Card Readers

[kevs]

I have two. Sometimes one works , other times other. They both now seem finicky. Is this normal? Do card readers not act normal for many years. Any tips? Thanks.

[Redcrown]

I've been through 4 or 5 card readers over the years, so yes they do die. And yes, the might run in "maybe" mode for a while.

I believe the issue is with the pins and connectors. On Compact Flash cards the pins and slots are very very small. Female slots can become contaminated with dust or dirt. Repeatedly inserting a card might clear out that debris. Male pins can become bent or coroded, and are impossible to clean.

Then, of course, there is the USB cable. Two more male/female connections to fail.

Always need to do a "binary chop" to isolate the problem.  Swap cards, swap USB cables, swap ports, swap readers, until you find the combination that fails in all cases.

[kevs]

Thanks Red, nice reply, I've been trying to isolate it. 2 readers, 2 cables, and I can never come up with the culprit!  It's musical chairs. (they are both proably over 5 years old, but not massively used..)

Tempted to just throw them all away and by new, yet... some combo will come through and work...  To buy new, any best bets? Just use/ CD and SD.

[tcphoto1]

I haven't had any issues with card readers but I rarely use one because I shoot tethered most of the time. When I do need to import images, I connect the body to the computer via USB cable and import with Apple's Image Capture.

[Alan Klein]

Coincidentally,  I connect my SD card to a SD reader to the USB connector of my 4K UHDTV to payback videos and slide shows.  Sometimes, the files cannot be seen by the TV (Sony 4k smart TV).  I often have to remove and reconnect, turn the TV in and off, etc. to finally get the TV to see the files.  It's not with one particular card, so could this be with the card reader connector and cable?

[Les Sparks]

I've had problems with card resets every so often. They are so inexpensive that I didn't think it was worth the time to troubleshoot to find the cause. Just get a new reader.

[kevs]

Thanks Les, and others: Any recommendations?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Thanks Les, and others: Any recommendations?

I bought a Kingston USB 3 five years ago that is still working fine.  Worst thing is to have a built in card reader that fails which happened to me when one of the CF pins in the reader got bent.  I'll never go down that route again (but I don't use CF cards anymore).  Otherwise the trouble shooting tips that were already mentioned are the standard ones to follow.  Also if you have compressed air, give the slot you use a good bit of air to clean it out.

I routinely get all my computer parts from NewEgg and here is the link for card readers:  https://www.newegg.com/Card-Readers/SubCategory/ID-69?Tid=7958  you can use the filters on the left to narrow things down.

[Les Sparks]

No strong recommendations. Agree about avoiding built in card readers. Don't remember brand of the last reader i got. It is Ian 3 and is this faster. All I remember about it is was highly rated on Amazon. It has built in usb cable. Purchased 3 one for laptop one for main computer and one for use when I can't find the other ones.