Warning: Transcend CF Cards and Mac Leopard OS

December 14th, 2008, 10:40 AM

DEAR ALL

we did not follow the suggestions that noly use Transcend cards,but the Pretec cards were working good at the period time of our field production. Why we didn't use the suggested cards ? Just because we got a more nice price in Taiwan for the Pretec cards and it's too late to cancel my order, but fortunely,it works,Maybe u can test the Pertec series first,obviously,it works,the situation is better than the Sandisk cards.
And we use the MACPRO and MBP with Leopard10.5 and fcp6.0.5.On the pretec cards,it had happened the situtions which the convergen dedign had being warning about when we use 0.184 .But after we updated to 0.188 the cards work fine.And it can be read between flash xdr and Macpro or MBP.Somtimes the flash xdr appeears the wrong message "DMA RD0003" when use the Pretec cards,but i think it would be a piece of cake,After the Pretec cards were tested by Convergent Design

Dan Keaton · January 7th, 2009, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

There appears to be a potentially fatal problem using the Transcend 32GB cards with the Mac Leopard OS. Apparently Apple rewrote some of the drivers which affect the USB and /or Firewire-800 connections. It appears that some Leopard based Macs may, in fact, permanently damage the Transcend 32GB CF card. We are not 100% sure of the cause, but an over-voltage condition, is one possible explanation.

So, in the interim, we recommend avoiding the Mac Leopard OS when using the Transcend 32GB card. On the other hand, we have no reported issues whatsoever, using the Tiger OS.

As soon as we have a better understanding of the issue, I will post an update.

I want to emphasize that we recommend not using Leopard OS with your CompactFlash cards.

We have had multiple reports, exclusively with Leopard, of users destroying their CompactFlash cards.

We have been working on this problem and we are working on it as I am writing this post.

It appears that the problem occurs when the Eject function of Leopard is used.

All of our reported problems have been with Transcend CompactFlash cards.

But, please understand, these are the only cards that we have been recommending, thus the only cards that are in widespead use with the Flash XDR. We feel that the problem is not with the Transcend cards, but with Leopard.

We have loaded Tiger on a Mac, and have, or are about to load Leopard on the same Mac, so we can test our theories.

In all cases, Tiger has never caused a problem, but we have multiple problems with Leopard.

Until we finish our extensive testing, we recommend:

1. Avoid using Leopard if at all possible (we realize that this is all always possible).

2. If not possible, transfer your clips from the CompactFlash cards, using Tiger, to a hard disk or other media, then transferring the clips to your Leopard computer, if necessary.

3. Use a device such as the Nexto DI eXteme 2700 (www.mydigitaldiscount), as an intermediate transfer device. This avoids putting the card in harms way directly into a Leopard Mac.

4. We believe, and are about to prove if just removing the CompactFlash card, without going through the standard Eject function, will avoid damaging the card.

Our tests will be performed this afternoon.

While we firmly believe that this is not caused by Transcend cards, we have qualified other cards for use with the Flash XDR.

The Lexar 300x UDMA CompactFlash cards of any capacity, may now be used with the Flash XDR.

In addition, any Transcend 133x or 300x card, regardless of card capacity, may now be used.

We have examined some of the failed CompactFlash cards. The controller chip on these failed cards is completely unresponsive, indicating that a high voltage condition has affected the cards.

We also know that Apple, based on a report we read, that in a release of Leopard, made changes to the voltages, "in order to be in better compliance with the spec".

Dan Keaton · January 7th, 2009, 06:24 PM

As promised, we have been working hard on a solution to this problem.

We now have it solved.

The great news is that the CompactFlash cards are not actually destroyed, they just appear to be destroyed.

I am going to start another thread with what we found. I am doing this since this thread header is no longer accurate.

Do not throw away any CompactFlash cards which appear to be inoperative!

December 14th, 2008, 10:40 AM	#16
Jerry Lee Posts: n/a	we had tested and used Pretec 233x 32GB card DEAR ALL we did not follow the suggestions that noly use Transcend cards,but the Pretec cards were working good at the period time of our field production. Why we didn't use the suggested cards ? Just because we got a more nice price in Taiwan for the Pretec cards and it's too late to cancel my order, but fortunely,it works,Maybe u can test the Pertec series first,obviously,it works,the situation is better than the Sandisk cards. And we use the MACPRO and MBP with Leopard10.5 and fcp6.0.5.On the pretec cards,it had happened the situtions which the convergen dedign had being warning about when we use 0.184 .But after we updated to 0.188 the cards work fine.And it can be read between flash xdr and Macpro or MBP.Somtimes the flash xdr appeears the wrong message "DMA RD0003" when use the Pretec cards,but i think it would be a piece of cake,After the Pretec cards were tested by Convergent Design Last edited by Jerry Lee; December 14th, 2008 at 11:04 AM. Reason: more information

January 7th, 2009, 06:24 PM	#18
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	As promised, we have been working hard on a solution to this problem. We now have it solved. The great news is that the CompactFlash cards are not actually destroyed, they just appear to be destroyed. I am going to start another thread with what we found. I am doing this since this thread header is no longer accurate. Do not throw away any CompactFlash cards which appear to be inoperative! __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia