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RE: PCMCIA Card Problems



Per Kerry this morning:\

Instituted the controlled test.
(90) 128 meg
(50) 32 meg; this number will increase as the test progresses.
5 or 6 errors on the 128 meg cards.
0 errors on the 32 meg cards.

Kerry will post email with exact errors later today.

Jeff Hallmark

jeffh@dieboldes.com
972 542 6000 x157

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of
Kerry Martin
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 4:08 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: PCMCIA Card Problems


I was to run the test as Ian stated this afternoon, but unfortunately an
issue of not having enough 128mb cards has since come up.  We are now
waiting for the state to officially say that Montgomery County can use
the 32mb cards.  After which we will see what problems occur.  If there
are any problems I will institute the controlled test.

Kerry Martin
Election Support Specialist
kerry@dieboldes.com
kerrymartin@skytel.com
Mbl: (214) 642-9040
Pgr: (866) 331-0201


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com] On Behalf
Of Ian S. Piper
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 1:30 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: PCMCIA Card Problems

Late this morning Kerry Martin stated that the files are each approx.
15MB
in size.  They have both English and Spanish audio files.  They will try
the
procedures that Ken has suggested this afternoon and determine (after an
hour of  downloads) if there are any further failed Flash Memory cards
during the test where they insert the PC card into a standalone
BallotStation.

While the PC cards are being written to from the unit cache, does the
display indicate that it's busy?


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of
Ken Clark
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 12:47 PM
To: support@dieboldes.com
Subject: RE: PCMCIA Card Problems



This is indeed serious.  I suspect that the major cause of this is the
huge PCM audio files being programmed onto the cards.  For whatever
reasons, all of the data is not making it onto the removable media
before it is ejected.

About the only solution I can offer at this point is patience.  Kerry
has told me that they are now waiting for the download unit to bring up
the election before ejecting the card.  This should work, if time
consuming.  I would like to hear feedback on the effectiveness of this
procedure.  Do any cards fail to have the election come up on the same
machine, even if the card is not ejected?  Do any cards that do come up
on the download machine fail to come up on their final election machine?

Assuming this works, you might be able to simply wait 15 seconds (say)
after each download is complete, rather than actually bring up the
election.  That is just a guess, but assuming the problem is that not
all data is getting a chance to write to the card, it could work.

It has been suggested that the problem is related to multiple units
downloading at the same time.  While I can't rule out anything right
now, that really shouldn't have any effect in of itself.  The units are
completely independent, so it is not really possible for one to affect
the other.  You could run into the timeout problems reported last week
as the server is overloaded, but not corruption problems on the client
side.

Kevin and Ravina, I would like you to put together a test setup to try
to reproduce the problem.  We can then start working on finding the root
cause and develop a fix.

Ken





-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com] On Behalf
Of Sue Page
Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 3:59 AM
To: Support
Subject: FW: PCMCIA Card Problems

Out of 830 PCMCIA Cards, approximately 130 failed.
See below from Prince George's County:

This is the short version.  Unfortunately, Hugh does not have the time
to go
into great detail, but we really need to get this resolve.


> Our process is to:
> - create PC cards on one of the 13 ethernet stations and paste on
labels
> - a clerk then checks to verify that the correct number of cards were
> created
> - the clerk then inserts the card for the 0 machine into a Ballot
Station
> that is not connected to ethernet
> - a Voter Card for each party is created
> - the cards are bundled and labeled for the testing Mgr to pick up
> - the cards are placed in the machines assigned to the subject
precinct
> and the L&A test is performed
>
> Our Problems:
> - a card placed in a precinct machine may have any one of the
following
> errors:
>       cluster errors
>       storage error
>       no election on card
>
> Effect on Production:
> This causes us to have to go back and re-create cards out of Prct
> sequence.  This is time consuming since we might have a whole Pct in
the
> process of being loaded and the cards to be re-done are not addressed
by
> the system until the loading is completed for those PC cards
previously
> queued.
>
> I have not had a chance to do a count but the number of failures on PC
> Cards is significant and might cause us to not have a sufficient
number of
> cards.
>
> Suggestion/Question:
> It would be helpful if there was a way to re-shuffle the queue to
create a
> specific card or cards on demand.
>
> I know this is not a thorough analysis but it is difficult to count
bodies
> on the battlefield in the heat of battle.