SATA port possibly gone bad on motherboard. Expansion...?

[Technique]

So yesterday I dismantled the PC a little to give it a bit of a blasting with the compressed air outside. Not head to toe on it but removed the GPU, blasted the various fans throughout, motherboard in general, CPU fan (but without removing). I removed the RAM sticks and not particularly sure why I did it but I only removed 1 SATA cable but I blasted the port anyway. Hard drives came out for a blast, removed PSU too and gave that a blast also.

 

Put everything back together. Powered up - D hard drive missing.

 

I have C, D, E, G & I.

 

Disconnect SATA both ends of problem drive, reconnect - problem persists.

 

Try a new SATA cable - problem persists.

 

I have an Akasa 10-in-1 card reader thing which is connected to a SATA expansion card. I disconnected this (because if it was to go bad then that's the SATA connection I care about the least). I connect the problem drive to this with the new cable I mentioned - it powered up (as in showed when Windows loaded - it appeared in Computer.

 

Thing is, it then disappeared before reappearing again.

 

 

This morning just now, I've disconnected I drive at the hard drive end & plugged that SATA cable in to the D drive.

 

Open up computer and it IS showing BUT in the address bar it's still loading green and it's been going forever now (drive is a 2TB HDD that's fairly full) - so basically I can't access it.

 

I don't particularly want to remove any SATA cables at the motherboard end because what if all those ports go bad too & I end up with no drives - as I can't see why this one drive (D) suddenly started acting up. I haven't pulled the port off the motherboard, it looks like it should as far as I can tell. I'm at a loss as to why it's suddenly decided to go bad.

 

Everything is a bit old now - built in 2010.

OS is Windows 7. Plans to finally upgrade this weekend.

 

Question is - I have a SATA expansion card now but only 2 ports. All ports are/were occupied so now I could do with an expansion card offering more ports (assuming that'll even work).

 

Is it ok connecting a hard drive to an expansion card or do they really need to be connected direct to the motherboard? Is there a difference at all?

 

My 2x optical drives plus the 10-in-1 are all SATA connections. They could all go on the expansion card if needs be but as I just said - I'm now reluctant to disconnect any SATA cable at the motherboard end in case it suddenly stops that port working.

 

Motherboard.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

So if I understand correctly, your D drive fails to load on any of the SATA cables right? Also from the motherboard, looks like a fairly old system?

 

Edit: Yes you mention it is old. My bad!

[Technique]

On 17/06/2022 at 09:20, hellowalkman said:

So if I understand correctly, your D drive fails to load on any of the SATA cables right? Also from the motherboard, looks like a fairly old system?

 

Edit: Yes you mention it is old. My bad!

Correct (kind of).

 

When you say "any of the...." I haven't used all the cables going. Focusing totally on the D drive (which is a 2TB Seagate drive - not sure which model, I'd need to open it back up).....

 

It's connected in to port #6 on the motherboard. When connected via the cable it's been connected with for years, working for years & was working before unplugging yesterday ... it no longer works, in that it doesn't show in Computer, doesn't show in Disk Management, nothing.

 

When I connect the same drive D to the same sata port 6 on the motherboard but this time with a brand spanking new cable ... it also does not work. Same as above.

 

***As said, I don't want to risk disconnecting ports 1, 2, 3 etc from the motherboard in case they suddenly go bad the exact same way port 6 did - worked fine before disconnecting, no good afterwards***

 

However when I connect drive D to the PCIe expansion card that has 2 sata ports on it, it DID show up in Computer. I could access it too - as in see the files & folders.

HOWEVER

It then suddenly disappeared from Computer - so was no longer showing, again.

HOWEVER

It then re-appeared in Computer (& stayed there) and I could once again access the contents.

 

 

This morning I took the SATA cable that is connected to drive I. I'm not sure what port this is in to. Let's say port 2. I'll be wrong but it's one of the others obviously.

I left it connected in to port 2 - for reason I mentioned earlier.

I took the other end out of drive I and put it in to drive D.

 

Powered the PC up - drive D then showed in Computer

HOWEVER

I could not access it.

Where all the other drives say x-amount free of x-amount total and there's a blue capacity bar showing how much you've used - there was none of that on drive D connected this way.

 

At the top in the address bar it was filling up green. This green got all the way to the right but just stayed there. D drive never showed its capacity etc and I could still not access it some 10-20mins later before giving up, turning the PC off & unplugging the drive.

 

 

Oh and for clarity, I have plugged another drive (I) in to port 6 on the motherboard  - that also suddenly wouldn't show in Computer. Return it back to one of the other ports - shows in Computer.

