Suspect that you have a counterfeit (fake) MP Player, USB Flash drive or Memory Card that has been digitally altered to report a larger capacity than it really is? Known as “Fakes” you will find them for sale on eBay, on wholesaler internet sites and even in small retail stores around the world.
Real flash chips from genuine manufacturers have been are upgraded (reprogrammed) to lie about their real size to operating systems.
SpecTek Nand Flash chips have been targeted by those who engage in this devious activity. Only when one exceeds the real capacity of the chip, does data loss begin. Buyers trying to find why the devices fail frequently take them apart to find out why they don’t hold the advertised capacity.
The first step is to try and decode the chip being used. If the brand is SpecTek you need to write down the information on the chip so you can find out what the real size is is.
The black market is busy changing the sizes of Flash nand chips with capacity of 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB to report sizes from 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 60GB, 64GB, 120GB, 128GB, 240GB, 250GB, 260GB, 320GB, 360GB, 500GB, 512GB.
So how can you find out the real size of the chip in your MP Player, USB Flash Drive or Memory Card?
SpecTek uses use coding, where each position in the chip’s serial identification has special meaning. The decoding chart is found at SpecTek.
For capacity storage sizing, Gb is Gigabits. 8 bits make a byte. So if you see 32Gb it is 32/8 = 4GB. Always divide by 8. GB is Gigabytes. Usually advertised sizes for storage use GB – Gigabytes. This is what consumers understand best for storage. It is very important to understand this difference when you consult a manufacturers decoder. If the ‘b’ is in lowercase they are referring to bits, not bytes as most everyone expects.
To use the SpecTek decoder:
It contains the old part numbering system and the new one.
You can verify your results with
If you confirm that you have a fake – a digitally altered storage chip, please report it to SpecTek and let them know that one of their chips has been reprogrammed into Frankenflash.
The more information the genuine manufacturers receive the more it will help them to track and investigate.
If you have a digital camera, photograph the chip close up if you can so people can easily read the serial and also do one of the whole device. This is evidence you can submit in a legal claim or as additional information in a PayPal dispute issued for an eBay purchase.
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