Hi!

I'm experiencing some problems with my Sandisk USB compact flash card reader. I started using it with Mandrake 8.2. Everything was going OK.

Quite some time ago, I switched to Mandrake 9.2. Since that time, transferring anything from my Compact Flash card has always been extremely slow!... Much slower than it was with the Mandrake 8.2.

So far, I did not manage to discover what made my card reader soooo slow with the Mandrake 9.2.

Has anyone here experienced that kind of problem?

Hi.

Could you post the output from 'lsmod' when your reader is plugged in?

Dave

Hi!

Here is the output of lsmod, with the card reader plugged in (and with a Compact Flash card in the reader, mounted):


Module Size Used by Not tainted
nls_iso8859-1 3484 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 4284 1 (autoclean)
vfat 11820 1 (autoclean)
fat 38040 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
parport_pc 25544 1 (autoclean)
lp 8160 0 (autoclean)
parport 34472 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
agpgart 48292 4 (autoclean)
i810_audio 25692 0 (unused)
ac97_codec 15828 0 [i810_audio]
soundcore 6340 0 [i810_audio]
nfsd 75280 0 (autoclean)
af_packet 14856 0 (autoclean)
eepro100 22100 1 (autoclean)
mii 3864 0 (autoclean) [eepro100]
ohci1394 27696 0 (unused)
ieee1394 201284 0 [ohci1394]
sd_mod 13804 2
sr_mod 19384 0 (unused)
scsimon 9312 0 (unused)
usb-storage 91616 1
supermount 84032 2 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33956 0
cdrom 32608 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 11376 0
scsi_mod 106176 5 [sd_mod sr_mod scsimon usb-storage ide-scsi]
usb-uhci 25136 0 (unused)
usbcore 74988 1 [usb-storage usb-uhci]
rtc 9004 0 (autoclean)
ext3 60048 2
jbd 39264 2 [ext3]

I'm a rather newbie, but i know i have a similar issue with my USB. My problem though is that my USB controller isn't seen as USB 2.0 but as USB 1.x due to lack of drivers [which i'll be hunting down soon]. In my case it's my CDRW which normally can burn at 52x, now suddenly burning at 6x max [which is incidentally the max speed you'll get on USB 1.x].

So maybe it's a similar issue?

Hmmm... Interesting what you're saying....

I also have a CD-ROM "problem": sometimes my CD writer will suddenly burn CD at slow speed (must be around speed 6, I can't really remember...) and end-up in errors, complaining about buffer underflow. I narrowed the "sometime" to "after a reboot". I didn't mess with USB: my CD burned is treated as SCSI. I didn't think it was related... But the card reader is also treated as SCSI!!!

I kind of solved the CD burner problem by tweaking the drive parameters with hdparm (setting using_dma to "on"). At least, it has been working fine with my burner so far. I don't know if it's a conventional solution! ;-)

I thought my reader what USB 1.x but it is actually USB 2.0 ! I just checked on the Sandisk web site. (I have the ImageMate CompactFlash Type I and II card reader (model # SDDR-91)).

Maybe I should have a look at that USB 2.0 stuff... It could be that it is not detected as USB 2.0 as it was probably with the Mandrake 8.2...

Cadmium - for some reason, the USB 2 ehci module isn'nt loaded (it's missing from the lsmod output).

Try doing 'insmod ehci-hcd' and see if that improves matters.

Dave

Hi!

I was away last week but I managed to have a full CF card to test my USB stuff (loading pictures).
Actually, it didn't go that far: I'm stuck with the 'insmod ehci-hcd'...

It appears that I can't load the module for some reason:

$> insmod ehci-hcd
Using /lib/modules/2.4.22-10mdk/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.22-10mdk/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.o.gz: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

I could not find errors concerning USB in the log except from:
insmod /lib/modules/2.4.22-10mdk/kernel/drivers/usb/hid.o.gz failed

I also tried to boot with 'force no apic' (which I saw in another thread). I didn't make a different: I still can't load the module. I found thing in the log:

Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=linux ro root=2101 noapic devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=ht resume=/dev/hde5
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
Local APIC disabled by BIOS --
Found and enabled local APIC!

Does it mean that the 'noapic' option is overwritten? Why?

Could you post the output from 'lspci'?

Dave

Here is the output of lspcidrake (I don't have lspci otherwise):

unknown : VIA Technologies|VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] [BRIDGE_HOST]
unknown : VIA Technologies|VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP] [BRIDGE_PCI]
unknown : VIA Technologies|VT82C686 [Apollo Super] [BRIDGE_ISA]
unknown : VIA Technologies|VT82C586 IDE [Apollo] [STORAGE_IDE]
usb-uhci : VIA Technologies|VT82C586B USB [SERIAL_USB]
usb-uhci : VIA Technologies|VT82C586B USB [SERIAL_USB]
unknown : VIA Technologies|VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] [BRIDGE_OTHER]
eepro100 : Intel Corp.|EtherExpress PRO/100 S Desktop Adapter [NETWORK_ETHERNET]
es1371 : Creative Labs|Sound Blaster AudioPCI64V/AudioPCI128 [MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO]
unknown : Promise Technology, Inc.|20265 [STORAGE_OTHER]
Card:Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead: Matrox|MGA G450 DualHead AGP [DISPLAY_VGA]
unknown : Unknown|USB UHCI Root Hub [Hub|Root Hub]
unknown : Unknown|USB UHCI Root Hub [Hub|Root Hub]
unknown : unknown (045e/001c/ffff/ffff) [Hub|Root Hub]
unknown : Microsoft Corp.|Natural Keyboard Pro [Human Interface Devices|Boot Interface Subclass|Keyboard]
unknown : SanDisk |ImageMate CF [Mass Storage|SCSI|Bulk (Zip)]

(with card reader plugged and card mounted)

Have a look here:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=298#linux2

Seems VIA have drivers.

Dave

Hi!

I had a look at the link you sent. Thanks! Basically what I understand is that I have to install a new kernel because I don't have the source of the one I'm currently running (no configuration possible then). I didn't do it yet...

But in the meantime, I did a couple of tests. I installed Mandrake 10.0 for testing purposes on my laptop and I tried it with my card reader. The USB connections with both my PC and my laptop have been slow since I switched to the Mandrake 9.2.

The Mandrake 10.0 came with two kernels: 2.6.3 and 2.4.25. And with both, I still can't load the ehci-hcd module but there are some improvements.

Here are the results of my tests (I've been loading the same 137668kB of photos for each test):
Mandrake 10.0 kernel 2.6.3 02:48.68
Mandrake 10.0 kernel 2.4.25 03:44.36
Mandrake 9.2 kernel 2.4.22 21:13.89

With the kernel 2.6.3, I got the following problem: not all the directories on the card are visible! It claims that there are IO errors. With the 2.4.25, all the directories can be read but it's almost one minute slower. Still better that 21 minutes!

I'm going to try the kernel 2.6.6 on my laptop soon, hopefully with ehci support...

Hi again.

If you want to try to install the VIA drivers, you can install the kernel-source RPM from your Mandrake discs.

2.6.6 is probsbly your best bet, though.

Well, I now have the kernel 2.6.6 installed on my laptop. It boots. It can load the ehci_hcd module.
But still, I can't see all the directories on my compact flash card (IO error). And in addition, my X server is now broken (won't start anymore)

OK... X is also broken with my other kernels

... My fault: my root partition was full...