P-7811 FX problems - eSata connector and DVD indicator not working

Hi everybody. I've been reading notebookreview for a long time, but this is my first post in here.

About a month ago I've bought P-7811 FX, refurbished one, on eBay. I'm generally very happy about it, it's fast and looks good, but there are two things that bothers me.

First - esata port is not working. Every time I connect the drive through sata-esata cable, nothing happens. Zero, null, nada. No new device detected in device manager, just silence. It looks like this connector is just a dummy, and not even connected to the motherboard. I'm currently using WinXp, but under original Vista it was exactly the same. Does anyone have problems like this? Or maybe your drives are working fine with it? Is this a reason to RMA the laptop? I've contacted Gateway support, but they told that I must ensure that I'm connecting esata drive, as ordinary sata drives will not work. Don't they know that esata drives are just sata hdds in external enclosures? My hdds connected through an external expresscard Sil3132 based esata controller works just fine. Laptop BIOS version is 9C.05.00.

Second thing - dvd status indicator don't work. DVD status is signalized by... hdd indicator. It just looks like dvd and hdd are connected together to one indicator, which makes dvd and hdd activity indistinguishable. Is that normal in this model, or maybe it's only my piece?

Thanks for reading and sorry for my crappy English.

 

eSATA doesn't work under WinXP with this laptop, at least not in ide compatability mode, but quite possibly not in ahci either (no one has tested it in AHCI mode that I'm aware of, mine is setup in AHCI but I don't have an esata device to test with). Some people have also reported that the eSATA connector is too "deep" in the casing of the laptop and some connectors won't engage far enough into the laptop to make a connection if they have a large "shoulder" right after the electrical connection. I thought the DVD had a light on its face, but I believe the keyboard indicator is just hard drive and optical, i dont think there is a seperate light on the palm rest for just the optical drive.

 

Mavus, you must have seen the CD activity light on other Gateway models. You're right, the order on the palm rest below the mousepad used to go like this

Wifi light____Capslock light_____Numlock light_____CD light_____HDD light

but now that CD light is gone for whatever reason. It doesn't work on any of the new FX notebooks. I don't think it's supposed to either, I've asked a lot of questions about it and never got an answer. But rest assured, it's not just a problem with your notebook.

 

Big Mike: mine is working in AHCI mode, too. I'll try to fiddle around with it under my other os, Win7 beta, but I'm prettty sure it won't change anything, because I think exactly what you wrote - this port is too deep in casing, and the cable looks like it doesn't have proper connection. I'll try to take the casing off my next esata cable, which is underway from eBay.

Jakamo5: yes, that's the exact order in which these indicators should go according to the laptop manual. It's good to hear that it's not a problem with my notebook and that the rest is exactly the same. Although gateway support offered me warranty repair for this. And they still insist that esata hdd's are very different than sata.

 

Yeah some people have had luck using a knife or similar to shave some material off behind the electrical connector to get the cables to seat into the machine further. If you are able to get one working and it works in XP give us a shout back, I'd be more apt to buy an esata enclosure if i knew it would work in XP.

 

UPDATE:

Finally the cable arrived (took long coz by mistake I've bought esata-esata one ), and of course it didn't work, as expected. So I cut some plastic off the plug, right now it looks like this:

​

And... voila! It works! New device found, my third external disk is now eSata too.

​

Interesting thing is that the burst speed transfer reported by HDTach is now almost twice as fast compared to my expresscard Sil3132 based eSata controller:

Sil3132 external controller


Gateway integrated controller​

It doesn't affect the hdd speed in any way, but interesting nonetheless.


Cable can be unplug and plug again while system is working, and everything works perfectly, hdd is recognised every time. Its operation is signalised by the same led indicator as the internal disk. Checked under Windows XP Prof SP3 x86 and Server 2003 x86, both in AHCI mode.

 

Yeah I forgot to post back myself, I ended up getting an ESATA enclosure and it works for me too. Glad you got it straightened out.