Failed to improve performance on vehicle navigation system.

[jzchen]

My wife just bought a Ford C-MAX Energi. I noticed that the navigation software is on an SD card. Since she once complained that it responded slowly when she missed her exit and was rerouting, I thought I'd try to improve the performance.

My thoughts were to buy the fastest SD card available, duplicate the software onto it, and see. So I inserted the card into my computer and found it is a 16GB card. I went to purchase a SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-1 Card thinking it may improve performance. I first tried to copy the files to my HDD and then onto the new SD card, but the car said the copy is invalid. I then found the duplicator on this site using a google search. After creating an image, I used the image to write onto the new card, and at 99% it said there was a write error and stopped. I noticed there was a discrepancy on the sizes. The original image size is 16.01GB and the size of my new card is 15.93GB. I tried again with the 99% copy and the car said the same thing, "invalid".

Do you think there is something wrong with the new card, or is this some kind of protection and I should just give up?

Thank you for any advice/help you may have for me!

[HaQue]

Hi,
I had similar issues a few years ago putting Voyage Linux on CF Cards to run embedded systems for Wi-Fi.

Turns out that cards are not all the same size. add to that each manufacturers differing systems for wear levelling and error correction etc that take up slightly different amounts of your bytes on the card.

That said, your SD Card could be matched to your car through the serial number, as a similar issue to this post(got around by the way) of a satnav system http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=570.

You might try looking at car hacking forums as you might find a hack specific to your car.

1st thing: be VERY careful not to write anything to your original card - the software may be quite expensive to replace.

also, if no luck you might want to go into more specifics:

I then found the duplicator on this site using a google search.

WHAT duplicator?

After creating an image, I used the image to write onto the new card, and at 99% it said there was a write error and stopped. I noticed there was a discrepancy on the sizes. The original image size is 16.01GB and the size of my new card is 15.93GB. I tried again with the 99% copy and the car said the same thing, "invalid".

so off the top of my head:

1. What filesystem is the original, FAT32?
2. if you are able to use some kind of software to read the serial number, you MIGHT be able to use Manufacturing tools on the replacement to write the serial to it. you would need to know what controller is in the new card, looking here might steer you in that direction:
http://www.usbdev.ru/
[url]flashboot.ru[/url]
3. http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/601-navigation-question/

"Ford has said the software update for the C-Max will not be available until the first Q of 2013." - have you checked for an update?

Dealer has solved my nav problems - some type of master reset of the GPS module.

I asked the service guys at the dealer if I could just buy the Nav SD card and plug it in but he said there's more to it than that.

on a side note this might interest you:
http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/350-sd-card-slot-use/

[jzchen]

Hi,
I had similar issues a few years ago putting Voyage Linux on CF Cards to run embedded systems for Wi-Fi.

Turns out that cards are not all the same size. add to that each manufacturers differing systems for wear levelling and error correction etc that take up slightly different amounts of your bytes on the card.

That said, your SD Card could be matched to your car through the serial number, as a similar issue to this post(got around by the way) of a satnav system http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=570.

You might try looking at car hacking forums as you might find a hack specific to your car.

1st thing: be VERY careful not to write anything to your original card - the software may be quite expensive to replace.

also, if no luck you might want to go into more specifics:

I then found the duplicator on this site using a google search.

WHAT duplicator?

After creating an image, I used the image to write onto the new card, and at 99% it said there was a write error and stopped. I noticed there was a discrepancy on the sizes. The original image size is 16.01GB and the size of my new card is 15.93GB. I tried again with the 99% copy and the car said the same thing, "invalid".

so off the top of my head:

1. What filesystem is the original, FAT32?
2. if you are able to use some kind of software to read the serial number, you MIGHT be able to use Manufacturing tools on the replacement to write the serial to it. you would need to know what controller is in the new card, looking here might steer you in that direction:
http://www.usbdev.ru/
[url]flashboot.ru[/url]
3. http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/601-navigation-question/

"Ford has said the software update for the C-Max will not be available until the first Q of 2013." - have you checked for an update?

Dealer has solved my nav problems - some type of master reset of the GPS module.

I asked the service guys at the dealer if I could just buy the Nav SD card and plug it in but he said there's more to it than that.

on a side note this might interest you:
http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/350-sd-card-slot-use/

Thank you HaQue!

This seems really much above my level to do.

The file system as reported by Windows is FAT32. I heard somewhere befiore that the way you set the "Allocation unit size" affects the amount of memory available. Will that help me with this case?

