X220: mSATA not possible with i7 and USB3.0

They can't as the mSATA SSD isn't being recognized.

 

At a German Thinkpad Forum on guy from a big German hardware reseller confirms that there are indeed problems with mSATA on some devices. If there's a problem, it's a problem of the whole batch. On other batches mSATA works without any glitches.
At them moment, there's no other way to check which ones are fine and which ones have faulty mSATA than installing a mSATA drive.

 

thats stupid... I hope lenovo will do something

 

There are usually batch numbers on the notebooks or some other identifying marker. Did he specify which batches were affected and if there is some commonality between the various people having trouble recognizing mSATA SSDs? I'll be really pissed if my X220 that I ordered wouldn't be able to detect the mSATA SSD that I ordered for it.

 

They're still trying to find any pattern. At the moment there seems no relation between serial number, batch and mSATA capability. He confirms that only 4290-W4H are affected. But, as said before, they can't reliable identify if a device is affected or not without installing a mSATA drive.

 

Are they sure that the issue is limited to 4290-W4H models? My invoice says 4286-CT.

 

I smell a recall.

 

I've now spoken to 5 customer service reps at Lenovo and nobody has been willing to help or provide any information

 

That's only what they can say from the models they have available. As they a are a German supplier, they only have 4290-bases, not 4286. But the problem appears to be base independent anyway.


Edit: I went for an i5 in the end. Need the machine asap, so can't wait for an i7-fix.

 

Frankly with 80 GB mSata drives about the same price as 120 GB 2.5 inch drives I didn't even think about it and added a 120 GB to Drive 0 slot.

If they come down in price to the 1.80/GB I paid than maybe I will try and add one.

Perry

 

Well, for me it is a now-brainer to use mSata + HDD as I need the storage space...

 

mine is a 4286

 

I thought at least a few people reported the same problem with their i5 as well.

 

+1

 

They build it in and test it. So no surprises...(I hope)

 

This problem only counts when using an mSATA drive next to a regular hdd right? Or also when replacing the regular hdd by a SSD drive?

 

no problems have been reported on replacing the regular hdd by a ssd drive... the problem is with the msata port.

 

Wow, the delights of buying a brand new model. Whiney fan, i7 throttling, msata problem. Where will it end?

Wasn't planning on buying a msata card for a few months (not in stock yet anyway) but this is making me want to test it out asap .

 

@all: Lenovo is collecting information about this on their forums and requesting that you post your experience there. It looks hard to pin down - some working, some not...

X220 with USB3.0, no mSata SSD possible ? - Lenovo Community

 

So I just tried installing my Intel 310 in my new i5-2420 and it's not showing up in the BIOS. I wanted to check and make sure I didn't do anything wrong.

- I installed the drive as described in the manual. It was pretty straightforward, barring what to do with the wires that were in the way. Everything seemed to go fine.

- Bios is set to AHCI (or whatever it's called) and Dual UEFI/Legacy. I tried UEFI only but nothing.

- I flashed the BIOS to 1.17 just to see. Nada.

Is there anything else I should check? I'm about to try to remove and reinstall the drive just to make sure.

 

Did you go into Admin Svcs in Control Panel and initialize the drive?

Other than that you should be good.

I ordered a Intel 310 today (80 GB was in at Provantage) and my X220 is in Louisville so will check it out late next week.

If it doesn't work I can either sell the 310 as hard as they are to get or can put it in the W520 but for the life of me, I can't see why any laptop needs 3 SSDs.

 

It's not showing up in the BIOS, so it's not going to show up in Windows.

I removed and reinserted the drive and it's still not showing up. It was in there pretty snugly so I don't think it's user error in that department. This makes me sad.

 

I've got a 4286CTO with 2.5GHz i5-2520M and didn't have any trouble with the Intel 310 mSATA so this seems completely random.

 

Well poop. I guess I'll try to get the 310 swapped out and see if that helps. :-/

 

Out of curiosity, is anybody having this problem with a drive that ISN'T an Intel 310 80gb?

 

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: I have not been able to get the mSATA drive to work and I’m not sure why but here are my thoughts.

I have an X220T model: 4294 (that’s a tablet i7 with NO USB 3.0) I bought a Renice X3 mSATA ( Renice 120GB K3VLAR 50mm SandForce mSATA SSD | My Digital Discount) to install and have 2 hard drives, well that was the plan. The mSATA is not recognized; I made many changes in the BIOS with no luck.

My drive happened to come with a SATA adapter, so using the adapter I was able to replace the factory drive and have it show up in the BIOS (also was able to format and fully use the drive in this manner) but I was never able to get the BIOS to see it when installed as mSATA.
Looking around the web makes me wonder if the pins are different on the drives or on the motherboards, I know Renice has 2 exact same drives just with different pin layouts (from all my research I’m almost sure I got the right one) also a few sites reference this ( | Blog | Renice X3 Series 50mm mSATA Mini SATA ).

If anyone has any thoughts on this please let us know.

 

I think you are the first one who has this problem with the X220T. I think the X220 and X220T have a completely different motherboard, so it might be some rare incompatibility (with what?).

The drive you bought should be working - from the description I can't see why it should not.

 

I have received a report from a customer that his 64GB mSATA MyDigitalSSD is not working in his x220 with this configuration.

