Hi!

I recently reinstalled my computer with Linux Mint 20.1 (Ulyssa) MATE edition, having previously been running 18.3 (Sylvia). Apart from a few glitches (maybe not the best Mint release to date...), things now seems to work reasonably fine apart from one thing. Sometimes my trusty old (about ten years) Sandisk ImageMate (I think it's called) card reader, operates at 12 Mbps, which makes transfers extremely slow. If this happens and I reboot, the speed is back to 480 Mbps. Any ideas on this? I've never had any problems with it previously, troubles began after upgrading (fresh install) to 20.1.

It's probably going into a lower speed mode. Very few, if any SD Cards can do 480Mbps. Your information is very vague, so I'm not much help. But you told us so little, you evidently didn't want much help.

I have seen the same thing on an old laptop that I use as a home file server. Upon reboot, the USB 2.0 external hard drive occasionally (rarely) detects or downgrades to USB 1.1, which as you noted is really slow.

I've looked at the log files (search for USB 1.1, I think) and I can see where it goes wrong, but I'm not sure why it happens. Because it might only happen once out of 20 or more reboots, it's kind of hard for me to troubleshoot, and I don't how to prevent it.

My solution: Because I reboot that machine rather infrequently, a few times a year, and I reboot it manually, I just check the drive speed by timing a certain file read. Usually I see it's doing 220 to 280 Mbps, which tells me it's in USB 2.0 mode. If it is a lot slower, I just reboot.

AFAIK, there's supposed to be a polite conversation about rates. There's also 2 usb-1.x drivers, iirc. Intel & Via have one, and almost everything else uses the other. Unplugging the drive for 5-10 seconds should be enough.

Yes, I think the OP should try unplugging and replugging the USB device.

For the old system I described, it's not plug-and-play. It's plug-and-pray, and if that fails, plug-and-reboot.

Anyway, I'm replacing it soon with a raspberry pi, so no further worries.

Thank you for your replies! Unplugging and plugging it in again doesn't seem to help, only reboot, I am however not entirely sure about this. I haven't had the energy to examine it further. My strategy for now is to live with it and hope it gets sorted with some upcoming update. Or maybe to buy a newer card reader, but I don't like replacing things that works. I can't say for sure that it isn't the reader failing, but I never had a problem before reinstalling.

Helps to post a link on what is being discussed

So

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Image.../dp/B078JV59KJ

Usually when I research hardware. I use the linux filter in the comment section at like newegg

Figures. I search newegg. " Be the 1st to review this product "

OK. Just to show what I mean