Port 0 / Sata III Speeds Dropping To Sata II Speeds

Poppycock! Balderdash! Is that Stan that told you that? If we have a SATA II option (I'm too lazy/busy to check right now), it is more likely to do with things like supply chain, pricing, etc. We support SATA III drives we qualified and shipped with the system, period.

See above...price points, supply chain under strain due to Thai flooding, all kinds of reasons.

 

Unless...Someone knows that there is a potential problem with the sata ports staying stable at sata 3 speeds. From what i get out this is that someone along the line has tested it and found it to have drop out issues. Pushed it along in lew of maybe a bios update to correct it later. Speculation of course.

Edit:
People would buy this...
Sata 3 Hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837

 

Nah, wasnt Stan...one of his colleagues, Anton.

I mailed him asking if he knew what would get shipped Sata-wise for new rigs with SSD's (as John had posted up a pic of the US website showing 3gbp/s and, well the UK site shows no info on it at all!) - so it was more like an "exercise" to find out what people get SSD wise, when they order.

Me being me, presumed that if you got a Sata III capable system, I presume that it comes with Sata III enabled SSD's (if you ordered 'em).

I got a response from him in email so if you want me to forward it to you, let me know.

 

Hey sevie, remember how long that list was last week? Take a look now...
ssd sata 3 - Dell - Search - All Dell.com

I concur. And that inclues an regular sata 3 hard drive as well. That would cover the other 95 percent of people who didn't want to spend the extra money.

 

Now it makes sense. If you take "pricing" under consideration, and the fact that marketing folks in regions have the "D" on what configurations are offered in their region, you might be able to assume the platform managers in EMEA would rather allocate configurations to other options instead of SATA III. This is pure speculation on my part. I'd have to kick off a big email chain to get the exact answer.

(Anton's an L2. A good one from what I can tell, but not an L3. They're all in Costa Rica, I believe.)

 

I see what you mean, Bill. It was the way his email was worded - basically implying that if "any" Sata III SSD was installed by the user or installed at factory, it would cause system instability.....which seemed quite an odd response for a Sata III capable system!

His response also seemed to indicate that regardless of the SSD's Sata Operation, it would run at Sata II speeds anyway......hmmmm....

 

He could be a victim of misinformation. I will forward him a couple of emails and help him get on message. Thanks for helping root it out for me.

 

Update I am still having problems with my OCZ in port1 now. Read speeds are up to 430mbs+ and write speeds are like 140mbs- ??? I am going to try drive in desktop sata3 and see what numbers I get.

 

Bill - below is another potential source of confusion about what Dell/Alienware sells for SSD drives in the M18x. Based on what is seen on the online configuration page, there is no incentive for a tech savvy buyer to purchase an SSD drive from Dell if the buyer believes they are going to receive a slower SATA-II drive in a SATA-III enabled system. Speaking for myself, I would never buy a SATA-II 3.0GB/s SSD from Dell if I were buying a SATA-III 6.0GB/s system.

If SATA-III is the standard for the M18x it should be correctly advertised as such. Also, knowing the brand and/or drive controller (Marvel, Sandforce, etc.) is important to many buyers. Providing accurate information on the order configuration might boost sales and avoid having technical problems created when aftermarket parts are installed by the end user. If the SATA-III 6.0GB/s SSD drives offered by Dell are priced competitively and the specs are correctly presented, I cannot help but think that many customers (myself included) would buy a turn-key M18x directly from Alienware that needs no parts swapped out after delivery.

 

What program are you using to test?

 

Cystaldiskmark will upload a pic when I get to work. I was getting 170+ on sata2 speeds on my m17xr2

 

Weird....alot of the Sata III drives now are "out of stock" for some reason.......is it me or is it just the sandforce based sata III drives? - the Kingston SSD now drives use a Toshiba controller, afaik - they seem to be the only Sata III drives available....the latest Kingston HyperX drives use Sandforce and are "out of stock"......the plot thickens! LOL

Obviously, I could be barking up the wrong tree and it is all speculatory at best.....just seems odd - on that list, I dont think there is ONE sandforce based Sata III SSD available to buy.......coincidence?

