Itronics ITB-100HD - intermittently stops recording

[liet]

Hi Everyone,

I have a problem with the ITB-100HD that I have recently purchased.
Since I was unable to find any reference to my problem in the existing threads, I have decided to open a new one.
Here goes:

Normaly, when I start the car and the camera receives power, it starts recording after playing three tones (low-mid-high).
It didn't cause me any issues for a few days, but unfortunately it started misbehaving.
The scenario described can happen during the power on, or during normal camera operation.

an example:
The card starts; the camera receives power and approx. 30 sec. later starts recording.
After a while (no fixed time, it varies and sometimes doesn't happen at all) the camera starts emitting a four tone sound sequence (super-short super-short short short).
The sequences lasts a second, then a second break and it starts again.
After a while, the sequence changes to three tones (long short short). It does that for a minute and reboots.
Then we here the three tones (normal startup) and the whole thing start all over again (four tones for ~10 seconds, then three tones for a minute and a reboot).
Unplugging the camera from the power socket doesn't seem to do much as once the camera powers back on, the whole thing starts again.
The weird thing is, that it usually stops on it's own and resumes normal operation (after a number of reboots).

The FW installed is: 2.0
I am using the SD card that was included with the camera
I did not find any reference to the sound codes I am getting in the manual
When I will have some spare time I will upload the videos showing what's happening to youtube

I would appreciate your feedback on the matter.

Kind Regards,

liet

 

[NVBob]

My wife had the same issue with the repeated tones. It is discussed in the thread: What memory card do you use?

On page 16 of the manual it states that the 4 Scales Beep (Repeatedly) means SD Memory Card related Error. The solution stated is to Format or replace the SD card.

Just hold the mic button down for about 5 seconds. It will go into format mode. Do not shut off the power until after you hear it reboot and restart. There may be a few minutes of silence while it is formatting. If that doesn't fix it then you need to format a new SD card. The format cannot be done by Windows as that is an improper format and doesn't create the setup file needed for the camera.

 

[erewhon]

The ITB-100HD manual states:

Generally, a SD Memory card has limited lifetime and may be unable to store new data after certain period of time. In such case, please purchase new SD Memory card and replace the old one.

Depending on the quality of the card, how much it is used, its environment, and just plain luck, my guess is that all of them will eventually turn wonky. The DashCam environment is probably not particularly easy on SD cards.

Does anyone have experience with the SD card just wearing out after a while?

I've read that the SSD (solid state drive) in computers, as super-fast replacements for the traditional disk drive, do wear out and have lifetimes not all that different from the more common mechanical disk drive, with the spinning platters.

 

[liet]

@ NVBob:
I did read that post, however, I am not sure if it's the same behaviour, however, I will try what you have suggested.
I will also try another SDHC card as I have a few available which I have used in other devices.

@ erehwon:
The SD cards are based on the flash technology which does have limited capability in terms of how many times a memory cell can be written to, so I would expect to see a problem with it after 100k write cycles, however, it seems it gave out (or will real soon...) after a few days which is not acceptable.

I will do the tests and will get back to the ebay seller, if the card that came with the camera proves to be faulty.

Regards,

liet

 

[NVBob]

Found this online:
Flash memory indeed has limited write cycles. However, by now it is unlikely that you'll encounter this within the normal lifetime of such a card. Usually this is in the order of 100,000 write cycles today and SD cards include circuitry to manage wear-leveling, that is, spread out writes over the storage media evenly to avoid "hot spots"—pages that are written too frequently and therefore failing early.
and this:
Be aware of static electricity discharges too; they might destroy your card... and it's easy to get static electricity from all the rubbing of the plastic on clothing.

Maybe you have a bad SD card. I didn't know about the H2testw v1.4 test program before doing this research which seems like a helpful tool.