Long Transfer Times; Always Sincs

Question

I am new to the iPod world. I have previously used (and am comfortable with the software of) Creative devices. I received a Shuffle recently, and have a few questions that I cannot find the answers to.
1) How long should it take to fill a shuffle? I filled the "Music" category in the Library with songs already on my laptop (converting them from mostly wma); it will now take about 3-4 hours to transfer those songs to the shuffle. This seems ridiculous to me. My creative will fill 8g in about 15-20 minutes. Is the shuffle really this slow, or am I doing something wrong?
2) Whenever I dock the shuffle, it automatically starts "Updating files on Shuffle", even though nothing has changed in my Music Library or on the shuffle. And, what is really annoying is that it will start to copy all my songs again to the shuffle, saying "Copying 1 of 224", and go through this 3-4 hour process every time I connect the shuffle. Why does it do this?
As I will be using this shuffle for exercise, I intend to hardly ever change the songs; I will usually just be connecting it to the computer to charge it. From other posts so far that I have read, I can probably fix this by not having itunes start up upon shuffle docking. But, this seems like the cheap fix. I would really like to play around with itunes to get familiar with it, but not if it is going to reload my already full shuffle every time. And take forever to do it.
Please help a newbie out. All the guys at work rave about thier ipods, but it sure seems like a PITA so far.
Thanks

Answer 1

The BIOS is the the first layer of code that controls your computer before it gets around to loading your operating system from the hard drive. The BIOS controls, for example, which mode the parallel port works in, whether numlock is active at startup, whether USB will support "legacy devices" etc. These settings are stored in an area of CMOS memory kept powered by battery, along with the clock, when your computer is turned off. Certain kinds of crash can corrupt the BIOS area either setting new values or causing the BIOS to load a default set of values from another storage area. You normally gain acess to the BIOS setup screeen by pressing f2, f11 or delete as the computer boots up - check your scren as it starts for instructions. It might be worth taking a look at the USB settings to see if there an obvious change you could make. Just make a note of anything you change so you can set it back if it's no help.
An IRQ is the way hardware asks the operating system to pay attention to it. They are limited in number and while some are fixed the remainder can be assigned by the BIOS, the operating system or a combination of both. Occasionaly this can cause problems. For example, some PCI hardware can share an IRQ with another device but it may affect performance. Often these can be resolved by going into the Windows device manager and uninstalling the devices, which allows them to be redetected & reinstalled when you restart. You might also want to check the manufacturer's website for updated device drivers for your USB components.
tt2