CF card reader in W700 is sloooow. Any fix?

[wheadley]

I'm interested in what response you get if any. I too am an old IBM user and ten years ago IBM would have made this right for their customers instead of these months long run-arounds. I have a connection inside Lenovo that handles escalted customer service issues. I will speak to him next week and find out what can be done. Before I could release any contact info I will have to ask for permission. There are many people in Lenovo that seriously want to take care of issues like this but I think there is just more and more pressure on keeping costs low-- which can, if one is not careful, take its toll on quality. So far Lenovo is slower to respond to issues than my memories of IBM-- but in the end they have responded, and generally, they have resolved most issues to my satisfaction.

For example, my W700 came with a craptastic flexy keyboard, they replaced it with an older heavier model, and now I love typing on my W700 just as I have with all of my past Thinkpads.

[alesl]

I agree, Lenovo should solve this problem ASAP.

I did my own measurements by using different CompactFlash cards on Lenovo W 700 and on a desktop computer with the same operating system (Vista 64-bit ultimate).

You can view the measurements and conclusion at http://www.ales.litomisky.com/projects/Lenovo%20ThinkPad%20W700.html

Ales

[GatorBob]

After 2 weeks I still have had no reply from any Lenovo tech operson. The woman tech I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about. she said she would get back to me. So far, no response.

I will not waste my time pursuing this further.   have a USB CF card reader and expect I'll soon buy an even faster $60 firewire CF card reader.

[FeanorLobelia]

I would suggest going down the expresscard route if you can.

Anyway, it's sad that there was this oversight in the product. It's such a good product in so many ways that the little problems are just infuriating, especially when you pay so much money and they're not fixed.

[GatorBob]

Why do you prefer expresscard to firewire?  Does an expresscard adapter for a CF card download faster than a firewire  800 reader?

Many thanks!

[FeanorLobelia]

Two things:

1. The W700, along with all other windows notebooks, does not sport Firewire 800 onboard. You have to get an FirewireB ExpressCard and plug your reader into there. Even then, if you're using Vista (32 bit or 64 bit), it's dodgy with Firewire 800 - you can get it to work easily, but Microsoft never bothered to include drivers for it so getting it to reach its maximum speed requires third party drivers (such as those from Unibrain) - as far as I know. The first thing I got after receiving my W700 was a StarTech Firewire 800 expresscard. If you went down the external reader route, you'd have to purchase that, sort out the drivers, then get the cf reader itself.

2. It's therefore simpler to get a straight CF expresscard. But don't get the many slow ones - you have to get one which claims 800 equivalent speeds, like this one (http://www.synchrotech.com/products-expc/expresscard-memory-card-adapters_03-compactflash_pcie.html). I don't know if it's faster - theoretically it could be, I suppose - but it will be at least equivalent. It's cheaper.

[alesl]

I had before Delkin ExpressCard 34mm to CompactFlash reader  on my Lenovo W700 notebook with Vista 64-bit – driver was crashing, very frustrating experience; Synchrotech is probaly using same controller, see below.

Problems with the Belkin drivers are mentioned also at Rob Galbraith web site:  http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9392 

"More than a few CompactFlash cards, even fast ones, slow to a turtle's pace of less than 1MB/second in the PCIe variant of the Delkin ExpressCard 54 CompactFlash adapter. Plus, our normally rock-solid T60 test machine crashed twice during benchmarking. In short, the second version may be speedier, but the first version (which is probably no longer shipping) is more compatible and seemingly more reliable too.

The slowdowns and crashes we experienced with the second version of the Delkin ExpressCard 54 CompactFlash adapter mirror almost exactly the problems we saw when testing the Synchrotech CFExpressPro+, an ExpressCard 34 adapter. This likely means that both share the same controller. "

Ales

[GatorBob]

Thank you!  I did not know the newest computers lack a straightfoward firewire 800 slot and drivers.

Is the following a problem , if you know the answer?  I use Lexar UDMA 300x CF cards. 

Synchrotech's web site states that their expresscard cf reader is very fast with UDMA but it also states it is  incompatible with Lexar's WA (Write Acceleration) technology.

[alesl · Accepted solution]

I tested Delkin ExpressCard 34mm with six difrerent CompactFlash cards (Lexar Professional UDMA 300x (4GB), SanDisk Extreme III 30MB/s ( 8GB), SanDisk Extreme III (16GB), Kingston Elite Pro 133x (4GB), and SanDisk Ultra II 4GB) and it was crashing on my W700 with Vista 64-bit all the time.

Ales

ADMIN Edit - There were other threads on this topic in the forum and this was addressed through service.  If you still have a W700 and have experienced this, it can be solved by ordering a replacement daughter card that contains the card reader through service.