[ThaCrip]

On 17/06/2022 at 03:48, Technique said:

Is it ok connecting a hard drive to an expansion card or do they really need to be connected direct to the motherboard?

 

Yeah, it should be okay as I got my boot SSD and a another one of my hard drives connected to one of those cheap PCI-E 2.0 x1 4-port SATA cards.

 

I got mine used for only $12.50, normally it's about twice that price the last I checked. while I got mine from Ebay, I am pretty sure this is the card I got (given the picture and chipset info etc)... https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ ; that one has been good so far as at that time I also got a dirt cheap even more generic one (for only $8) but it did not last long before failing basically. but this one (the one in the Amazon link) has probably been in use for roughly 1 year and a few months now without issue (I leave my primary PC on all of the time to) since I originally bought it in Sep 2020, but I want to say it was roughly 6 months or so after that before I started using it since the other one I was using failed (the $8 one that failed) and then I switched to the current one (the one I paid $12.50 for used which was normally $25 at the time), which is the one I linked to on Amazon (the price sure went up since I got mine as it's around $36 now).

 

when I run 'lspci' on Linux it shows up as, "SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)"

 

on my setup I got basically four SATAII ports on the board (which I got my ASUS board in May 2012 which is the longest I ever had a primary PC for) and four SATAIII ports on the add-on PCI-E 2.0 x1 card. basically two hard drives (4TB/5TB) and two optical drives filled all of my motherboards SATA ports and my boot SSD (Samsung 850 EVO 250GB) is on the controller card along with a 2TB hard drive. so I still have two SATAIII ports available on the controller card.

NOTE: on that cheap $8 card (which is only two SATAIII ports) that died (lists 'ASMEDIA 1061' on the main chip on the controller card itself, as I just looked at it a moment ago. but if I recall correctly I think it shows up on Linux as ASM1060 or something to that effect) you could only connect SSD/HDD to it as if you tried to connect a optical drive it would basically get out of whack (but I think this is a known issue with ASMEDIA 1061 etc). but my current one (with Marvell 9215 chipset) I am pretty sure works with optical drives or SSD/HDD okay, although currently I just kept my two dvd burners on the motherboards SATA ports.

 

but another thing in regards to that ASMEDIA 1061 controller card (that's faulty)... it acts similar to another one I had years ago when it was failing. like you can install it, boot up, it will probably work for a little while, but then eventually when it starts going haywire again (could be days or so), the computer starts acting up with freezing/hanging a bit etc (but like a older one I had years ago that died, thankfully I never got any data corruption from using it). but once I remove that everything is good again and stays good. but the Marvell 9215 controller card I got, like I was saying, has been in use for roughly 1 year and a few months now without issue as I never got any of those symptoms (hanging/freezing) since.

 

p.s. the on-board sound on my motherboard died in 2020 but I just disabled it in the BIOS and bought one of those cheap USB based sound cards with the usual 3.5mm jack which was a cheap/quick fix.

Edited June 17, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Technique]

Thanks for the input.

 

Little dilemma now. a PCIe 2 port SATA card is no good to me - already have one. Because of this I now need a 3 port one which they don't seem to make so that puts me on to a 4 port card.

 

For a bit less £ (from a quick scan of what's available, maybe if i look harder this will be different) I can get a 3.5" hard drive enclosure that'll essentially turn my internal HDD in to an external HDD.

 

Although that obviously presents the issue of having to take up a mains plug/socket, have the drive taking up space on my desk or storing it somewhere, whereas the card will allow me to keep it in the PC itself.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 17/06/2022 at 14:45, Technique said:

For a bit less £ (from a quick scan of what's available, maybe if i look harder this will be different) I can get a 3.5" hard drive enclosure that'll essentially turn my internal HDD in to an external HDD.

 

That's a good idea. You can try a USB 3.0 sata adapter, though these are more expensive than the 2.0 ones. But you do get much faster speeds. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=sata+usb+adapter+3.5&crid=37LZKXGCZQGNZ&sprefix=sata+usb+adapter%2Caps%2C418&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_16

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 17/06/2022 at 13:18, Technique said:

Plans to finally upgrade this weekend.

