eSATA, what driver?

[PsychoFishKiller]

Hey everyone,

 

I have had some problems with an eSATA drive, I don't know if the controller is the problem,, well anyway, it isn't working the right way, it gets disconnected from the system and doesn't answer at times,, There's no guide how to enable eSATA in the mobo manual... It's the P5Q one

[DSTM]

Have you installed the eSata Drivers from your Mobo CD?

[Dalo Harkin]

If Its the socket 775 P5Q one have a look here:-

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-

Its part of the chipset drivers - so you need to make sure you have the latest one :)

[PsychoFishKiller]

The problem is that I have to figure out what driver I have to install,, Neither the mobo disc or the manual tell me.. is it Marvell 88SE6111 SATA Controller with Marvell 6121 SATA Driver... I'm confused,, and what about the fact that some ports are dedicated for eSATA,, I've got no information at all

[Dalo Harkin]

If the SATA connectors are physically soldered onto the board and this is not a PCI add in card then the ESATA drivers are controlled via the same drivers that normal SATA ports use which are 'normally' included in the chipset drivers :)

 

If you look in device manager and there is a yellow exclamation mark next to it, double click it select update driver and make sure the MOBO disk is in the drive, it should search the PC and then the CD/DVD rom drive and then install the driver. If it doesnt do advanced search and select your CD/DVD drive normally D:/ if you just have one HDD and one CD/DVD rom

Edited July 5, 2010 by Dalo Harkin

[PsychoFishKiller]

If the SATA connectors are physically soldered onto the board and this is not a PCI add in card then the ESATA drivers are controlled via the same drivers that normal SATA ports use which are 'normally' included in the chipset drivers :)

 

If you look in device manager and there is a yellow exclamation mark next to it, double click it select update driver and make sure the MOBO disk is in the drive, it should search the PC and then the CD/DVD rom drive and then install the driver. If it doesnt do advanced search and select your CD/DVD drive normally D:/ if you just have one HDD and one CD/DVD rom

 

Well, it seems like some ports are dedicated for esata and some are not.. I have found out that it's the marvell 61xx driver that I have to install,, but it doesn't support ahci,, and that means no hotswap I think,,,,, very frustrating

[Dalo Harkin]

It shoudnt be that some are dedicated and others not, on older boards you had a SATA cable that ran from one of the actual SATA mainboard ports that then went to the external to supply the data link.

If some of yours are specifically for ESATA it would say in the manual, BUT they would still use the same drivers as the non ESATA ones.

 

ESATA in itself is swappable, you can use the ''remove device safely'' but I never have :D

[gezz]

I have the P5Q board. There's the intel ICH10 controller (6 ports), and a Marvell 6121 controller (2 ports). eSATA works better with the Intel chip, which needs to be in AHCI mode, not IDE. Hotswap works correctly.

 

Turn on Drive Xpert in bios setup to use the sata ports on the Marvell chip (Normal Mode) - this is unstable with the latest drivers, I found hotswap works sometimes. The 6121 is troublesome, my opinion is: don't bother.

 

Yes there's little detail in the ASUS manual on this topic, I had to work this out. Good thing I'm a genius!

The Marvell does provide a useful PATA interface.

Edited December 19, 2010 by gezz

[gezz]

I have the P5Q board. There's the intel ICH10 controller (6 ports), and a Marvell 6121 controller (2 ports). eSATA works better with the Intel chip, which needs to be in AHCI mode, not IDE. Hotswap works correctly for me.

 

Turn on Drive Xpert in bios setup to use the sata ports on the Marvell chip (Normal Mode) - this is unstable with the latest drivers, I found hotswap works sometimes. The 12069 drivers worked best for me, they tend to delay the system boot. My opinion : the 6121 is troublesome, don't bother.

 

Yes there's little detail in the ASUS manual on this topic, I had to work this out. Good thing I have ESP.

 

The Marvell does provide a useful PATA interface.