 

Hey bro. It appears to me that you are most definitely running faster than SATA-II speeds. Here is what I just cranked out of my Crucial M4. Your results Sequential Read/Write speeds are not very far off. You could have this amount of variance based on factors other than the SATA Port1 operation.

 

Sounds good.

Im with you...all speculations at best...And yes... The plot thickens...

Ya darn (hope that's a safe word to use - lol) show off

 

No captures? We need those to get an issue opened and assigned to engineering. I was hoping to have 2 in the works by Friday afternoon.

 

If I had a system with a Dell issue SSD with the problem, I woulda been ya man, Bill. Actually, even if I had been ya man for capture, I couldnt have been ya man as I am in the UK.....dya get me, man? LOL

Seriously, its great that Dell/Bill want to do a capture so I am hoping that someone who "fits Bill's Bill" will step up to the plate....soon!

 

here mine on port1 sorry DellBill in AUS and its an aftermarket drive. I think many m18x owners would have sourced a SSD after purchase.

 

Just diggin' around (as I love to do!) and, well...the SSD's used by Dell in the M18x are all non-sandforce based drives...the PM810 uses Samsung's own "in-house" controller and the Liteon uses Marvel.

So, could it be that there is "trouble at' mill" when trying to use a sandforce based Sata III drive with HM67?

 

Same here.

Edit:
Well that would not be good brother stevie!

 

I think you are 100% right. I wouldn't pay Dell's SSD prices with my employee discount, TBH. But, then again, here'd I'd be with no warranty support for this issue and hoping Dell can reproduce it on their hardware and the fix works for me too.

I think you're onto something there.

 

Bill, if that "is" the case (long way to go to be sure) but that would obviously mean any system capture would be kind of a futile exercise to "reproduce", right? - as any Dell issue SSD would be non-sandforce. Seems to be the case that guys using Sata III non-sandforce drives dont have drop-out.

What's the likelihood you guys would actually test out with non-Dell issue SSD's? - as a matter of interest....or maybe toss in a non-sandforce sata III drive into a system Dell have to test, and then test out the same rig with a Sata III sandforce based one?

Just random thinking on my behalf....

EDIT: I also appreciate what you said above ^^^^^ about Dell warranty....invaluable. I also owe you some rep too, for your honest opinion, my friend.

 

And considering that all the sandforce based drives are out of stock as well...

 

Our willingness to test the 3rd party drive would not be at issue. The issue with the hardware itself would come if we tested it and had to spend money or engineering cycles to work with the vendor to get them update their firmware. It's more appropriate for the vendor to go out and purchase our hardware and make theirs work on it. It's more likely if the problem were very pervasive, which it's not, we'd go out and buy the affected hard drives ourselves and investigate.

Besides, there's no way to get you reimbursed for your drive. You'd have to be willing to let it go, and even then Dell Legal would probably have issues with our taking something from a customer without a binding agreement of compensation.

 

Thanks for the response Bill....I can see where you are coming from regards to Dell's view on third party drives. If this is truly a "relationship problem" between sandforce (controller) and intel (HM67), its a bind for Dell.

For the consumer, it ends up being "chicken and the egg" scenario....basically waiting around to see which party will test out and take ownership of the problem. If indeed this is the case, you can see how much grief its gonna cause.....

I just hope its something that can be addressed at a level where owners of ANY ssd arent left hanging....or "dropping" as the case may be.

 

The overall results really are actually pretty decent, Dan. I think you are running at SATA-III 6.0GB/s judging from your benchmark. The question would be if it does so consistently and does not drop like it does on John's system.

Seems the Sandforce controller might be the common denominator with HM67 issues...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/601231-compatability-ocz-vertex-3-ssd-sager-np8150.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...1hm1-intel-320-vs-crucial-m4.html#post7912419

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/70692-35-compatibility

 

So far no drop outs on port1 but i am going to sell this drive and buy a 256gb nonsandforce SSD. maybe 2 and run raid 0 maybe the wife will get me one for christmas

 

Darn, I might have to do the same if this new machine gets to acting funny. I bought 2 maxiops drives to run raid 0. And all my backup stuff is stored on an esata drive.

