Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Boo, no IPS confirmed.

Thanks!

Edit: Can I upgrade to the IPS screen myself? Assuming I can source one. Is all the connectivity there?

 

So I now have had the opportunity to try a SATA III device in the HDD (Samsung 830 series), mSATA (MyDigitalSSD SMART series), and ODD (Samsung 830 series using an HDD caddy) ports. Only the HDD port is shown to connect at SATA III speeds (using IRST) and crystal disk mark confirms that to be the case. My question then is, does the M4600 actually have two SATA III ports available and in use? What component would be using the second SATA III port?

 

It should be your optical disk drive port..... don't check the transfer rate as a indication of what transfer mode. As results highly rely on good drivers as well, use CrystalDiskInfo to see what mode you are on.

 

I'm going to preface by saying that it probably doesn't matter because the Samsung SSD is my OS drive and the ODD will hold the HDD storage drive in regular usage.

When the Samsung was in the ODD caddy, IRST said the transfer rate was 3 Gb/s and testing the drive on CrystalDiskMark indicated transfer speeds of SATA II. The same drive in the original HDD slot shows as 6 Gb/s and CrystalDiskMark indicates transfer speeds of SATA III. I didn't have CrystalDiskInfo until now, but it indicates a transfer mode of SATA/600. I also have a MyDigitalSSD mSATA drive that CrystalDiskInfo indicates has a transfer mode of SATA/600, but IRST and CrystalDiskMark show as transferring data at SATA II speeds. It seems that the actual transfer rate is more important than the transfer mode. Even if the Samsung were placed in the ODD caddy, the transfer rate would be SATA II whether it was in SATA/300 or SATA/600 mode. Is that right? I would think if you put a SATA III drive in the ODD caddy if that represented a SATA III port that it would transfer at SATA III speeds. Is it that the drivers for the ODD port only support SATA II even though the port and drive attached to it are SATA III? I apologize, but I am obviously not an "expert" on this subject.

 

Well I assumed you wanted to know which mode you in, hence your question which is SATA-III port? Yeah drivers does effect your transfer speed, depending on the make and model. No you don't need a driver for the caddy, it's the controller port that handles the transfer. Are you RAID, AHCI, ATA mode, which Intel IRST are you using?

 

I have RAID enabled, which I believe also enables AHCI. I am using IRST 10.1.0.1008. The information about the current mode is interesting, but it doesn't help answer my question. Everything that I am reading (including you) states that there should be 2 SATA III ports on an M4600 with my configuration and that the second SATA III port should be the ODD. I have mounted a SATA III SSD in an ODD caddy and still only achieve SATA II speeds. The same drive mounted in the HDD slot achieves the expected SATA III. I am wondering why I do not see SATA III speeds when that drive is in the ODD caddy? Now that I have 5 posts, my configuration is shown in my signature if that helps. Note that currently an HDD is in the ODD caddy, but I have mounted the Samsung SSD in the ODD caddy and still only achieve SATA II speeds. Thank you for walking through this with me Ph0enix. It is helpful.

 

For the M4600, I've read that the mSATA slot is connected to Port 1.

What port number do you see in RST with the ODD?

CP chipset only has Port 0 and 1 for SATA III, it's not the number of ports that matters but which port the link is connected to.

 

I have nothing on port 1 so maybe that is the issue. The SSD (in HDD slot) is port 0, the mSATA is port 2, and the HDD in the ODD caddy is port 3. Ports 4 and 5 are listed as external empty ports. There is no port 1 listed in IRST. It's confusing to me.

 

That means you only have one SATA III..

HDD slot is the only SATA III capable port in the entire laptop.

It's a manufacturer's choice in using ports, so if they didn't connect anything to port 1, there are no more SATA III capable slots.

 

It would require a new main board, among other things, not a cost efficient option.