VPCZ12 freezing when inserting expresscard firewire adapter

Anyone here had experience using expresscards with the VPCZ1 series? I can boot mine with the card in (doesn't lock, which is kinda annoying), but if I try to hotplug it when the system's on, everything freezes. The same card hotplugs fine in my old Dell Inspiron e1505. Is there any BIOS or software setting that might affect this behavior? Thanks.

 

Yes, I have an eSATA expresscard which I use every day. It locks fine though, I'm wondering if the slot is broken. Did you try using some other expresscard and see if it works? I can both hotplug the card, or have it in before booting.

The only other reason I can think of is a driver issue. Did you check the device manager to check if there are any issues?

 

I have a AKE BC338 eSATA express card. Hotplug seems not to work, I have to put the card in either before booting or turn on and off sleep mode - after that the card is recognized. Very weird... If the card is recognized and shows up in the device manager, hot plug of an eSATA drive sometimes does not work, sometimes it does. When the card and the drive is recognized, it works perfectly - getting very decent transfer speeds and data is transfered without CRC errors.

I think there might be issues with either the card or with the Z's BIOS or stuff. Unfortunately, I do not have other cards to test.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have another card to test, either. Like i said, the card works fine in my other laptop, and when I boot with it in the Z, I do see the firewire ports, so it actually doesn't seem to be a driver issue in terms of registering the hardware, only allowing hotplugging. And, actually, I just went and plugged the card into my other laptop, which has an expresscard 54 slot, and that doesn't even have the spring-loaded lock, so the card sort of just slides in and out with a fairly positive "seated" feel. My impression was that the 34 slot seems like it should function like an SD slot, making that you have to depress the card again to remove it, but instead I have to depress the card to seat it and can then just pull it back out (a little to easily). Could be the card or the slot, I guess, although it clearly has the spring loading feel. The laptop's brand new, and it's my second go around with Sony (first had a crapped-out screen). Anyway, it may be that some cards allow hotplugging and some don't, and maybe some lock and some don't. This one is definitely a cheapo, although it has a TI chipset, which is why I got it (for an audio interface). If anyone knows more, please post.

 

Can you clarify what you mean by "turn on and off sleep mode?" You mean disable sleep and then enable it after a certain amount of time? I've already disabled "Allow wake timers," based on other things I've read in the forum.

 

Yeah I just manually go into sleep mode, wait until the green light blinks red and wake the computer up again. After that, the card/drive is going to be recognized.

 

yeah i have this freeze up thing after the vaio logo. if i plug in my android magic in there. if i remove the phone, it will be loading again even it stopped by the logo before.

i have the same problem with z47gd.

 

perhaps your computer tries to boot off the phone (usb mass mode?) or wants to recognize it. I guess this issue is more related to your phone. My Z is booting fine even when I have my HTC HD2 with android connected.