Studio XPS 13, eSATA doesn't work

I know I'm one of the very few to have one of these so far, but I'm hoping others can chime in in the future.

Everything works fine except eSATA. I've tested in in Windows Vista 64bit and Windows 7 64bit. Same thing in both - the computer completely freezes up when it'd usually be detecting the drive after plugging in. I'm plugging in an external HDD that works fine on my other computer.

The other computer's using XP so that could make a difference. I'm more suspecting a Dell hardware or drivers issue though. I'd be interested to know if it's a problem everyone has and Dell will maybe fix it in a year or so. They've already released a BIOS update and I've got that; no change.

edit: BIOS doesn't detect the drive either, and hangs on the Dell splash screen if it's on. So it's BIOS firmware or hardware rather than software.

edit2: solution here.

 

Just to narrow things down, does BIOS hang on your disk if you attach it internally in place of the SSD drive? Perhaps there is a BIOS setting for the SATA controller that needs to be changed for your config (such as the auto-detect time for the drive's geometry).

I'd test it myself but with dell's shipping delays it'll be a while.

One of the key things I liked about this dell over the macbook was its better ports (esata, expresscard). If those don't work it'll probably be a deal breaker for me.

 

You are correct in having patience with this issue.

Remember, it is a general fact that the End User ( us ) is the testing medium for all the great, cool things we all love.

Being new and all, relax and do the "work around" for now.
It will be seamless in the near future or it won't be there, with something else in it's place.

Good Luck,
Chetanji

 

wow congrats on the Studio XPS 13 how ya like it?

 

Good idea. I was doing this but it turned out to be more of a mission than I thought. On these you have to open up the whole bottom side to get to the drive, and then there was going to be another 8 screws and a lot of fiddling to get it out and get to the SATA port. It didn't help that whoever assembled it at Dell at destroyed one of the screw heads so I couldn't unscrew it, and I've run out of time to try that now.

I did get the backplate off despite the ruined screw, but I can't really see where the eSATA parts are - I think that stuff's accessed from the top. Nothing looked obviously wrong.

There aren't many settings in the BIOS that can actually be changed. I get the feeling the drive would work on the internal port.

I posted a lot of info in the main 1340 thread. It's not perfect but I'm happy with it overall, seems like a good laptop.

 

If they butchered a screw head, then maybe the the esata/usb combo port isn't connected right either, and you could try bypassing that connector & plugging the drive into the sata port before the esata connector to see. The service manual shows the esata connector assembly:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl13/en/sm/esatacab.htm#wp1000550

can't tell from the pic whether it'd be easy enough to bypass the assembly.

 

It looks like I probably only need to remove the optical drive to get to it. I might have a look if it's just that. If it's more I won't bother. Thanks for the link.

edit: Nah, it's a crazy jungle of screws in there and I can't easily get to anything. Besides, the fact that it freezes the computer when a drive's connected implies that the eSATA plug is at least connected to something. So it's probably actual faulty hardware or a BIOS problem. If it's the latter, other people should have the same issue, so I'll wait and see.

By the way, USB in that port works fine.

 

Someone else just confirmed in the main 1340 thread that their eSATA has the same issues as mine. I don't know how Dell could have missed the fact the eSATA completely freezes up every machine, but it seems they may have.

 

Anyone called dell yet about this problem? I think they will release a Bios update and the problem is gone... The M1330 used to freeze when ejecting a disk and they fixed it... Hopefully they can do the same with the XPS 13

 

Yeah, I very much suspect it's just a BIOS issue. I was waiting to see if others had an identical problem before I bothered contacting them.

 

I've just received a Western Digital MyBook Studio 1TB which has e-sata. I will try it tonight and see what happens.

 

Update.

We did some investigation in the other thread and it seemed it it was only certain enclosures which didn't work. Personally, if I connected a drive directly using just a SATA to eSATA converter and power from my desktop, it worked fine. Other people with a NexStar 3 had freezing problems, but some enlosures did not.

Apparently the Nexstar has a problem in the chip where it should be able to support 3.0Gbps but can only do 1.5Gbps (the older SATA version). Usually this is okay, it's just slower, but the M1340 doesn't seem to like it at all.

SOLUTION
I fixed the freezing issue by setting a jumper on the drive itself to limit it to 1.5Gbps instead of 3. eSATA now detects the drive in the enclosure and works fine. Standard hard drives aren't yet faster than 1.5Gb anyway.

Hope this helps.

 

That's pretty interesting. Sounds like a real basic speed negotiation bug (or voltage problem).
So I was on the right track when I pointed out that the nexstar probably had sata300 issues just like the rest of cartridge style esata enclosures.
But, I just tested my system with my sata150-only enclosure and an sata300 drive and it worked just fine. No hang in BIOS or vista or windows7.

So perhaps the apparent speed negotiation problem is just with your enclosure's bridge chip. Which one is it? (You should be able to tell by attaching it via USB and looking at the enclosure details under device manager.

