Asus G71V-Q1 - eSATA Question

I havent' been able to get the eSATA interface to work at all.

I've checked the BIOS and there are no options that I can see to turn it on.
I've got two eSATA type drives. One is a Thermaltake BlackX Dock. When I've turned it on, the drive isn't recognized and nothing really happens. The other is a 1.5TB Seagate in a ThermalTake Max4 HDD Enclosure. When I try to plug the drive in, the internal HDD indicators show that it is spinning and doing something, but the drive is never visible in Explorer. The Remove Hardware icon in systray doesn't show it as a drive either. I tried letting it run all night (in case it was indexing or doing something), but no joy there either.

I am at a loss. Any ideas? I would assume the solution would not be any different from any of the Asus G Series Laptops. Your help would be MUCH appreciated.

 

Most eSATA external drives will need an external power source (either from a USB or a power adapter). Try that and see if that solves the issue

 

It's a powered enclosure, so there is power going to it. Prior to having to rebuild the OS Drive, it was working with a USB connection, but I could never get the eSATA connection to work.

 

Have you tried plugging both the USB and eSATA cables to your computer?

 

I have not tried that, but that would kinda defeat the purpose of an eSATA connection though wouldn't it?

 

Not really, if eSATA and USB are detected at the same time, your external hard drive should use the eSATA as your main data transfer medium. The USB will just be there to provide additional "support" or power.

 

update. I plugged in my USB connections and it reads them just fine. I'm still NOT getting anything out of the eSATA connection at all.

I've checked Asus's Support Website and there aren't any new files available for this model.

 

On my G71V I had to install the Intel chipset drivers before e-sata worked correctly. You also MUST have either RAID or Enhanced mode selected as the mode of operation in the BIOS as compatibility mode does not support e-sata operation.

If changing from compatibility mode, make sure you enable AHCI in windows first (registry edit) or you will end up with a BSOD on boot, just change back, make the registry change and retry it.

 

I'll give that a try. Thanks!!

 

Well, I rebooted and checked BIOS and it was set to Enhanced. I rebooted again with the drive attached via eSATA and looked in BIOS. It recognized it this time so I'm good to go. Thanks for your help.

 

That's nice to know. Thanks for the info Qwakrz

 

David?where is the review?

 

I literally JUST submitted it to Andrew a few minutes ago
It should take a few days for the NBR admins to go over it and post it on the homepage and news/review forum

 

Hey capreppy,
Do you have a raid setup in your q1? Is it possible to make a raid setup with the enhanced mode set in bios?

 

You can make a raid setup in windows but it will be a software raid setup. To setup raid at the BIOS level you choose RAID and not enhanced as the drive type, this then enables the Intel Matrix Raid BIOS to create a raid array. The RAID driver supports all the features of the enhanced option but with the added RAID element.

 

You said you had to update the intel inf driver for you G71v? Maybe I do too. I wonder if that will help with my audio problem (posted as a new g71v owner on main asus forum). Where did you get your inf driver? Asus download site, or intel.com somewhere?

 

I just noticed your signature, Qwakrz. Is your G71v overclocked? I didn't know 1333 mhz fsb was possible. How did you do it?

 

DDR3-1333 is what it comes with. CPU-Z recognizes it as DDR2, but I've already opened her up to replace a bad primary HDD to determine Memory Chip Type.

As others have said, the INF can be found on the CD that comes with the remaining drivers (also had to do a complete refresh for obvious reasons).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. It does come with the Direct Console that other Asus models comes with. The Turbo Extreme (which sets the FSB) brings it up to 2.8 GHz.

I've been reading up on SetFSB and may give that a try. I'm running an NZT Cryo LX to help keep temps in check. I understand that 3.0 GHz is possible.

Has anyone been able to install the latest nVidia Drivers (180.70)? I've not been able to get it up and running. I assume I've got to find a modified .inf file, but haven't been able to locate one (although the driver says it supports the 9700M GT).

I come from an extensive Desktop Gaming background and am learning on the fly with the laptop world. Current Specs on Desktop: Q6600 @ 3.6 (50% OC), eVGA 8800GTX (well OC'd) and a 24" LG (19x12).