PRECISION M4500 + SAMSUNG 840EVO 1TB SSD: not recognized in BIOS in main HD slot

I planned to replace my Intel 120GB SSD to a SAMSUNG 840 EVO 1TB model, but (ALMOST to my horror, but read on ;-) ) it is not recognized in the BIOS!

I already updated the BIOS from A05 to most recent A14, but this doesn't make a difference. Nothing is reported on the primary SATA interface.

The SAMSUNG itself works fine. I can plug it into an eSATA docking station and access it no problem. It ALSO works when I put it into the NewModeUS optical-drive-replacement cradle, which I can boot from as well (that's why it's not quite a HORROR story thus far. ;-) ). The primary HD slot is not broken since other SATA drives are recognized and accessible without issues.

I'm not quite sure what's happening... I know the M4500 chipset doesn't support SATA 6G, but the SAMSUNG should be SATA-II backwards compatible (and it works via eSATA and the internal NewModeUS cradle, so...). So why the hell isn't it recognized???

Only other thing I can think of is maybe a firmware upgrade of the 840 EVO, which sounds unlikely to fix this since the M4500 is quite an older system already so it's unlikely to be a high-profile issue or related to new HW generation issues. What else? Could it be some conflict with other installed hardware? Maybe because I'm running 16GB RAM? (not that it would be an option to return to 8GB...)

How much of a problem is it, anyway? Well, apart from the simple feeling that something isn't RIGHT, I'm also disappointed by the reported performance. A quick CrystalDiskmark test reports something like 180MB/S sequential read/write if I remember right. I didn't do any extensive testing yet, and also didn't dive into Samsung Magician software, but regardless that DOES seem very low. The SAMSUNG is capable of figures in the 500 MB/s area on 6G, and SATA-II should cap down to 300MB/s at most??? Sure it won't quite reach even that, but shouldn't I get at least 250MB/s? I checked the sector alignment with an SSD tool and calculated it myself by dividing the starting sectors of my partitions by 4096 and they all report whole numbers so that should be OK. So that's why I was thinking that the modular bay SATA interface might be capped below SATA-II speeds??? I read that it shouldn't, that offers full SATA-II, but can anyone confirm this?

To be honest I'm not THAT much bothered by a possible speed cap. I would enjoy that speed mostly when copying to other disks, and since I have no other high-capacity SSDs, most copies will be to mechanical disks anyway, so I don't lose there. The most important benefit was always going to be "SSD-like" performance over a bigger capacity. But the one issue that DOES annoy me is that it's a lot less flexible to quickly change HDs: I have an extra optical-bay tray to quickly hotswap disks, but with the main OS on the SAMSUNG in the optical bay, I've just lost that flexibility. THAT is the main reason that I'd like to see this solved...

Any experiences/feedback/suggestions appreciated!

JH

 

I have the almost the same issue in my hp 8530p. I cant get any mechanical hdd to work in hdd caddy, only ssd drives work there. I tested the caddy in few other notebooks and it works fine there and i did not find the solution. I have even wrecked one caddy to test voltage and current output on optical bay and it was fine. Its either sata controler issue or bios issue. But tbh i dont care which it is as long as it works. Not sure if it helps but i always have an extra lan cable if i need fast data transfer as most of the notebooks today have 1gbps nic. Cant be arsed with dissassembly anymore.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y300-0100 using Tapatalk

 

I have the 750gb model and it works fine.

 

On an M4700...

I seem to remember you posted in the M4500 owner's thread as well. Do you still have the M4500 around? Maybe you could try it in that one and report back? That would be cool.

JH

 

A LAN cable to an eSATA docking station doesn't work so well. ;-)

Yeah, your issue sounds similar... Still it's somehow LESS surprising that a disk wouldn't work in the hdd caddy; in my case it works THERE, but DOESN'T in the slot that is actually MEANT for the primary HDD??? That seems totally backwards.

JH

 

That's life

You cant plag lan cable into esata? Thats wierd

Joking aside.
Did you try changing sata modes in bios? From ahci to raid to ide just to see what will happen? Look at those pesky security features and try disabling them if you have any turned on.

Also check service manual or chipset information for notebook/chipset limitations. When your m6500 gor out there were no 1tb drives for notebook availible let alone ssds.

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Have you used this firmware upgrade? (Click me its a link )

 

Haha, thanks for pointing that out. :hi2:

Unfortunately, I already checked before and I'm already running the latest firmware.

I have contacted SAMSUNG by mail to see if they are aware of similar issues and whether there could be a workaround or something, or maybe a firmware upgrade just for this! (should I hold my breath? ) Does DELL have any support channels that would take this serious?

JH

 

Oh, BTW: I noticed something strange related to the performance:

I tried the newest version of Crystal Diskmark 3.0.3 64 bit for some quick performance check (using a data partition that I created on the SAMSUNG).

Now, I dual-boot between my regular W7 Professional 64bit (installed on the SAMSUNG SSD in the optical bay) and a Windows Server 2008R2 64bit installation that boots from a mechanical disk (that is now in the main HD slot). When I run the benchmarks from the W2008 installation, it reports sequential speeds in the 250-260MB/s for read and 220-230MB/s for write (with other programs running), and this is actually what I would expect (SATA-II limited) first of all, but also more than 70MB/s faster than what is reported under Windows 7 for the SSD!!!! What could be going on here? The W7 boot partition is Truecrypt-encrypted, but the partition that I use for the test is not, so that shouldn't make a difference?

Also, as pointed out I already checked the partition alignments and they are OK.

JH

 

Sata driver difference, I've found i have best "benchamrk" performance if i use sata drivers that come with windows, anything i download from intel resulted in lower write/read speed. Mybe windows7 have some crap running in the bacground that kills performance.