Is Dell shipping Rev.04 B2 (recalled) Cougar Point chipsets??

Well, if you want to put it to the test:
- get a 3.5" externally-powered enclosure with an HDD.
- use the included eSATA cable to connect to the laptop.
- run HDDTach and do file copies back and forth to drill it (download a Linux ISO or something with a MD5 hash).
- fill the drive with these images and then check the MD5 hash on all of them. If the MD5 fails on any of them, then you should be concerned.

Reasoning:
- Why 3.5" externally powered? Ensures that weak USB power or a bad USB power connection from 2.5" bus-powered drives isn't the cause of the issue.
- Why use the included cable? It's mated to that unit. Sometimes swapping cables between different units might cause problems between different connectors. If it was provided, it was validated for use with it.
- Why would a drive work on one PC but not another? Lots of reasons but can be all linked to lack of constant power or bad/intermittent connection: too many USB devices on that root hub (have to account for built-in USB devices like webcams, touchpad, etc.), bad/loose/worn USB power connections, utilization of the connection (if the older laptop transfer speeds are capped, the drive might not use as much power), tolerance in the way the connectors are made, etc.

I'm not sure if you're having issues with 2.5" drives, but I can tell you that worn/mismatching connectors can definitely cause problems (some of these enclosures are pushing 5-6 years old now). Sometimes the issue happens when immediately plugged in, sometimes only during heavy disk activity. The problem usually goes away when I swap enclosures with a newer one, though sometimes it's simply a matter of using the matching cable that came with the drive. Just another thing to keep in mind when testing.

 

thank you for the pointers - they're all very valid, and i've done all of it - i'm trying to get this machine to work since october.

yes, the failures are consistent and replicable, happen under stress, and only on storage that pushes ~150Mb/s & up. e.g. striped eSata storage boxes, obviously externally powered. the one that i've done most testing with is an areca 4 bay raid5 box, 9Tb.

which is all as the descriptions of the recalled sandy failures are.

with iaStor drivers the system drops the HD off the system after a bunch of timeouts, with ms ahci drivers it stays on, but gives random ~30s freezes.

 

With all due respect, you do not have a B2 chipset board. They were all replaced well before August of last year. Look at your laser etched chipset number to confirm. Also run the system diag by holding down the D button at power up or hitting the F12 button at boot to enter the manual boot process.. then choose the diagnostics. Almost any system hardware related errors will be found and reported there.

The B2 vs B3 issue has been dead for a while now so this thread should be locked to avoid uneeded witch hunts.

Scott

 

Then your problem is different. The issue you're running into is that you're trying to use the QM67's built-in SATA ports for an external RAID box when it doesn't support port multipliers.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/do...e/6-and-c200-chipset-specification-update.pdf
Does W520 support port-multiplier, how? - Lenovo Community

Test it with a standalone drive and see if it works.

 

no, it's not a port multiplier box, but one that has the raid controller chip built in. works without a hitch on the 2 other systems i have handy.

 

Got scared there for a second until I saw the date. Plan on running 3 sata devices eventually (optical, HDD and mSata).