The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    GX640 eSATA port doesn't work

    Discussion in 'MSI' started by gmikol, Apr 2, 2011.

  1. gmikol

    gmikol Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi all...new to the forum and new to MSI.

    I got a GX640 about 6 weeks ago, and I'm a huge fan of it. Special thanks to member Molius for the http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...clocking-undervolting-using-ccc-profiles.html thread.

    But the problem I'm having is with my combo eSATAp port. It works fine as a USB port, but when I try to connect an eSATA enclosure, I get nothing. It is not recognized by Windows 7, it is not recognized by the BIOS on boot (which I assume it would be). Completely unusable. The enclosure and drive works fine on my desktop machine.

    Here's the relevant specs:
    GX640
    i5-560
    8GB RAM
    Intel RST 10.1.0.1008

    I've got a support ticket in with the vendor (XoticPC), but it's the weekend, so I thought I'd try the forums as well.

    Any help is appreciated.
     
    gmikol, Apr 2, 2011
    #1
  2. NotEnoughMinerals

    NotEnoughMinerals Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    772
    Messages:
    1,802
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Are you feeding your enclosure power? The eSATA port on the GX640 might be passive eSATA so you need to provide your enclosure external power to get it to work.
     
    NotEnoughMinerals, Apr 2, 2011
    #2
  3. gmikol

    gmikol Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Yep...using the same external power brick on both machines. The enclosure doesn't support power-over-esata (that's what the GX640 has), so I make sure the enclosure is powered first, before I connect the eSATA cable.
     
    gmikol, Apr 2, 2011
    #3
  4. Molius

    Molius Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    23
    Messages:
    275
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hi,

    I've got external eSATA/USB hard disk and I've got no problems using eSATA.
    I just connect the eSATA cable and then connect the USB cable to adjacent port (to provide power). For me it's working just fine (and about twice as fast as over USB cable).

    However, I'd like to help somehow in your situation. For now, I can only assure you that on my GX640 the eSATA port is working fine (although it does not provide power over eSATA (my guess))
     
    Molius, Apr 3, 2011
    #4
  5. gmikol

    gmikol Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    That's good to hear. Just to confirm...there's no setting in BIOS or anything else that I need to enable?

    Since my enclosure is working on another machine, I'm starting to wonder whether the port is bad? The USB part of it works fine.

    Any other ideas anyone might have are welcome...

    --Greg
     
    gmikol, Apr 3, 2011
    #5
  6. gmikol

    gmikol Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Well, I contacted MSI support directly (big thumbs-down to XoticPC for not getting back to me).

    Turns out this is a common issue with MSI, due to the case preventing the cable from seating completely in the connector. They recommend making sure the metal plug part of an eSATA cable is at least 10mm. Who thinks to check that? And who has control over it when you're using the cable included with a given enclosure?

    http://service.msicomputer.com/html/popup/techsup/formviewer.asp?esoformid=2871

    Of course, I would have never thought to look in the FAQ, because it shouldn't be a FAQ.

    Anyway...problem resolved.

    --Greg
     
    gmikol, Apr 4, 2011
    #6