eSATA - Bad Connector Design

Alastair Brown · June 1st, 2009, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Rickert

I was wary of this as well, but was able to cut at least half the risk out, by buying a E-sata to Sata cable and then threading the cables into my case and directly onto the sata slots of my motherboard. My case has little rubber gromits where water-cooling tubes can be inserted, but they're perfect for the cables.

Still no solution. I think this is the best solution so far. The lead i showed on the very first post is actually what you need for this setup SATA with spring lock at one side, and eSATA with precious little locking at the other end. So...at least one end will be held firm inside the pc and retained somewhat by the grommits. All you have to rely on for the eSATA side are the tiny spring blips shown in the attached picture.

Best I can offer is to (with the cable unplugged!) carefully tease these out just a little, so that you have a fraction more tension to hold the plug in situ.

Alternatively, make a little L bracket up from a piece of right angled plastic and put some heavy duty double side tape on it to then stick/hold/brace the cable in place.

Anyone else found anything else?

Terry Esslinger · June 1st, 2009, 06:18 PM

I have given up trying to get the ESATA connection on my Dell to work. Would never recognize anything connected to it. Bought an eSATA board and put it in the 435 and I now can run my eSATA external drive (both of them).

Jeff Harper · June 1st, 2009, 09:53 PM

What kind of card did you buy Terry? Adaptec?

Sam Renkin · June 1st, 2009, 09:59 PM

Sorry I've been absent for a couple of months, but I wanted to report that the eSATA connection on my replacement Dell Studio XPS is working properly. I was never certain if the problem was my eSATA connector, the eSATA cable or my eSATA 1TB external drive, but after replacing all of them it works.

Now if I could just get Vegas 8.1 to work on my 64-bit machine, that would be something. 8.0 runs fine on it.

Jeff Harper · June 1st, 2009, 10:04 PM

Don't feel badly Sam. I could never get 8.1 to work properly for me either.

It was really sad to find that the 64 bit version of 9 isn't worth much on my PC either, but there are others for whom it works fine.

Alastair Brown · June 10th, 2009, 11:19 PM

Wee question for any of you Dell XPS users that were reading this thread. Have you noticed that your internet connection seems to hang every time the eSATA drive spins up/down from a hibernate state?

Jeff Harper · June 11th, 2009, 12:42 AM

Alastair, you might go into Windows and change the power settings to not turn off your hard drives after 20 minutes if you haven't already.

I had same issue with external esata drives and that fixed it for me.

Alastair Brown · June 25th, 2009, 03:19 PM

Was STILL getting it even after that. Ended up going even further into the advanced power settings and setting the Allow Hybrid Sleep to OFF. So far....seems to have worked.

Terry Esslinger · June 25th, 2009, 06:08 PM

Jeff,
Better late than never :>)
Yes, it was an Adaptic card and it is still working, but not without some kinks. I have to have the eSATYA drive booted up (turned on) when I boot up my computer or the puter freezes on boot up. Its still upsetting that Dell would sell me a computer with an eSATA port that would not work and they can't even fix it.

Jeff Harper · June 25th, 2009, 09:00 PM

Terry, I don't know the reason why, but with eSata drives I have found, regardless of the controller used, that the drives connected to eSata controllers must be powered on prior to windows being booted up or the drives will not be seen. So this is how it is "supposed" to be.

These drives/controllers are not hot pluggable as USB and Firewire are, at least not the ones that I've had.

Matt Vanecek · June 25th, 2009, 09:18 PM

I've always been able to hot-swap eSATA drives. The only issue I've ever had was on a Toshiba laptop--the drive needed to be initialized and formatted before Vista 64 would see the drive--but that caused the whole thing to lock up regardless of the drive being on. Just initialized/formatted it on a different computer...

eSATA is *supposed* to be hot-swappable, and for me, it always has been, across Abit and Asus motherboards, and an Sil3132 card.

Thanks,
Matt

Jeff Harper · June 25th, 2009, 09:41 PM

Actually since you mention it I guess they are as long as their is a drive powered up and connected at boot up, then you can switch them. If no drive is powered up and connected atwindows boot up then the controller bios aren't loaded and you can't then expect to see a drive that is hooked up after boot up is done.

Alastair Brown · June 26th, 2009, 12:20 AM

Mine behaves itself in that respect. I can power it up after boot up and swap drives at will. My problem was the every time the drive went into/came out of hibernate (you heard it spin down/up) the PC would go sluggish and the internet connection would just hang/freeze.

