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    Dell still Shipping Faulty Sandybridge?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by nrmsmith, May 20, 2012.

  1. nrmsmith

    nrmsmith Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have a Dell xps14z bought March 2012. Recently I fit a Samsung PM830 SSD (Sata-III drive) and was surprised to find instead of getting expected read/write speeds of 510/400 Mb/sec I was actually getting 250/230 MB/sec. Isn't that only about SATA-II speed?

    Investigating, I found SIW utility said the current/Max SATA mode was "SATA 600/SATA600" yet Intel's RST Utility said the drive was using a SATA transfer rate of only "3Gb/s".

    CPU-Z says the southbridge on this xps14z is HM67 (sandybridge) Rev.B2 (see attached). Isn't that the flawed chipset that was supposed to have been recalled/replaced over a year ago? I bought an xps17 in March 2011 after the B3 (fixed) chipset was released (see attachment).

    So my question to Dell is: "Have you now quietly started shipping the flawed chipset again, hoping no-one will notice?"

    Anyone have any thoughts?
     

    Attached Files:

    nrmsmith, May 20, 2012
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  2. xxgokouxx

    xxgokouxx Notebook Evangelist

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    did you contact dell about this yet? sounds like an interesting take
     
    xxgokouxx, May 20, 2012
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  3. ejl1980

    ejl1980 Notebook Evangelist

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    I was under the impression the recall was because sata ports 2-5 didn't work correctly. Which shouldn't be a problem on most notebooks, no?
     
    ejl1980, May 20, 2012
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  4. NeoMesal

    NeoMesal Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, I think that the faulty chipset DID NOT affect the SATA 0, which is the primary laptop (H/S)DD port.
     
    NeoMesal, May 20, 2012
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  5. Serephucus

    Serephucus Notebook Deity

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    Correct. The chipset issue was only with SATA2 ports 0 and 1. All other ports - whether SATA2 or 3 - worked.
     
    Serephucus, May 20, 2012
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  6. madmattd

    madmattd Notebook Deity

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    And as a result, all manufacturers who did NOT use the affected ports in their designs did not have to replace the boards.

    To the OP: is your HDD controller in BIOS set to AHCI? If set to IDE or legacy (or whatever Dell is calling it, I forget), that's why your speeds stink.
     
    madmattd, May 20, 2012
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  7. nrmsmith

    nrmsmith Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes, the BIOS is set to AHCI and I have the Intel RST drivers installed in windows; iastor.sys (ver. 10.1.2.1004).

    Could Dell have deliberately restricted the speed to SATA-II speeds?
     
    nrmsmith, May 21, 2012
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  8. madmattd

    madmattd Notebook Deity

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    A few claimed this on XPS 15 and 17s, but it is not the case. I'd be surprised if they did on the 14z. Might want to get on Dell's case about this, it isn't right that's for sure.
     
    madmattd, May 21, 2012
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  9. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    All manufacturers fixed the issue, but many programs that read motherboard specs, IE CPU-Z will still read B2 stepping when it may have B3 stepping. This happened with alot of HP laptops, at that time Windows would read it as B2 stepping. This is not the case with new laptops.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, May 21, 2012
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