upgrade and the kernel patch.

[NokNok770]

Yeah...wish somone would have let me know that day. Woot doesn't exactly wait around long :) Oh well...I still got space on my 2gig kingston and 1 gig sandisk card that I got since my 770. I gave one of the 1gig and the 770 to my girlfriend, but all she does with it is play mahjong.

[vash]

Just recieved a 4gb ATP ProMax Class 6 SDHC card. Works fine with the sdhc kernel patch. Don't have a reader that'll work with it yet, so no definitive benchmarks - but the card feels quite speedy compared to my cheap OCZ SD card. Paid $82.11 CND (72.36 USD). Which is darn cheap compared to what local stores in Toronto are charging for the exact same card: $127.99 CND (112.81 USD) :mad:

[Milhouse]

vash - if you get a chance, please post a benchmark (measuring the read performance) for your card in this (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5205)* thread.

Unfortunately I don't have a reliable method to benchmark write performance (anyone got any suggestions?) It would be interesting to measure the real-world write-performance across class 2, 4 and 6 cards and even compare same class cards from different manufacturers, but ultimately I doubt we'll notice much difference in practice. Read-performance is likely to be the most important factor when purchasing a card (I'd definately avoid SanDisk as they don't seem to support a high-speed bus).

* The timings in the thread remain accurate even with the latest 3.2007.10-7 firmware and updated SDHC 3.2007.10-7 kernel ("kernel mk4")

[profusion]

I just did the Kernel update and have my 4gig card working.

Specs:

4Gb ATP Pro MAX
SDHC Class 6

:)

[vann5176]

I just wanted to say that I have problems with the 4Gb 150X Transcend card that everyone else seems to be reporting as working. The strange thing is that it would work sometimes in the external slot but then after waking it up or after a reboot, it would be gone again. It never worked in the internal slot. I tried it also with the SDHC kernel but it still didn't work. I replaced it with an PNY SDHC 4Gb ($45 at Circuit City right now, at least here in the midwest). The PNY card works perfectly.

[fanoush]

I just wanted to say that I have problems with the 4Gb 150X Transcend card that everyone else seems to be reporting as working. The strange thing is that it would work sometimes in the external slot but then after waking it up or after a reboot, it would be gone again. It never worked in the internal slot. I tried it also with the SDHC kernel but it still didn't work.
Yes, looks like N800 sd/mmc controller is a bit picky and maybe also cards differ piece from piece. I have same issue with Transcend 4GB MMCplus card. Mine doesn't work in N800 but the one Philip Langdale has, works fine with some specific workaround code in kernel. See http://intr.overt.org/blog/?p=49 Luckily I have the 150x card too and this one works fine. This is mystery.

[Milhouse]

Transcend SDHC cards appear flawless with the SDHC kernel (at least the Transcend cards I have - 2x 4GB and 2x 8GB - haven't shown any problems).

[jpj]

Just another data point: Two Transcend TS4GSD150 cards here, never a problem with the stock N800 firmware or the SDHC patched kernel.

[fluxam]

PNY P-SDHC4G4-RF3 working fine after kernel patch installed as per
http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_flash_the_SDHC_kernel_w/out_connecting_to_a_computer
Main problem was I cannot find an underline key on my keyboard, so I renamed with tildes.
Transferring contents from the old Sandisk Ultra 2Gb to my PC took 45 minutes; it took 9 minutes to transfer those same files back to the new PNY SDHC card inserted to PC with Sandisk's SDDR-113 USB card reader/writer.
The stutter afflicting M4A music played from the slower card isn't
in evidence.

[zorg]

I have once experienced a problem similar to what vann5176 reports, but only after disconnecting USB from another computer. The Transcend 150X 4GB was not recognized until I reset and the N800 would not "let go" of the USB until reset.

[abject]

No problems with AData Class 6 8GB SDHCs (I have one in each slot) and the SDHC-patched kernel. Got 'em from Newegg. I'm using them FAT-formatted as they came, for the moment. I've had them for a couple of weeks.

Writes range from 4.9-5.6 MiB/sec (5.1-6.1 MB/sec) averaging 5.3 MiB/sec (5.6 MB/sec)

Tested reads using 2GB files with timing around a dd command like:

~$ dd if=/media/mmc1/test of=/dev/null bs=4096

These reads run 11.5-11.8 MiB/sec, averaging 11.7 MiB/sec (12.3 MB/sec).

The N800 sees 7,894,528 1024-byte blocks on these, as formatted from the factory. I can read and write all those blocks, with dd at least.

- ab

[noyz]

I think this should be made a sticky, and have original post editted to include the list, instead of forcing posters to go through 10+ pages of posts.

[djchase88]

I am reading this forum and is lost.....I was planning on buying either the

Kingston, 4 GB SD Secure Digital Flash Memory Card SD/HC (http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Secure-Digital-Memory-Package/dp/B000LO69OG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/105-0114815-5315628?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1192370133&sr=8-2)

or, the

Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital SD HC Memory Card (SDSDB-4096, BULK, No Reader) (http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Secure-Digital-Memory-SDSDB-4096/dp/B000P1O73A/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-0114815-5315628?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1192370256&sr=8-1)

I appreciate any suggestions on if this would work or not.

Thanks,

Chase

[Milhouse]

Both will work, my preference would be the Kingston as my testing with SanDisk cards has shown their high-speed bus support to be somewhat lacking (ie. SanDisk only support slow clock speeds, which results in reduced read/write performance).

[djchase88]

Ok, I am a total noob :) lol

I see that the SDHC Kernel came out. Will the:


Kingston, 4 GB SD Secure Digital Flash Memory Card SD/HC

or, the

Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital SD HC Memory Card (SDSDB-4096, BULK, No Reader)

work without the Kernel? I don't see a link to download the Kernel but If I find it, can I use ANY SD card in the world with my N800?

Thanks,

Chase

[djchase88]

Sweeeet! I updated my N800 from Nokia...now I have SDHC support! Now I can buy ANY CARD! YAY!