BCD436HP wont stay powered on USB

gibbs70 · Jun 18, 2015

I have a problem which has just started recently. If i plug my BCD436HP into a USB cable to power it, it will run for an hour or two, and then i hear a couple beeps and it has gone back to the "hit "." for serial or hit "E" for mass storage" screen. This happens with new or dead batteries in the scanner.

I know i used to be able to run the scanner for an unlimited time on USB power, but now it seems to time out and reset after a while. I have tried 2 different USB ports on my computer so far and both do the same thing. Has anyone had this happen, or have any suggestions on what to try, it would be much appreciated.

Gilligan · Jun 19, 2015

My suggestion would be to simply use a cell phone charger's USB port as it plugs right into an outlet and won't put your scanner into serial port mode.

mitbr · Jun 19, 2015

Sounds like a loose connection somewhere. Have you tried another usb cable or completely different computer?
Tim

buddrousa · Jun 19, 2015

Are your USB ports set to not go to sleep make sure they are always on?

troymail · Jun 19, 2015

I was seeing something similar and at first I thought it was a loose connection in my truck. Then is started happening in the house also. Best I can tell, it seems to be (again) that the radio had problems writing to the SD card so it reboots (remember, the radio is always recording).

This may not be the problem you are experiencing but it's a possibility.

To rule it out, try a new SD card.

gibbs70 · Jun 19, 2015

Thanks everyone for the replies. I am going to try them all out and post back.

gibbs70 · Jun 20, 2015

So far i have swapped out the memory card, adjusted the power settings for USB (disabled USB selective suspend) and also installed the serial driver from Uniden. With all this done, the scanner now does seem to be working, as it ran for several hours hooked up to the computer last night without any issues.

I see now that the USB power setting on my PC seems to have automatically set itself back after a reboot, so hopefully I don't have to change that setting after every reboot. Going to try running with it in the default setting to rule that out.

Incidentally the SD card i swapped out was a class 10 16GB ADATA and had +/- 150K audio files totalling around 5.5GB. Maybe the insane number of tiny files overwhelms the file allocation table before the disk gets full or something along those lines.

I'll run it for a few more days and post back if the issue is gone in case this helps someone else out with the same issue in the future, thanks everyone again for the input.

gibbs70 · Jul 31, 2015

So, thought i would post back as i am starting to see a bit of a trend with this possible "memory card issue". On June 20 I swapped out the card that was suspected of being the issue to another identical ADATA 16GB class 10 card and it has worked flawlessly up until a few days ago. With approx 65K audio files totalling around 3.3GB this time, it started to act up. It would somehow forget the last volume setting i had set and was starting to randomly stop recording on its own. I have now swapped back to the (now empty) other16GB card from my previous posts to see if it will run again, and so far it seems to be back to 100%.

So from my information gathered so far, it seems that when the card gets filled up past a certain point, the scanner will start to malfunction in various ways. (forgetting volume setting, disconnecting from USB, randomly stopping recording) I would be curious if anyone has recorded several gigs of audio to a card without any issue, maybe the ADATA cards are the problem....I will continue to report back as i find out more.

Voyager · Jul 31, 2015

I believe the only cards officially supported are the SanDisk cards. That's not saying others won't work, but they aren't officially supported.

troymail · Aug 1, 2015

gibbs70 said:
So, thought i would post back as i am starting to see a bit of a trend with this possible "memory card issue". On June 20 I swapped out the card that was suspected of being the issue to another identical ADATA 16GB class 10 card and it has worked flawlessly up until a few days ago. With approx 65K audio files totalling around 3.3GB this time, it started to act up. It would somehow forget the last volume setting i had set and was starting to randomly stop recording on its own. I have now swapped back to the (now empty) other16GB card from my previous posts to see if it will run again, and so far it seems to be back to 100%.

So from my information gathered so far, it seems that when the card gets filled up past a certain point, the scanner will start to malfunction in various ways. (forgetting volume setting, disconnecting from USB, randomly stopping recording) I would be curious if anyone has recorded several gigs of audio to a card without any issue, maybe the ADATA cards are the problem....I will continue to report back as i find out more.

The radio definitely starts showing issues as the card gets "fuller". The radio will start rebooting which disables user set full time recording - and if you're on external power, causes the radio to go into a waiting for user input state. In most cases, I've found that the radio will continue functioning properly to include recording even after this reboot - at least for a while.