 

Just letting everyone know that so far...6gb is rock solid. WoooHooo.
1: still using the same exact drives as last time.
2: same exact os install from the returned unit.
3: same over clocked bios


Man! Im a happy camper!!

 

Are you running two Vertex 3 SSD's Raid0 and no drop outs. What drive firmware are you running and can you post crystalmark pic

 

Vertex 3 MaxIops

 

That's good news John, well happy for you - hope it stays like that, eh?

 

Man, so far so good. This machine has surpassed my last one.

 

OT but, I'm hoping the same happens when my latest one lands....

Weird though....if your drives are working good now, that points to a flaw in the board on your returned system, right? - surely if it were a Sandforce thing, they just wouldnt work at all 100% of the time - now you have a different mobo, they are working! ODD!!!

 

They have been working for the last 4 hours. All is good n da' hood!

 

If I have any external USB storage connected - doesn't seem to matter if it's USB 1, 1.1, 2 or 3, and doesn't seem to matter which USB port I have it plugged into - Port 0 drops to 3Gb/s.

I sometimes see it drop to 3Gb/s even without external USB storage, but I am often using USB for other devices too. I currently can't pin down when it happens even if I have no external storage connected, but it is intermittent.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I thought it might shed a bit more light on where the issue might be.

 

That is outstanding good news!!!

I know Dell-Bill_B is keeping tabs on this thread, so this is relevant. Thanks for posting it, and I agree that it may shed some light.

 

14 hours later and it's still working fine and dandy.
Going to have to say it's the motherboard.

 

Well, it's good news and bad news. Good because it appears to be a limited scope issue that affects only a few systems. Good that because "Dell Cares" they had your back (like they always do for us). Only bad in that you had another issue that needed to be resolved, and that took so long to do it. I guess this is an example of killing two birds with the same stone.

I'm so glad you're back in business, brother John. Let the games begin!

 

Thanks Brother Fox.

And can't complain at all. This system is running super rock solid so far.

 

I guess its a mix of good and bad...good for Brother John, bad for anyone who is STILL an owner of a "possible" faulty mobo .... lookin' back thru the thread, Amo had a swap out and that fixed his initial Sata dropout issue...I guess it really does point to that....unless Bill & Team Dell have different news for us.

 

You see what i did.
Took my no working setup out of the old laptop and put it in the new one. I didnt have to do anything different. Sata 3 worked perfectly. and is still working.

 

That's pretty interesting.

 

I did not get any takers, and we are unable to reproduce the issue on our hardware with Dell qualified drives (code for ones we sold with the system). So we are at an impasse.

 

All I can say Bill is...Mine is working with out a hitch. So basically we can say I did the system capture for you. . I took the same os and drives out of the non working system and place them in a brand new system. And they worked fine. I even flashed the bios a few times to be sure. And they still work. Going to have to put it on the MB, but it could be a programming glitch to drop the speed for lower power consumption. Who knows...

 

Thanks for the update Bill. Shame there were no takers for the capture - I can only put that down to the majority of owners buing their SSD's elsewhere (due to pricing) and obviously, you could only test Dell Issue systems.

I should be getting my replacement tomorrow, I dont know which drives it will have but rest assured, if they are Sata III 6gbp/s drives, I will be closely monitoring them for the problem. If it does exist, my system will be a Dell SSD based one.....I'd volunteer a capture but I know, logistically, it may not be possible with me being in the UK.

Will see what gives anyhow......

 

Awesome! Must let us know how it goes.
"Annie" (1982) - Tomorrow - YouTube

 

Updated Anne
Tomorrow, from Annie, sung by 15 yr. old boy - YouTube

 

Now Stevie will have that stuck in his head when he goes to sleep in a few hours. Nice. High five (in Borat voice).

 

You guys are just cruel givin' me those mental images right before bedtime lmao!.....tell ya' , it better be a good rig otherwise, I could be doing something like this

 

You mean more like this