AMD Athlon could slow down your iPod

[Ioman]

http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=3486

From the article:

"Unless, of course, you own an Athlon-powered notebook PC. This tale of woe from The Inquirer involves a Compaq Presario and its unfortunate owner.

The author found his Presario laptop didn't have USB 2.0, only 1.1. So he duly purchased a CardBus USB 2.0 card, a USB->FireWire cable and a USB 2.0 hub to go with his shiny iPod.

Disaster struck. File transfers across USB 2.0 were slower than USB 1.1. Why? Why? Why?

He stumbled across some clues. Leaving screensavers running or moving the mouse a lot made it work better. Of course. But what was causing the problem?

Answer: the Athlon. Apparently it has something called 'Power Now' built into their Mobile+ 2400 CPUs. Something like Intel's SpeedStep or the kind of power management built into every PowerPC processor since 1995's 603e.

So the Athlon slows everything down when the PC's not doing much. As the author says, "Unfortunately, USB2 drivers don't count as "doing much", so if nothing else is running, your CPU starts woefully underperforming. Since USB2 needs lots of CPU grunt, this cripples the speed of your transfer."

Suggestions for repair? Here's one:

"1. iTunes could offer an option somewhere to 'speed up USB2 transfers on AMD laptops' and essentially do some pointless CPU intensive task to massively speed up the transfer rate while the synchronisation takes place. Hopefully some apple staffer will see this post and confider implementing this, as it would save me having to run CPUBurn by hand."

Hm. While we sympathize deeply with his plight, he did, after all, buy a PC without someone putting a gun to his head. And we don't see why Apple should fix his Athlon's idiocy. And it ain't iTunes' job to tell his CPU what to do.

Here's our suggestion # 2:

Get Mac. Never go back."

[Ioman]

Its funny how Apple users are using this to show yet another reason why the Apple is better than the PC. Common, its a laptop, of course it is going to conserve power when its not in use.

"Hm. While we sympathize deeply with his plight, he did, after all, buy a PC without someone putting a gun to his head. And we don't see why Apple should fix his Athlon's idiocy. And it ain't iTunes' job to tell his CPU what to do."

This is a little ****y if you ask me.

[ECA]

Ummm,
Laptop has USB 1.1
He buys Cardbus USB 2...
THEn a USB2 to Firewire cable
to a USB hub.....
WHY....

Plug the Carbus USB 2, into the IPOD...
He is create a Timing problem going fron Usb 2, to firewire, to Usb 2 again...

[theguy]

"Hm. While we sympathize deeply with his plight, he did, after all, buy a PC without someone putting a gun to his head. And we don't see why Apple should fix his Athlon's idiocy. And it ain't iTunes' job to tell his CPU what to do."

Was that an Apple representative, or just some mac addict hopped up on the liquid cooling substance found in the new Dual 2.5Ghz G5 desktop?

[Ioman]

Originally posted by theguy
Was that an Apple representative, or just some mac addict hopped up on the liquid cooling substance found in the new Dual 2.5Ghz G5 desktop?

Mac Addict of course! :D

They would use Peanuts as ammunition if they could!

[graemeb]

Timing problems my arse!

I'm the person that wrote that article in the first place. It's not a timing problem from "connecting USB to firewire" etc

The USB/FW cable is a dual cable, where firewire is used to provide the power to the ipod (but not data) and USB2 is used for data only.

Why would you do this? Because USB2 can't provide enough power.

So what you do is get one of these cables, hook up the firewire bit to the ipod firewire plug power adapter, and hook up the usb2 bit to your computer.

The problem is a direct result of the usb2 drivers speed being proportional to available CPU and the fact they don't grab any more CPU than is already being used in the system.

Better USB2 drivers by microsoft would fix the problem.

[llbbl]

could try Adaptec drivers ... maybe those will sux0r less than M$'s

http://download.adaptec.com/usb/usb2_win_drv_v31.exe

[ECA]

I was saying a timing problem because its going USB, FW, USB...Why not stay with USB.
AND yes I understand the MS problem.
AND I know that IF you tuen the comp ON, with the USB port occupied and the unit turned ON, the USB should be active, and USE part of the CPU...
But that defeats the purpose of USB, dont it...

[graemeb]

> was saying a timing problem because its going USB, FW,
>USB...Why not stay with USB.

Ok, I'll try again. NO, ITS NOT!!!

IT IS NOT GOING USB, FW, USB.

Hope that's cleared that one up.

The data is going COMPUTER, PCMCIA BUS, USB2 BUS, USB2 CABLE, IPOD. In the absence of USB2 ports on the computer there's no quicker way of doing it with USB2.

In fact, as I stated quite clearly in the article, when running at full speed the USB2 bus is producing *faster* results than just firewire. So how on earth you convinced yourself I'm going USB, FW, USB is beyond me.

I don't understand any of the rest of what you said so I can't comment on it.

[ECA]

QUOTE>.....
The author found his Presario laptop didn't have USB 2.0, only 1.1. So he duly purchased a CardBus USB 2.0 card, a USB->FireWire cable and a USB 2.0 hub to go with his shiny iPod.
END QUOTE...

[graemeb]

Yes, but that's not what I wrote. See for yourself.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16554

[ECA]

That is what is wrote ABOVE, 1st msg.

AND you didnt post this link before my COMMENT.

[scorpia14]

you can use only firewire if it is a 6 prong receptacle because it can power the iPod and transfer data, right?
maybe i'm wrong, but that's why apple includes only a firewire cable is because it can do both tasks with mac and some windows computers? i.e. Hewlett Packard A400n has a firewire 1394 port that takes 6 prongs?

i don't know

[Two Sheds]

ECA wrote:
I was saying a timing problem because its going USB, FW, USB...

Except it isn't.

Current iPods don't have USB or FireWire jacks; they have a custom "Dock Connector" on the bottom. The cable that comes with new iPods has a dock connector at one end and a FireWire plug on the other; this is probably the best choice for connecting to a Mac or PC with FireWire jacks. (Whether it's built-in or added via a card.)

The cable the guy bought is one of these (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9126G/A):
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/577/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/m9126ga_125.jpg
It has a Dock Connector at one end, and two cables hanging off of it -- a USB 2.0 plug to connect to a PC, and a FireWire plug for charging the iPod off of a separate power adapter. There is nothing to convert to FireWire at any stage; the iPod handles USB and FireWire natively, given the correct cabling.

Anyhow, instead of what the guy in the article did, I would've bought a FireWire PC Card for the laptop, and not bother with the extra cable. Unlike FireWire, USB was designed to rely on the CPU for bus transfers, so a laptop stuck in low-power mode might not write things to a USB 2.0 hard drive as quickly as you'd like. I don't have a windows laptop handy to test out my theory, but that seems to be the culprit.

[graemeb]

the reason i'm not using firewire is because

a) reports of firewire fecking up the battery by discharging the ipod slightly while the firewire cable is still connected (if you are using the computers power to power the ipod.)

b) I'd like to have the ipod constantly powered and charging whether my main computer is on or not; pcmcia firewire will not let me do this (the bus doesn't have enough power to power 6 pin firewire). I use my ipod as a hifi essentially, and I don't like the thought of having my whirry noisy compaq laptop on just to keep it powered through the day. The neater solution of using the firewire brick from apple to silently charge it constantly, and having the usb2 cable connected for whenever i want to transfer data, is far more suitable for my purposes.

[llbbl]

Hey you found a work around in windows thats good to hear. No reason to buy an ibook just to transfer your music! =)