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nex01

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 12, 2014
5
0
Since one of the USB ports on m Powerbook G4 Aluminium died I'm looking for alternative file transfer options to transfer files and use a mouse at the same time.
I bought one of these PCMCIA to Compact Flash adapters but when I copy files from the CF card to the powerbook I get extremely slow file transfer rates below 1MB/s.
I can't use it during file transfer at all since the CPU usage goes up to a 100%, I can't even drag windows around.

When I plug in the same cf card to a USB 2.0 cardreader to my only working USB 2.0 port it works like a charm, I can do stuff and copy files with a breezing file transfer rate of 35MB/s at the same time.

What is the issue here?
I can recall older computers with IDE interface have these kind of issues when DMA is not enabled. But thats a Windows 9X thing.

I have no idea what to change in MacOSX to speed things up.

I'm running Tiger and Leopard.

edit: just figured that copying files from my NAS is faster than any of the local options.
still want to get the pcmcia adapter problem fixed tho.
 
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This matches my experience. I posted CF to PCMCIA benchmarks some time ago here. There was no fix as it is due to the slow throughput (and lack of DMA as you suspected) on the 16-bit PCMCIA bus.

But others have reported better CF speeds using a CF ATA adapter, which would install in either the HDD or ODD bay in your PBG4 (depending on the model). I have a couple of these CF-IDE44 adapters to suit the 2.5" bays in a PowerBook, but I have never had any luck getting them to work. On the other hand, I was able to successfully (and quickly) boot a Power Mac G4 "Sawtooth" into Mac OS X using a CF-IDE 3.5" adapter (powered via molex floppy) with an SD to CF adapter and a 16GB micro-SDHC card. That setup runs great.

I still find that booting my G3 (and older) PowerBooks into Mac OS 9.x, 8.6 or 8.1 is actually quite usable over the CF to PCMCIA adapter, so I keep a handful of older Mac OS builds on smaller (1GB or 2GB) CF cards to use for silent booting on something like my PowerBook G3 PDQs or 1400 and there is no real bottlenecks with the 16-bit performance in these cases.
 
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Have you checked the specs on that PCMCIA-card? I remember some of them only supporting USB 1.1 speeds.

Here are couple of options I personally use with G4s:

Depending on your model of PB G4 you have Firewire 400 or 400+800. That is a good file transfer channel that leaves your USB ports free. Possible devices include CF-card to FW card reader or of course SATA - Firewire -drive enclosures. The latter solution often also includes a USB-port. And its also usually faster than the CF-card method.

Both solutions are best found second hand.

Ps. there might be much more selection for ATA to FW -enclosures but I would personally prefer SATA.
 
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