I was thinking my next logical step was to copy the image to a 32GB SD card using the duplicator I found here:

hddguru.com

It is called:

"HDD Raw Copy Tool"

I did see the topics you mention on the C-MAX Energi forums. The copy that came with the car is the latest version which is A4. There are still some issues with the system. Sometimes all of a sudden we can not adjust the volume level of a function and then after turning off the car and then turning the system back on it will work normally again. I have a feeling this problem will take a long time before they figure it out. I tried to go to the usbdev.ru site but my computer antivirus/antimalware said a warning not to go there and I stopped. I may try again when I am more brave.

I noticed people are selling their original copy of A4 on eBay so it may not be linked to a serial number. I suspect it may have something to do with the extra memory available with the original card....

I will update if I do get access to a 32GB card to try, or figure it out some other way.

[jzchen]

Since I had recovered files from my damaged 32 GB microSD card I posted about in another thread, I tried to upload the image I created of the map data to the 32 GB card and insert it into the Nav. No luck, so luckily I didn't waste money on a fast SanDisk again....

[HaQue]

Also a lot of software for things like GPS units, Nav systems for boats etc. are protected. Meaning you will need to hack it to get it copied, or you cant copy it. SD specs have provisions for security and also some parts are left to the vendor to do something creative

[guru]

Can't push an elephant through a key hole

[guru]

What I mean is... maybe the SAT NAV hardware interface is too slow rather than your card

[einstein9]

What I mean is... maybe the SAT NAV hardware interface is too slow rather than your card

OR

Equipped with alot of details/Maps which you don`t need
and takes some time to load all of them

[HaQue]

I would be thinking the embedded processor would have limited specs, limited RAM and loading is not slow due to flash but other parts of the system as has been mentioned... and the software that runs it is probably not written for speed, but to work. a lot of the embedded systems come with a SDK that the programmers use to make the software.. meaning a general SDK that could be used for a sat nav system, Media Player, TV etc. probably some kind of Linux or Java.

I notice my Wii is not all that quick accessing the SD Card, and neither is my Media Player hooked to my TV - A USB HDD takes over a minute to become ready with a few hundred movies on it.

[guru]

Maybe obvious but...maybe his wife could just drive a little slower?

[jzchen]

Thanks guys for all the input!!!

I did respond to the other thread but I guess it's under review. I'm happy to edit it if need be, I am not trying to market anything.

About the last remark about driving too fast, well, I'm not too sure she can go really fast, it has a huge heavy battery in the back. Hahahaha. (I wish I could afford one of those new sports hybrids though.) I must admit that when she says she drains the battery now by the time she gets to work, it must mean she is moving quite quickly....

Reading through some more information about SD specs, I realized that HaQue is right, there is some sort of security implemented. I am not really interested in hacking, I am just interested in if the super fast card would improve performance. As my few years of studying CECS sort of taught me, or so I thought/think, the fastest memory would be the cache built into the CPU. As you go outwards, the memory gets slower and slower, so that CD-ROM is one of the slowest. That is why I understand they have implemented multi-core CPUs with pipelines, because the CPU can handle more instructions than the supporting hardware can handle passing on to it.

I did learn more about gaming systems because my little boy loves to play games sometimes, and it is interesting that the CPUs in them seem to be of the older variety, ie 386/486 level for PS3 and Xbox 360, if I'm not mistaken, so maybe they stuck a slow processor in there?

An interesting thought about SDK, as I haven't been around programming much since I was a CECS student about 14 years ago. At that time there was an emphasis on writing code that people could understand, that is not cryptic. My professor at the time said that the compilers would take care of optimizing the implementation. I wonder how true that is. I didn't get to the point in my studies to learn about compilers. I just took it as truth because he was a professor.

It is true that the limit might be in the interface, the system, both, or/and possibly too much data slows the system down. I would think though, as my limited understanding has given me, that the faster the memory, the faster it would make the data available, and the faster the system could deal with it, but then, maybe that is a miniscule gain.

Anyways, it is probably best I leave the protection in tact. I am sure someone would use knowledge of how to duplicate the data to pirate it, and I am in no way interested in publishing on a board such information, if I did figure it out somehow, which I haven't...

Just curious, does anyone know anything faster than SanDisk?

[HaQue]

Hey, just google for

sd card speed comparison

or similar. Quite a few speed tests have been done.

cheers

[jzchen]

I searched "sd card speed comparison" as HaQue recommended, and bumped into a little more insight as I looked at info on Class speed specifications:

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overv ... rotection/

I'm afraid the latest test I could glance was Sept. 2013 which has read 95 MB/s and write 60 MB/s Toshiba as fastest. SanDisk claims 95 MB/s read 90 MB/s write now. It's crazy how quickly these things change....