Abysmal performance of Compact Flash card through PCMCIA \ VOGONS

Abysmal performance of Compact Flash card through PCMCIA

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First post, by donluca4

Posted on 2025-05-23, 09:11

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I'm using a Compact Flash card instead of a USB pen drive on my Windows 98 machine and I've been getting awful performance.
This was already the case on my Thinkpad X20, but it's just as bad on my new Dell Latitude X300.

Here's a benchmark of how terrible it is.

The Compact Flash is a Transcend 133x 4GB which I've used a lot and it's definitely faster than this.
I've already tried messing with settings in Windows (trying it as removable or not, write-back cache enabled/disabled, unfortunately no DMA available) to no avail. The CardBus is working correctly at 32-bit.

Is it just some sort of incompatibility between my CF card and and the PC?
What kind of performance are you getting with a CF through your PCMCIA slot?
I'd like to know before spending money on another CF.

And if you're wondering, I prefer CFs because they don't stick out of the computer and don't need extra drivers to work (ie: nusb).

Thanks!

EDIT: wanted to add that I've tried also with different cluster size: both 512bytes and 4K: no difference.

Reply 1 of 7, by Jo22

Posted on 2025-05-23, 10:10

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CF cards have 3 modes. I/O, memory-mapped and IDE.
Maybe adapter card uses a slow mode?

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Reply 2 of 7, by bakemono

Posted on 2025-05-23, 10:13

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That's PCMCIA speed (essentially an ISA IDE port). Since you have a cardbus slot, you can get better performance with a cardbus-based CF adaptor.

I also have a PCMCIA adaptor which is super slow but doesn't need special drivers. In fact one of my laptops has a built-in CF slot which is sadly of this low-performance variety. Then I have a Lexar branded cardbus adaptor which is somewhat better but needs drivers and still only supports PIO. That one gets around 6MB/s. Maybe somebody else can name a card that actually reaches or exceeds USB 2 speed.

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Reply 3 of 7, by donluca4

Posted on 2025-05-23, 10:23

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Oh wow, I thought those adapters were simply pass-through passive adapters so they were all equal.

This is the one I have:

I had no idea there were different types.

I should look for a "cardbus to CF adapter", right?

Reply 4 of 7, by darry

Posted on 2025-05-23, 12:19

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donluca4 wrote on 2025-05-23, 10:23:
Oh wow, I thought those adapters were simply pass-through passive adapters so they were all equal. […]
Show full quote

Oh wow, I thought those adapters were simply pass-through passive adapters so they were all equal.

This is the one I have:

I had no idea there were different types.

I should look for a "cardbus to CF adapter", right?

Yes.

Here is a review of such an adapter, with a comparison to a pre-Cardbus one.

https://m.dpreview.com/articles/2660788058/delkincardbustest

Keep in mind that the review is from 2003, so the speeds measured are possibly limited by the maximum speed of the CF card used.

EDIT: Some laptops that should support Cardbus according to specs apparently have issues with Cardbus devices. It is probably a good idea to check if your's might be one of those before splurging on a Cardbus to CF adapter.

Reply 5 of 7, by donluca4

Posted on 2025-05-23, 13:22

donluca4 Offline

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Thanks, I've been looking around without success unfortunately.

I guess I'll just copy the images of my games on the hard drive. It's 30GB so space shouldn't be an issue.
I'll keep the CF to transfer files.

Regardless, thanks for shedding light on this matter because I was 100% sure that those adapters were just passive pass-through devices, it's good go know this is not the case.

Reply 6 of 7, by lolo799

Posted on 2025-05-23, 14:27

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donluca4 wrote on 2025-05-23, 13:22:

Regardless, thanks for shedding light on this matter because I was 100% sure that those adapters were just passive pass-through devices, it's good go know this is not the case.

They are passive but they use 16bit pcmcia standard, and regular drivers provided by Windows 9x.
Cardbus ones requires extra drivers, from the review listed by darry.

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Reply 7 of 7, by darry

Posted on 2025-05-23, 14:50

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lolo799 wrote on 2025-05-23, 14:27:

donluca4 wrote on 2025-05-23, 13:22:

Regardless, thanks for shedding light on this matter because I was 100% sure that those adapters were just passive pass-through devices, it's good go know this is not the case.

They are passive but they use 16bit pcmcia standard, and regular drivers provided by Windows 9x.
Cardbus ones requires extra drivers, from the review listed by darry.

Good points, especially about the driver requirements for the Cardbus ones. One needs to make sure drivers for a given device exist for one's OS.

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