Also, you do have the NVIDIA nforce sata controller installed, right? It should show up in device manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers->NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA controller.

You'd think so, but in practice I've found that linear read performance is worse when I limit a fast disk to 1.5gbps instead of 3.0gbps:

In the following test, I installed 2 ST3750330AS disks, both with same disk firmware, 1 in a max4 enclosure, and 1 in a muse esata enclosure. The disk in the max4 negotiated 1.5gbps, the disk in the muse negotiated 3.0gbs. With 3.0gbps, linear read performance was:

Code:

% date ; dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/null bs=8M count=1000 ; date
Mon Sep 22 02:07:55 PM
1000+0 records in
1000+0 records out
8388608000 bytes (8.4 GB) copied, 84.5561 s, 99.2 MB/s
Mon Sep 22 02:09:19 PM
%

with 1.5gbs performance was:

% date ; dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/null bs=8M count=1000 ; date
Mon Sep 22 02:12:25 PM
1000+0 records in
1000+0 records out
8388608000 bytes (8.4 GB) copied, 92.011 s, 91.2 MB/s
Mon Sep 22 02:13:57 PM
% 

ie roughly a 10% hit when limited to sata150.

I think we need a blacklist of enclosures that claim sata300 but only actually work as sata150.

 

Yeah.

What exactly am I looking for to see the bridge chip? It shows up as a ST350032 0AS SCSI Disk Drive. I know the first part is just the drive itself, not sure about the 0AS?

But yeah, the M1340 obviously CAN do SATA300, it just doesn't seem to like this enclosure (and probably some others - a few people reported the same issue, but the one who got back about it had exactly the same enclosure as me).

 

Normally the name identifies the bridge as well. For example with my 6H500F0 disk attached via USB, my disk drive name shows up as "Initio 6H500F0 USB Device", which tells me the bridge-chip that is screwing up the esata port is the initio. (Specifically the initio inic-1610 chip which does not support 3.0Gbps).

Did you really attach your disk via usb to test this? Doesn't seem like it from that name.

 

How about the two enclosures are simply not equally fast? I dont really think there is any difference (yet) between 150/300

 

For the record I am having the same problems with a Seagate FreeAgent Pro Classic 500GB drive (so far others only seem to be having problems with Nexstar). Freezes at post / windows... basically whenever I plug it in.

Which jumper should I switch to limit speeds? Is this a common option?

Good work Nition!

 

A good esata enclosure will have a bridge board that simply routes the esata pins directly to the internal sata connector, not going thru a bridge chip. For example the thermaltake muse esata enclosure in my test works that way. In that case it makes no sense to talk about how "fast" the enclosure is - it's identical in speed to when the drive is plugged in internally.

Bad esata enclosures have a bridge board that routes the sata data pins thru a bridge chip which may or may not impact performance.

Note that a bridge board may have a bridge chip (for usb/firewire) but still not screw up the direct routing of esata to sata. For example the rosewill rx-358 and bytecc bt-380satacombo have usb on their bridge boards but still provide direct connect esata performance.

 

No credit for me?
Seagate sata drives have a documented jumper to limit the drive's negotiation to 1.5Gbps. Check the instructions for the exact model of drive you have.

 

Thanks. On Seagate drives at least, there's a picture on the top of the drive showing where to put a jumper to limit the speed. It's a Seagate drive I have in my Nexstar enclosure. I'm not sure about those enclosures that come with drives already in - can you still open it up and get to the drive itself?

Yeah that was eSATA, but USB appears exactly the same, except "USB device" instead of "SCSI device" on the end. It does appear under USB Controllers as well, but only as a generic mass storage device.

 

How could I forget? Thank you too, Bcc

I am going to apply a firmware update to the drive tonight to see if that helps, and will also buy a new cable just to be sure. After that I will see if I can get into the enclosure and limit the speed via jumper. I would imagine the Seagate branded enclosure would have a Seagate drive... <crosses fingers>

 

So,

I updated the firmware in the external harddrive but it didn't fix the freezing problem. Replaced the cable, no dice.

Then I spent the better part of the evening tearing apart the Seagate Freeagent Pro, which was NOT fun... took about 2 hours. The thing is built like a tank. Anyway, I put a jumper in the position to limit the drive to 1.5Gb/s, put it all back together, hooked it up, and the computer froze for a few seconds, then the drive started working. I walked away for a minute and came back and the drive was no longer functioning (dissapeared from windows). Rebooted, and the computer freezes once again at POST.

Not sure what to do anymore... one of the main reasons I bought this machine was the eSATA port. Any other ideas?

I called Dell tech support and they are clueless as usual...

 

Oh, that's no good. Mine always works now, I haven't had any further freezing. Sorry that didn't fix it for you. :/
The next step is probably 'wait a year for Dell or NVIDIA to provide a fix.'