Also since you are planning to upgrade your PC soon (which I personally think is a good idea) here is a couple of news items I think you should be aware of:

 

https://www.neowin.net/news/buyer-beware-at-least-some-alder-lake-600-series-boards-may-be-limited-to-just-pcie-40/

https://www.neowin.net/news/buyer-beware-certain-amd-ryzen-b550-boards-are-stripping-off-pcie-40-for-only-pcie-3/

 

🙂

[Technique]

On 17/06/2022 at 17:18, hellowalkman said:

That's a good idea. You can try a USB 3.0 sata adapter, though these are more expensive than the 2.0 ones. But you do get much faster speeds. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=sata+usb+adapter+3.5&crid=37LZKXGCZQGNZ&sprefix=sata+usb+adapter%2Caps%2C418&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_16

Hmm well that's annoying (I've already purchased) - wasn't aware of this product.

 

Question....

 

What is the difference between the link you provided (in terms of speeds, how the device will work etc)

and this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B096ZK6C37/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

I don't mean a difference of say £20. Even I can tell that much.

 

I mean you have 2 scenarios - 1 you connect the HDD to the link I provided & it remains inside your case

2 - you connect the drive to the link you provided & it can be outside of the case.

 

I then want to access the files on the drive. Now assuming I've connected (your link) to a USB3 port and not a USB2 port - would I experience any difference at all between the 2 scenarios?

 

Basically looking to see if I can/should return my purchase & just get a cable instead.

 

On 17/06/2022 at 17:29, hellowalkman said:

Also since you are planning to upgrade your PC soon (which I personally think is a good idea) here is a couple of news items I think you should be aware of:

 

https://www.neowin.net/news/buyer-beware-at-least-some-alder-lake-600-series-boards-may-be-limited-to-just-pcie-40/

https://www.neowin.net/news/buyer-beware-certain-amd-ryzen-b550-boards-are-stripping-off-pcie-40-for-only-pcie-3/

 

🙂

Ahh I think we have crossed wires here.

 

When I mentioned upgrade, I mentioned the OS being Windows 7 .... as in I plan on upgrading the OS (though to Windows 10, not 11).

 

I do want to upgrade the machine itself but I think I'd be looking at £1,500 to get something around what I'd like and at the moment with other things, that's a no.

 

 

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 18/06/2022 at 16:26, Technique said:

What is the difference between the link you provided (in terms of speeds, how the device will work etc)

and this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B096ZK6C37/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

I don't mean a difference of say £20. Even I can tell that much.

 

I mean you have 2 scenarios - 1 you connect the HDD to the link I provided & it remains inside your case

2 - you connect the drive to the link you provided & it can be outside of the case.

Yours is a PCIe 3.0 x1 USB expansion card which can provide up to 1GB/s (8Gbps) speed. Meanwhile my link is that of a SATA to USB adapter, and as you say, its meant to be used externally, and its USB 3.0 so it should be up to 5Gbps.

 

In terms of speed? I doubt you'll see much difference if at all since a 7200 rpm drive generally tops out around 125-150MB/s which is around 0.15GB/s or 1.2Gbps.

 

On 18/06/2022 at 16:26, Technique said:

When I mentioned upgrade, I mentioned the OS being Windows 7 .... as in I plan on upgrading the OS (though to Windows 10, not 11).

 

I do want to upgrade the machine itself but I think I'd be looking at £1,500 to get something around what I'd like and at the moment with other things, that's a no.

I see, lol.

[Technique]

Question time...

 

#1

As general maintenance, I was thinking of removing the fan (heatsink is it?) from my CPU. It's about the only thing I can't actually clean.

If I spin (or rather just slowly rotate) the fan then I can see dust on the metal (fins?) that compressed air simply doesn't get rid of. It'll move a bit, slightly, but I can still see this stuff on the fins around the edges especially.

Sure compressed air gets rid of some dust but not this stuff. I'm not talking about I can't see the metal fins for dust kind of caked, but they're not totally clear either.

 

So the question is - would you even bother?

 

I suppose that'll depend on your outlook. If you're one of these guys who'll only ever own a brand new car & no older than 3 years then the response is likely to be run it until it dies & when it blows it blows.

 

This isn't that though. I'm not trying to make it 'die' but equally I don't want to spend my time doing this if the benefits are going to be so minimal.

 

As said - it's never been off before & it's been built for 12 years now.

 

#2

The cable management isn't the best, never has been. Some cables run at the back out of sight, but more cables than should be are just bunched up and velcro tied right up front.

 

In other words, they could be better. I could attach a photo if necessary.

 

Now bearing in mind what happened with the Sata port earlier in the thread just by simply unplugging, compressed airing & then re-plugging, would you risk disconnecting anything really?

 

On the one hand I want to sort the whole cable side out but on the other I don't want every time I disconnect a sata cable at the motherboard end, for that port to then forever stop working.