[Nerd On] Internal SD Card Reader and Readyboost

Ampersand

I'll preface this by admitting that I'm fairly sure that this is a shot in the dark and that I'm SOL. However, H/A has proven to be a resourceful and suprising lot, so have it...

The other day it occured to me that it would be nice to have the unused 3-in-1 card reader in my netbook (Samsung NC20 running Win7 32) pull its weight through readyboost.

I dug up an unused Sandisk Exterme III 4gb, but was met with the message "The device is plugged into an unsupported USB port. Readyboost requires USB 2.0 or above."

This may or may not have been followed by a picture of Bill Gates giving me the finger.

Regardless, I googled until my fingers hurt and couldn't find anything that came close to either proof that my card reader is.. connected via something less than usb 2.0 (?) or there exists any sort of workaround.

Thoughts?

Daenris

Well, if it said your device was less than USB 2.0, than it likely is. The only work around I can think of is if a) your card reader is connected in an easily removable fashion to a USB header on the motherboard and b) you have a different extra USB header on the motherboard that is USB 2.0. Given that it's a netbook and space is at a premium, it's unlikely that these are true.

This http://www.flickr.com/photos/38986074@N07/3586614522/ is a picture of the NC20 motherboard. I'm assuming the card reader is there on the front labeled multicard? It's hard to say since it looks like it goes on the underside, but it's probably attached directly to the motherboard, which means it's not going to be a simple task to reroute to a USB 2.0 if there even was an extra header, which it doesn't look like there is.

Ampersand

That's pretty close to what I expected, and I doubt that I'll be taking it apart any time soon.

I'm still not absolutely clear on how it's not a usb 2.0 device, or at least as fast as one, when it's connected directly to the motherboard, but your explanation is helpful nonetheless.

Thanks for the reply.

Daenris

It just means that they only connected it to a USB 1.1 or whatever connection, so it can't go fast enough. It's pretty common for some interfaces where they're trying to save money, use older hardware/chips, or just don't think the interface needs the higher speed of USB 2.

proXimity

TBH it's pretty silly for a card reader to not be USB 2.0...

AtomBomb

Try updating the driver. Samsung's site doesn't say what the updated driver does, but it probably can't hurt. I know with some PCs, the USB bus acts like it's 1.1 unless you install the driver.