 

Hmm, sorry I thought that would have been an easy way to identify the bridge chip. You could always take it apart to verify. Otherwise, I'd assume it's the same as the thermaltake blacx esata; they sure look like OEMs of each other. If you check out review # 3 on this page:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=False&VendorMark=&Keywords=(keywords)&Page=4

There's a pretty good review with video that talks about the problems with this enclosure only working at 1.5gbps. And whadya know, the video shows that it's an initio chip just like my problem enclosure. But this one is a slightly different chip - initio inic-1611L

Note that thermaltake still mis-advertises this device as allowing 3.0gbps!
And that's even after the performance problem has been called to their attention. By multiple users apparently (since I didn't do the above video

 

1. Swap out the esata enclosure with one that is known to actually work at 3.0gbps.
2. file problem reports with dell and nvidia

Where it started to work and then hung later - makes me wonder if a power cycle of the enclosure would help. Also I'm assuming you have the nvidia sata controller installed & showing up in your vista device manager.

 

Bcc, I do have the nVidia SATA controller in the device manager so no problems there. I am starting to think that the jumper may not have a solid connection. I adapted an older large jumper to fit on the mini jumper position to limit transfer rates... I will stop by the local shop today and pick up a mini jumper and try it out again. Now that I have had the case open once I am hoping I can get it open in less time on the second try.

 

+1

Cracked it all back open, put in the proper jumper, tested while apart... *worked*, put it all back together, tested it together... *worked*, rebooted, all looks well.

Thanks!

 

Great! Say, did you happen to see what bridge chip was used inside that enclosure? Gathering these details could help in figuring out what hardware to stay away from when it comes to esata enclosures.

 

I did not, but getting to the bridge chip is not a problem. I will see if I can get it some time this next week.

 

Haven't gotten the HDD controller chip model yet but I ran into new problems. The drive was working fine the other day and suddenly it is back to freezing the machine whenever I plug it in.

I unplugged the eSATA cable hot a few days ago and can't remember if I have accessed the drive since. Could this have caused a problem, and if so, how do I reverse it?

Any ideas? Thank you,
-Aaron

 

After numorous attempts to fix the problem, I finally gave up and plugged the drive in via USB. It worked fine and after an hour or so I decided to try eSATA again and it worked! Perhaps something went wrong on the HDD controller chip and needed to be reset through use or something.

 

I'd been using an ESATA drive at 3.0gbps and found that it was sometimes leading to my OS locking up, and also sometimes causing the system to hang in BIOS during the POST sequence. The odd thing is that it seems to occur more readily after the laptop has warmed up. For example, once the system starts hanging at POST, it keeps hanging there upon subsequent power cycles. But if I turn the system off and let it cool off then it POSTs correctly again.

Under linux, I found that after the system heats up, the SATA controller sometimes hangs and the linux driver is able to recover by down-reving the drive to 1.5gbps. Apparently other OSes are not so smart and just let the whole system lock up.

Anyways,about a week ago I installed a jumper on my disk drive (wd1001fals) to limit it to 1.5gbps. No more hangs even after the laptop has warmed up.

Seems like a hardware bug; I wouldn't expect 3.0gbps esata to ever work reliably on this laptop at this point.

 

Hotplugging should work fine with esata, although under windows you're supposed to click on 'safely remove...' to make sure the filesystem is quiesced first. Otherwise you might get some filesystem errors that would require chkdisk. Though with ntfs I think any such errors would be cleaned up automatically.

As for the hanging, it sounds like you're back to 3.0gbps issues - are you sure your jumper is still working? Check the disk's negotiated speed under device manager.

 

bcc, can you please look into your Event Viewer and tell, if you see any nvstor-related errors and/or warnings? Just want to confirm the problem has the same symptoms.

I don't think that's a hardware issue actually, seems to me more like IRQ trouble, especially taking into consideration that SATA controller shares its IRQ 19 with USB host and PCI-PCI bridge.

 

Thanks for posting this. I have a NexStar 3 e-sata enclosure using a WD HDD and a Dell Studio 1537. Same symptoms, same solution.

Edit: Also, in my case, the BIOS (v. A08) wouldn't detect the e-sata disk properly until I jumpered the drive.

 

Same issue here, seems worse if I use the newer sata drivers(11.1.0.23) and better if I use the older ones (10.3.0.42), If I use the older drivers all drives work if plugged in directly (cable only, no case).

Samsung HM500LI (@300) works either direct or in a welland ME601J (Sata Dock).

Samsung HD103UJ (@300 or @150) works direct with the 10.3 drivers, but crashes in the Dock with either driver.

Hopefully we'll get a full fix someday, till then I can live with it - the rest of the laptop's fantastic

Update:
Now I run the E-Sata Cable directly to the data port of the hard drive (modified my own external box), any hard drive I put in works @150, several crash if set to 300.