Port 0 / Sata III Speeds Dropping To Sata II Speeds

interesting find;

the intel chipset is to blame for the port and speed issues. on desktop platforms they issued motherboard replacements. not sure what they did on mobile platforms.

Intel Sandy Bridge chipset flaw identified as a rogue transistor affecting SATA ports

 

I responded in another thread where you posted the same thing. It's a non-issue and unrelated to this. I also affected only the SATA-2 ports, not the two SATA-3 ports. See below...

 

i think the m18x arrived at the same time dell made that announcement, actually. around march was when the system was shipping with the 6970 gpu's. summer of 2011 is when i ordered my system with the 6990 gpu's. the m18x motherboards could have been assembled with the defective intel chipsets and sitting for some time before the m18x official release. it is ironic, it seems. even if only the sata 2 speed ports were affected, the m18x R1 ports are sata 2 AND sata 3 capable. i mean, there has to be a relation here.

 

The SATA-2 and SATA-3 ports on Sandy Bridge are discrete and unrelated to one another. This is also explained in one of the articles that you posted a link to. There isn't a relation between them. I believe you either haven't resolved the cause yet (by tinkering with the BIOS or getting a replacement SATA cable that has the same problem as the original) or your motherboard is one of the few that surfaced that needs to be replaced. That is what this thread is about. Johnksss had to get his motherboard replaced to fix the problem and it never came back. He still has the M18xR1 going strong. This problem has not appeared for the vast majority of M18xR1 systems, just a few. There may be some folks that are using SATA-2 HDDs that are totally oblivious to a problem, but anyone running SATA-3 SSD will likely identify the drop in performance and there have been few examples in this community.

 

HI People,

Joined a while ago due to the great quality information to be found on these forums

Anyone have a part number i can use to replace the Sata cable/board on m18x r1?

So im posting in here as i am having the same problem others are having, just bought my first SSD for this machine a 512GB Samsung 850 Pro as my boot drive. It will only run at 3Gb/s on port 0, 6Gb/s on Port 1. Areadly done the LPM patch. However it won't boot if in Port 1 if a hdd is in port 0!! swap it around so the SSD is in Port 0 and Hdd is in Port 1 and it boots... (boot order in bios goes from showing secondary hdd to just 2x Hard drive.)

Running Bios A05 Unlocked, Disabled Aggressive LPM is Bios.




Any suggestion or ideas are most welcome. seeing as how my current position at work is not exactly well paying.... i cannot afford to replace said laptop at the moment. However i may consider the upgrade solution to a R2.....

 

Welcome to the community. We are glad you joined us.

It certainly looks like you have tried the right things to remedy the situation already, so it is a really good chance that the SATA interposer cable is causing the problem.

The part number is 9JP9M.

You can find a link to a part number list in the opening post of this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...fficial-m18x-r1-r2-owner-s-lounge-thread.html

 

Hi People,

Ordered the part $55 AUD

Also got a quote on the upgrade to R2.
using the part numbers on: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/691062-m18x-r1-upgrade-m18x-r2-motherboard-3.html#post9018641

$715 AUD

Will let you know if the sata cable fixes it if not it will be r2 time.

 

hello,


I recently got a second ssd (dual evos 840 1 tb) in raid 0 on the Sata 6gbps Ports (sata 3) I am one of the lucky ones that have this particular problem.

I keep reading that the motherboard needs to be replaced. is there a easier way to have dell send me the motherboard replacement ????? I cant imagine me trying to explain this problem to them. they will probably wanna send my laptop to the depot and i don't wanna go that route.


Luckily i have Accidental damage too for another 2 years so i am covered.

how can i get dell to send me a replacement mobo?

thanks

 

You do not want to waste AD on this repair. They should know about it. They had enough complaints about it. Or you can get a hold of one of the reps on here and they can help get this going.

 

Thanks Brother Johnksss


Any suggestion on a rep ??? I would rather contact someone thru here... I hate to keep on explaining myself over and over to the tech support. as you know some of them don't have an idea of this problem.

 

Guys,

okay so I contacted dell/alienware tech support. I got a motherboard approved, but they don't want me to install it myself. the rep said that the dell technician will need to install it. I really don't want any of those techs(no offense but most of them haven't even seen this laptops before)
is there anyway to work around this? Thanks

 

I know this answer is late, but....
You can always take control of the situation once the tech gets there. give him or her some coffee or a soda, while you swap the parts.

 

Definitely do what johksss suggested if they haven't already been there.

If you're worried they might want to argue about letting you do it, just have it completely dismantled before their arrival so they no longer have anything to say about it. Unless you get lucky with a tech that really knows the machine as well as we do, they won't be hesitant about letting you reassemble a machine they did not see assembled. They will feel lost and not know where to start, LOL. If you get one that's really talented, has lots of experience with Alienware laptops, and cares about other people's machines as much as he does for his own, then there is nothing to worry about. There are some out there like that, but not very many. The tech that used to work in my area was like that. He was even more gentle than I am with my beasts.

 

Just make sure they do not make such mistakes: As example, clean the heatsink with a screwdriver. :cry:
View attachment 116809

 

C'mon now, papusan... You know those grooves are there to improve air circulation between the die and heat sink.

 

The technician did such a good job that I started crying, :cry: I was impressed with his untiring effort to get and clean the heatsinks .. I am very fond in this Picture (LOVE IT), it reminds me that this was the last time a technician allowed to fix my Alienware laptop, without me being present and getting permission and fix it myself though. This picture made ​​me realized that I will always fix things myself.
I just love this picture. LOL

It was very fascinating and watch the temperature of my processor increased so rapidly during Cinebench 11.5 test. I had never seen anything like this before. With the famous fan profile from Dell, and the equally famous chartered engineer, I did not have to put on the heaters inside my house when I tested my Alienware. It was too hot inside the houses, I had to open all the windows. ( NOT window in Windows) :laugh:

 

so.... I replaced my motherboard. and it was all for nothing! I still have the sata speed problem.


This really sucks. I so wanna run raid on my dual 840 evos.... i dont know what else to do.


any ideas?

 

It's funny, alienware seems to have had issues with samsung drives in the past too if I remember correctly.

 

This really sucks, Hopefully someone here can find a fix for this issue.... i dont really feel like replacing the motherboard again and having the same issue..... any help would be appreciated...


What about Dell/Alienware?? are they even doing anything to fix this? I mean, we are supposed to have 2 sata III connectors and they should work propertly... its like not getting what we payed for. If this is a know issue they should have some kinda recall..

Hopefully we can figure something out.... My problem is when i try to use both ports of Sata III on raid 0 array. thats the reason i bought a second SSD and i cant even get it to work.

 

Im running samsung 840s. Been running them for a long time without issue. Ran them on my first board and had issue after issue till the board was replaced. You might need to look at the revision number of the board they gave you. That could be the problem. I dont have mine apart so i cant tell what revision this board is.

 

oh man.... I think im gonna have to order another board again.....

 

It use to drive me up a wall!!!! I tried two boards before i got this one that worked.

 

john,
So you are running your 840s on raid 0 on ports 1 and 0 (the top and bottom ) is this correct?