webdt.org

I found that while using the transcend x266 flash card that UDMA 5 and 4 both gave errors. I got lucky watching linux init and saw that "PIO4" was the limitation of the flash card slot. This is actually a good thing because now we disqualified top shelf 300x flash cards. You can use them if you want but if the CF slot is limited to PIO4 than there is no point in spending the extra money.

quotaholic

Was this an internal flash card? Which model did you get? I seem to remember reading somewhere (probably over at LinuxMCE) that the connector is low profile so normal Horizontal Flash modules like TS1GDOM44H-S will not work.

Thanks,

Dave.

Good question, let me clarify.

The transcend card I mentioned was a compact flash card. By the reviews I read it looked to be the safest investment. Most of the pro photographers with the 1080p capable cannon cameras preferred this card desribing some corrupted files on more generic brands when loads were heavy. As I thought about it we are about the most extreme users of CF cards as we write data to them as fast as they can take it and for long durations. Most other applications throttle the data and have momentary transfers.

the model I own is a:

TS4GCF266

It was in the 30-40 dollar range and seemed to make sense based on speed ratings and what the DT is capable of.

I had my port set on "pio4" within the bios for this card.

quotaholic

Can you tell us what the speed on the IDE bus is? I plan on hooking a CF card into the IDE chain soon. Also the onboard FlashROM is nothing more than a custom made CF Card. Can you benchmark that for us?

I think it was elive linux that I tried to install before I knew that we could not boot from the CF slot. While I was mixing and matching partitions between hda and hdc I noticed during init that a line went by indicating "PIO 4" as the best speed possibly on the CF. I then set the speed to PIO 4 in bios and got no errors. Up to that point I had tried different speeds and this was the fastest speed I set without getting errors. If I know how to benchmark I would give it a shot and post the output.

quotaholic

I dont quite understand your setup. You set PIO4 on the BIOS to IDE1, which is the onboard FLashROM and it seemed to be the limit? Or did you add a CF card to the IDE chain and did this test?

From my research the FlashROM board is nothing more than a custom sized Compact Flash card. I contacted some of the chip OEMs asking for a datasheet so I know what kind of speeds to expect, but they have not replied yet.

My question is: How fast is the IDE bus, and what compact flash card would be ideal?

That test was with the CF card. I would put it in and try to put my swap and home partitions there and the root partition back on the internal flashrom. This was at a point in time before we knew any better.

If I set the CF speed too high in the bios, say udma5, I would get errors when I ran the partitioning utility. I cant remember exactly what they were.

Then watching init one time I saw a self test and a PIO4 roll by so I set the card slot speed to PIO4 and saw no more error when I ran the partitioning utility.

Now the partitioning utility getting everything completely wrong and even forgetting a partition is another matter. Probably related to the CF slot not being bootable but I am guessing.

Quota,

Bored and started rereading some posts. Ran across this one and as I was reading it I was wondering: If the CF slot is settable in the BIOS then the BIOS can see it on boot. If it can see it and set it, then why can't we boot from it?

Just a thought from an unqualified newbie.

Bruce

[quote]If the CF slot is settable in the BIOS then the BIOS can see it on boot./quote]

I do not know this to be true. Please correct me if I am wrong.... In the bios there is HD#1 and HD#2. This would stand out in my mind as hard drive number one (internal flash) and Hard drive number two (header on main board with no adapter).

Through process of elimination we have assumed hard drive number two to be the header on the main board but I do not believe this has been tested. Its been a while since I have tinkered with a DT and particularly the bios so I may be off but I do not remember seeing any mentions of CF slot in there.

I think that the lack of bios level access is due to the style of adapter they used to tie in the CF adapter on to the usb bus. This is like an ide adapter, I think. This is not my area of knowledge but if that adapter needed an os level driver to work then yeah it makes sense that bios would not see it.

Foxx has a good picture up of the second hard drive header. Its a blank spot on the board.