Terry Esslinger · June 29th, 2009, 12:34 PM

An update on my ESata situation. After reading Jeffs post I decided to retry my built in eSata but by powering up the drive before booting up the computer. Low and Behold IT WORKED. I now have my ESata connected to the bulit in port rather than the added card AND IT IS WORKING. I could have sworn we tried that before we replaced mother board but maybe not. Any way, it seems to be working. Now I have 2 extra ESata ports.

Jeff Harper · June 29th, 2009, 12:44 PM

Yes Terry, if the bios for the card aren't loaded with the drive already powered up then the drive won't be seen. Glad it's working for you now.

June 1st, 2009, 06:18 PM	#17
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	I have given up trying to get the ESATA connection on my Dell to work. Would never recognize anything connected to it. Bought an eSATA board and put it in the 435 and I now can run my eSATA external drive (both of them). __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

June 25th, 2009, 06:08 PM	#24
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	Jeff, Better late than never :>) Yes, it was an Adaptic card and it is still working, but not without some kinks. I have to have the eSATYA drive booted up (turned on) when I boot up my computer or the puter freezes on boot up. Its still upsetting that Dell would sell me a computer with an eSATA port that would not work and they can't even fix it. __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

June 29th, 2009, 12:34 PM	#29
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	An update on my ESata situation. After reading Jeffs post I decided to retry my built in eSata but by powering up the drive before booting up the computer. Low and Behold IT WORKED. I now have my ESata connected to the bulit in port rather than the added card AND IT IS WORKING. I could have sworn we tried that before we replaced mother board but maybe not. Any way, it seems to be working. Now I have 2 extra ESata ports. __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

June 1st, 2009, 09:53 PM	#18
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	What kind of card did you buy Terry? Adaptec?

June 1st, 2009, 09:59 PM	#19
Sam Renkin Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Atlanta GA Posts: 211	Sorry I've been absent for a couple of months, but I wanted to report that the eSATA connection on my replacement Dell Studio XPS is working properly. I was never certain if the problem was my eSATA connector, the eSATA cable or my eSATA 1TB external drive, but after replacing all of them it works. Now if I could just get Vegas 8.1 to work on my 64-bit machine, that would be something. 8.0 runs fine on it.

June 1st, 2009, 10:04 PM	#20
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Don't feel badly Sam. I could never get 8.1 to work properly for me either. It was really sad to find that the 64 bit version of 9 isn't worth much on my PC either, but there are others for whom it works fine.

June 10th, 2009, 11:19 PM	#21
Alastair Brown Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Glasgow/Scotland Posts: 626	Wee question for any of you Dell XPS users that were reading this thread. Have you noticed that your internet connection seems to hang every time the eSATA drive spins up/down from a hibernate state?

June 11th, 2009, 12:42 AM	#22
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Alastair, you might go into Windows and change the power settings to not turn off your hard drives after 20 minutes if you haven't already. I had same issue with external esata drives and that fixed it for me.

June 25th, 2009, 03:19 PM	#23
Alastair Brown Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Glasgow/Scotland Posts: 626	Was STILL getting it even after that. Ended up going even further into the advanced power settings and setting the Allow Hybrid Sleep to OFF. So far....seems to have worked.

June 25th, 2009, 09:00 PM	#25
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Terry, I don't know the reason why, but with eSata drives I have found, regardless of the controller used, that the drives connected to eSata controllers must be powered on prior to windows being booted up or the drives will not be seen. So this is how it is "supposed" to be. These drives/controllers are not hot pluggable as USB and Firewire are, at least not the ones that I've had.

June 25th, 2009, 09:18 PM	#26
Matt Vanecek Major Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Denton, TX Posts: 334	I've always been able to hot-swap eSATA drives. The only issue I've ever had was on a Toshiba laptop--the drive needed to be initialized and formatted before Vista 64 would see the drive--but that caused the whole thing to lock up regardless of the drive being on. Just initialized/formatted it on a different computer... eSATA is supposed to be hot-swappable, and for me, it always has been, across Abit and Asus motherboards, and an Sil3132 card. Thanks, Matt

June 25th, 2009, 09:41 PM	#27
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Actually since you mention it I guess they are as long as their is a drive powered up and connected at boot up, then you can switch them. If no drive is powered up and connected atwindows boot up then the controller bios aren't loaded and you can't then expect to see a drive that is hooked up after boot up is done.

June 26th, 2009, 12:20 AM	#28
Alastair Brown Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Glasgow/Scotland Posts: 626	Mine behaves itself in that respect. I can power it up after boot up and swap drives at will. My problem was the every time the drive went into/came out of hibernate (you heard it spin down/up) the PC would go sluggish and the internet connection would just hang/freeze.

June 29th, 2009, 12:44 PM	#30
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Yes Terry, if the bios for the card aren't loaded with the drive already powered up then the drive won't be seen. Glad it's working for you now.