IBM Lenovo X220
CPU - i7-2720
Machine type - 4286CTO
BIOS 1.17

Before I saw this thread I thought the SSD may be defective.

Hope this info helps you guys fight with Lenovo to figure this problem out.

 

Okay, this is really starting to irk me since I have the same 4286-CT configuration and a lot of people are reporting mSATA drive incompatibilities. Lenovo better come back with some kind of explanation for this.

 

I am also looking for a mSATA for my i7...

IBM Lenovo X220
CPU - i7-2720
Machine type - 4290
BIOS 1.17

Anyone is encountering problems with installing a SSD mSATA drive, with this machine type?

Thanks in advance!

 

That is the machine I originally wanted to buy (with 4290 base) and it did not work. I don't think anyone can give you a definite answer at the moment. Either you buy it where your seller fits the mSATA and tests it, or you do it yourself and then it's trial and error.

 

Oh drats... I am not sure even if the Intel 310 mSATA is out in Singapore! The only way that I can think of is to order 1 from USA and have my cousin handcarry it back to me in 2 wks time. US$199+ is definitely hard to swallow "just" to try it!

 

I sort of figured thaat if my Renice 120 GB SSD doesn't get detected in mSATA mode, then I'll just hook it up to the SATA adapter that it came with and swap out the original hard drive with the SSD. Obviously, the mSATA and HDD combo is preferable, but if it came down to one or the other, 120 GB should be enough for my purposes.

 

Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD Review – A New Way To Look at Notebooks! | The SSD Review Read this, could this be your issues? On my EP121 I can use the Intel 310 in the drive bay, but it won't work in the wifi slot. Hope this helps. Also, perhaps this link will help? Intel's 310 Series SSDs Are an Eighth the Size of Their Predecessors I will go and do some research on the Lenovo, since I am not familiar with it and see it this could be the issue.

 

Looking at the options to buy, through the Lenovo site, it only allows me to pick 1 drive, either a HDD or one of 2 ssd's. I don't see anything that would suggest your wifi slot will be Sata. If in fact this is the case, that is why it is not recognized. AnandTech points out that it's Intel's first mSATA SSD: "physically a mini PCIe connector (similar to what you'd see with a WiFi card in a notebook) but electrically SATA."

 

The X220 supports mSATA officially. Look at the datasheet... Dozens of people use the mSATA drive successfully. This thread is about an incompatibility that affects some machines.

 

Yep, this just looks like a motherboard quality problem in a certain batch. People have been having this problem only recently.

 

The mSATA slot in Thinkpads is the WWAN slot, not the wifi slot. See sig, it works fine for most of us.

 

I didn't find anything in just a couple of minutes showing you could use 2 drives together, but just now I see in Vinuneuro's sig that he is running a ssd with a hdd. I looked on the Lenovo site and didn't see anything showing a configuration with 2 drives. Disregard my above posts. When the ep121 came out a lot of people tried to use a msata in their wifi slot, but it isn't supported. Well, if it is a MB issue, I would imagine from everything I have heard about Lenovo that they will take care of it. They seem to have amongst the best support, at least from what I have seen. Very strange issue. Good luck, and I will be following to see how it is resolved.

 

any progress on this? it is outrageous that lenovo hasnt done anything

 

My Intel mSSD doesn't work in my new i5 2520. No luck. Anxiously awaiting a fix. Very dissapointing, I may return the x220 if there is not a fix very soon.

 

Anyone having problems, please post in the official Lenovo forum thread, which I believe is linked on the first page of this thread. The more people reporting the problem and their specs, the easier it will be for them to figure it out!

Thanks!!

Link is here - http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Serie...with-USB3-0-no-mSata-SSD-possible/td-p/447781

 

Just wanted to say that pair of i5 and Intel mSata SSD 80gb works smoothly for me. My configuration is 4290RV5 (one of the official configs there in Russia).

 

Count one in for not working with an mSATA SSD.

4286CTO configuration with Renice Kevlar X3 120GB mSATA SSD and it's not detected in BIOS, unless there's a setting somewhere that I missed that enables mSATA detection or something.

I really hope this is a BIOS issue and not a hardware issue...I'm loving the laptop so far but one of the reasons why I got it so I can have two drives, one mSATA SSD and the other HDD for storage.

 

What BIOS does yours have? Mine was 1.12 and it works. It seems like most that don't work are higher than this. I wonder if I updated the BIOS to 1.16 if it would suddenly stop working. I'm not about to try it though.

 

I am on BIOS 1.16, but is it safe to flash BIOS backwards to a previous version?

 

Does anyone with this problem have a GOBI 3000? It would be very interesting to see if the WWAN module will work and the mSata wouldn't.

I would think it is very possible that the WWAN would not work either.
'

 

I flashed 1.11, 1.12, 1.15, 1.16 and 1.17 today. Went backwards and forwards and nothing made a difference.

 

The supplier who discovered the issue tried WWAN modules in the laptops where the mSATA did not work. Result: WWAN works, mSATA does not.

They also tried all BIOS versions. So at least up unto 1.17 it can't be fixed with BIOS.

 

Maybe the USB 3.0 controller is using the PCI-E lane?

EDIT: Derp. Looks like it was already suggested.