Nikon D80 vs 8 GB Kingston Class 4 SDHC card

kofa · December 23, 2009

Dear All,

I own a D80, use a 8 GB Kingston SDHC card (Class 4). Sometimes, images (RAW or JPG, format does not matter) are corrupted. There's no error message when copying the files (read errors or the like), but some areas are broken when displayed (maybe one image in a hundred); the programs doing the decoding complain about file format errors. I've tried 2 different readers as well as the camera's USB interface, but files transferred any of those paths are identical. During my last experiment, 2 NEF files out of 2-300 were broken.

I always format the card in the camera.

I've tested the card and one of the readers by copying 8 GB of files onto the card and comparing them with the originals on the hard disk. No difference or error was found. I'll continue the copy-then-compare tests, as the error only happens randomly.

Any suggestions - has anyone had any similar issues? Could it be that everything is OK, but the card is not compatible with the D80? It's not on Nikon's list of tested cards, but several people have said they've used Kingston cards (even 16 GB versions) with no problems at all.

TIA,

Kofa

ziggy53 · December 23, 2009

Formatting the card in the camera is a very good idea and I'm glad to see you doing that.

Do you delete images from the card while in the field?

Do you regularly fill the card completely full?

If something happens to the card's RF shield you can have corruption from the RF noise inside the camera body.

kofa · December 23, 2009

ziggy53 wrote:

Do you delete images from the card while in the field?

Hardly ever. I'll avoid it completely in the future. OTOH, Thom Hogan says it should no longer cause problems: '[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It used to be on some early cameras that deleting in camera was risky, as you sometimes corrupted the card structure. I've not seen that with any recent camera, so I've reversed my ban on deleting in camera.'[/FONT]

ziggy53 wrote:

Do you regularly fill the card completely full?

Never, an 8 GB card can hold zillions of images :-)

ziggy53 wrote:

If something happens to the card's RF shield you can have corruption from the RF noise inside the camera body.[/quote

It's a brand new card with no visible damage. How can I confirm that the RF shield is intact?

I might end up selling the card and getting another. I cannot take it back for replacement unless I can prove it's faulty.

Thanks,
Kofa

craig_d · December 23, 2009

kofa wrote:

I might end up selling the card and getting another. I cannot take it back for replacement unless I can prove it's faulty.

On the other hand, selling it to someone else when you have reason to think there's something wrong with it is really tacky behavior.

If more than one card shows this problem, then I'd suspect the camera of being at fault. If one card has this problem but another doesn't, then it's almost certainly the card, and then you have the proof you need to get a refund or replacement. If you have only one card, I suggest buying another, perhaps of a different brand, for comparison. Or perhaps you could just borrow one from a friend.

Art Scott · December 23, 2009

kofa wrote:

I cannot take it back for replacement unless I can prove it's faulty.

Thanks,
Kofa

What is Kingstons warranty?? I use only Transcend....life time warranty.....had one that did a corrupt error and they exchanged it without a prob.....same with Lexar.....I have in the past went with Lexar and one came up with corrupt errors and they exchanged it no ?'s asked.......
Did find out that my corruption was caused by me removing the cards while cam was powered on...........now it is only TRanscend and usually from New Egg due to very low prices................

kofa · December 23, 2009

craig_d wrote:

On the other hand, selling it to someone else when you have reason to think there's something wrong with it is really tacky behavior.

Craig,

I'll only sell it if my tests show no errors with the card reader - that is, if it's a compatibility issue between the card and the D80, and will let the new owner know. If there's anything wrong with the card, I'll have it replaced under warranty.

I think the card's warranty is 1 year in Hungary. Kingston memory components usually come with life-time warranty; the limitation, as far as I know, only affects Hungary.

kofa · December 23, 2009

Art Scott wrote:

What is Kingstons warranty??

Lifetime, at least in the US
http://www.kingston.com/company/warranty.asp

kofa · December 25, 2009

Latest experiments:
- shot a series without deleting files, as it has been suggested corruption may result from deleting in-camera. Still had broken images.
- inserted card in reader, formatted with 'long format' (including media check). No problems detected.
- did a low-level test; ran 5 rounds of the following: fill the card with aa (10101010 bit pattern) and re-read, fill with 55 (01010101 bit-pattern) and re-read, ff (all bits 1) and re-read, 00 (all bits zero) and re-read. No problems found.
- put card in camera, connected camera to PC via USB as mass storage device, ran a single round of the same (aa, 55, ff, 00) test as above. No problems.

Maybe it's a camera firmware issue? The camera is at firmware 1.10; the latest is 1.11, but that is only supposed to fix something with the battery level indicator flashing.
http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/16092

ivar · December 25, 2009

could it be that 8GB is causing problems? the manual only speaks of cards up to 4GB:

Have you tried smaller cards?

kofa · December 25, 2009

Thanks for the suggestions. It seems that many use large cards such as 8 GB or even 16 GB; some websites include such cards in their D80 offers.

I'll try upgrading to the latest firmware; I'm waiting for the battery to reach full charge.

Kofa

ziggy53 · December 25, 2009

sara145 wrote:

i think it may be 8 gb causing problems

Sara145, welcome to the Digital Grin.

ziggy53 · December 25, 2009

While the Nikon D80 is SDHC compliant, their official list of compatible SD cards only go to 4GB:

http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14048/session/L3NpZC91TlRJdWxRag%3D%3D/p/19,309/c/178/r_id/116678/sno/3

kofa · December 25, 2009

ziggy53 wrote:

While the Nikon D80 is SDHC compliant, their official list of compatible SD cards only go to 4GB:

http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14048/session/L3NpZC91TlRJdWxRag%3D%3D/p/19,309/c/178/r_id/116678/sno/3

Yes, I know.
The other card, a 1 GB Transcend 80X is a LOT faster in the D80 than the 8 GB Class 4 Kingston SDHC. With the Transcend card, clearing the buffer takes about 6 seconds (rough guesstimate, I was simply counting slowly); with the Kingston, 16(!) seconds (from the last picture of the RAW series taken; I stopped taking pictures when the camera's buffer became full and the frame-to-frame rate dropped).

I think I'll end up selling the Kingston card, or keeping it as a backup, or giving it to my sister or whatever (after my tests, I think the card is OK it just does not like the D80), and buy a smaller SanDisk or similar card. This is rather sad, as I'll lose some money, but that's the price for learning (and not reading specs etc. in advance).

Thanks all!

kofa · February 15, 2010

Only in RAW+JPEG
I've found that this only happens in RAW+JPEG mode; I don't see the issue if I simply set the camera to RAW (which is OK, as the .NEF file has an embedded JPEG in case I need it quickly). I took about 240 photos on my elder daughter's party, none of the files was corrupted. This suggests to me that it's some kind of firmware error, not a fault in the card. I'll test with the other cards I have.

cbbr · February 15, 2010

I use 16gb sdhc's in my D80 all of the time. I have used 16gb Kingstons without problem too. My guess is that you just have a flaky card and should send it in for a replacement.

Nikon D80 vs 8 GB Kingston Class 4 SDHC card

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