I find that an even bigger issue when the disk gets fuller (but in most case far from truly full) is that it becomes nearly unresponsive to user key presses - particularly when decoding P25 voice (even worse if in Phase 2 mode). And finally, as the disk gets fuller, I've even seen the display "lag" - you'll hear voice but the radio is still showing "ID Scanning" or "ID Searching", etc. and then eventually the display catches up....

I don't believe that any of this is based on one type (vendor) of card vs. another.

gibbs70 · Aug 1, 2015

I guess on one hand i'm glad that its not just my scanner that does this, but on the other hand, it is quite a fundamental flaw especially if you are counting on your scanner to run unattended for long periods of time and make recordings or stream live audio etc. I also notice the severe input lag when the card is starting to get filled.

gibbs70 · Sep 5, 2015

Update

And, it started disconnecting from the USB again just now. This time with exactly 55,764 files taking up 3.68GB (size on disk). This is using a 16GB ADATA class 10 micro SD card. So it would seem investing in a larger memory card would be useless, as the scanner can't use even 4GB before it starts to act up. Have swapped in my other empty card and will report back when it acts up.

gibbs70 · Oct 10, 2015

Aaaaaand, its disconnecting again. This time with 11.3 of 14.9 GB free on the card. So somewhere around 3.6Gb of data. The user_rec folder has 54,683 files in it and reports a 3.51 GB size on disc. Time to swap cards and start again. (I fully intend on reporting each and every time it malfunctions).

KK4JUG · Oct 10, 2015

$$$

Voyager said:
I believe the only cards officially supported are the SanDisk cards. That's not saying others won't work, but they aren't officially supported.

And I'm sure SanDisk paid for that. There should be no reason why any quality card wouldn't work.

gibbs70 · Oct 10, 2015

Glad i didn't invest in high capacity micro sd cards. even the 16GB ones I have are 4 times larger than the scanner can handle without acting up. I have yet to see it get beyond 4GB without starting to malfunction, and it is consistently acting up right around the same amount of files/memory used on the card.

Voyager · Oct 11, 2015

KK4JUG said:
And I'm sure SanDisk paid for that. There should be no reason why any quality card wouldn't work.

There is a difference between "work" and "supported". That's why I said "That's not saying others won't work, but they aren't officially supported".

But, if you use different cards and have any issues, you're likely going to be on your own.

CalmWind · Oct 11, 2015

gibbs70 said:
Glad i didn't invest in high capacity micro sd cards. even the 16GB ones I have are 4 times larger than the scanner can handle without acting up. I have yet to see it get beyond 4GB without starting to malfunction, and it is consistently acting up right around the same amount of files/memory used on the card.

Just for a newbie, could you tell me what is filling up your card? Is it recordings of some type or just database entries.

Voyager · Oct 11, 2015

In my case, and highly suspect virtually everyone else, it's recordings. I have hundreds of FLs, and they use a very small amount of memory.

CalmWind · Oct 11, 2015

I was just wondering if files being saved were too large for the Fat32 partition since the size is limited to 4 GB

If they are not that large, possibly the size of the card is limited because of the firmware on the radio. UPMan may be able to supply an answer in regard to this possibility. I thought I read somewhere larger cards are acceptable, but I can't find it right now.

If it was just random files taking up the space, I might be able to fill a card up for testing, but right now I am only using about 40 MB. I normally use an external USB power source and not a computer to run the 436. If the problem is being caused by full memory cards, I could check how that configuration acts.

KK4JUG · Oct 11, 2015

Voyager said:
There is a difference between "work" and "supported". That's why I said "That's not saying others won't work, but they aren't officially supported".

But, if you use different cards and have any issues, you're likely going to be on your own.

I mentioned "quality" cards because there are many, many poor quality cards out there masquerading as top tier stuff. Many of the so-called name-brand cards are actually counterfeit. I recently purchased a quantity of 32 GB Samsung cards, at least that's how they were advertised. I had difficulties with the first couple I used so I did some further checking, In spite of the brand name, the hologram and fancy packaging, they turned out to be counterfeit. After I threatened legal action, the supplier took them back.

Samsung is generally thought of as a quality name. For that reason, they're frequently counterfeited. SanDisk is also a quality product but for some reason, they seem to be less-frequently counterfeited. Perhaps they police their name and image more fervently and prosecute when necessary. I would never hesitate to use any SanDisk product.

I can't help but think Uniden recognized the SanDisk quality and reputation and felt it would enhance their product and reduce customer complaints.

BCD436HP wont stay powered on USB

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