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m4400 esata problems

Discussion in 'Dell Latitude, Vostro, and Precision' started by CruiseTown, Dec 17, 2009.

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  1. CruiseTown

    CruiseTown Notebook Enthusiast

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    Recently bought a Seagate Free Agent Xtreme 1.5TB External Hard Drive. It has an ESATA port on it. I managed to hook it up to my M4400 without any major problems. Transfer rates on ESATA were phenomenal. Sometimes even better than my notebook internal HDD.

    Problem with ESATA was that the OS (Win 7 64 bit) would stop recognizing the drive after a while. ie the drive would totally disappear. This would also happen if I put my computer on standby. If I reset or shutdown the computer would hang totally. If I switched the drive to USB, the problems would disappear.

    I have my BIOS set to IRRT and have loaded the 8.9 series of Matrix storage drivers (from Dells website). Does anyone have a similar problem with ESATA external HDDs or any idea how to fix this?



    M4400 BIOS A18
    Win 7 64 bit
    Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme
     
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Did you also install the Intel matrix storage manager software?

    If not, give it a try.

    John
     
  3. CruiseTown

    CruiseTown Notebook Enthusiast

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    I should have been more specific. Yes I did install both the apps and drivers
     
  4. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    How new is the HDD? This post suggests that there have been issues with the Freeagent + eSATA.

    I've not had any problems with the eSATA on my E6400 (also set to IRRT), but I usually only have the external HDD plugged in for long enough to do backups.

    Once you have checked out the Freeagent firmware issue, I suggest you investigate the Intel Matrix Storage Manager options. This should periodically poll the connected devices. Earlier this year that polling was the source of a lot of latency problems.

    Also check if there is a firmware update for the optical drive which is another device on the same system.

    And finally, check out the power options in Dell ControlPoint.

    I hope one of the above helps.

    John
     
  5. Nully

    Nully Notebook Enthusiast

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    I don't have probs with my 1 TB Freeagent Extreme (from spring 09) in AHCI mode & Win 7 x64 via Docking Station. BTW: I switched from Matrix Storage 8.9 to Rapid Storage 9.5.0 with no probs so far. I did have probs with a cheap 2,5'' eSata HD enclosure that froze my E6400 when plugged in. But don't you need to use AHCI mode for eSata support?
     
  6. CruiseTown

    CruiseTown Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thank you for all your suggestions. It seems that the Free Agent Xtreme line has its share of ESATA problems. Soon after I posted, my freeageent started clicking and I decided to return it to my retailer ASAP.

    I decided that the ESATA wasnt worth the hassle and decided to just get a regular USB WD My Book instead. Much slower but hopefully stabler!

    If anybody has ESATA problems, I think though Nully's solution is worth a try. ie going to AHCI vs IRRT.
     
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