Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

[EzyRyder]

Hi Asrock Customer Support,

I sent an email a few days ago but I still haven't received an answer so I have decided to register here in order to get an answer.

My specs:

i5 2500k @ 4.2 Ghz
Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 with 1.10 Bios
8 GB (2x4GB) G.Skill RipjawsX PC12800 CL8 1.5 V
2 x AMD 6950@70 in CrossfireX
60GB OCZ Vertex 2E and 500gb Samsung F3 SATAII HDD

Windows 7 64 bit

I also own a Samsung F3 1TB SATA2 HDD and the following eSATA II caddy: Scan.co.uk: Newlink 3.5" CDLSB-808 Aluminium PATA to USB 2.0 and SATA to eSATA/USB 2.0 Enclosure

Please note I am using an eSata II cable with it (the one that it came with). It says in the manual that you need an eSATA Gen 3 cable but I haven't seen any for sale.

I have been using that caddy with no problems in my previous machine but if I plug it in at any stage the computer will slow down a lot, the mouse movements will become erratic, windows will try and install the drive and then fail. It's only when I switch off the drive that I regain complete control of the PC. This will happen even if the caddy is switched on before the PC is.

I have tried setting the Marvel controller to AHCI and IDE but the behaviour doesn't change.

My second problem is that when the computer goes to sleep in Windows you will not be able to restart it by any normal means (moving the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard). SO you need to restart the computer.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[secured2k]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

Someone else replied to a similar issue with the wake from sleep issues being caused by having the system overclocked. Apparently it breaks the wake from sleep feature on the Intel 6 series chipsets.

For ESATA, on my P67 board, one of the motherboard ports shares the resources of the rear port. Make sure that they are both in use at the same time. 2nd, for all ESATA/Hotswap drives, the interface should always be on AHCI (or RAID for the Intel chipset ports). Third, Windows 7 will install generic AHCI drivers that will work, but you should update the drivers in the device manager so they use Marvel's drivers.

[EzyRyder]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

Someone else replied to a similar issue with the wake from sleep issues being caused by having the system overclocked. Apparently it breaks the wake from sleep feature on the Intel 6 series chipsets.

For ESATA, on my P67 board, one of the motherboard ports shares the resources of the rear port. Make sure that they are both in use at the same time. 2nd, for all ESATA/Hotswap drives, the interface should always be on AHCI (or RAID for the Intel chipset ports). Third, Windows 7 will install generic AHCI drivers that will work, but you should update the drivers in the device manager so they use Marvel's drivers.

Thanks for the answer.

Regarding the Wake from Sleep issue - I have now read a bit further into the sleep problem and seems that what you say its correct. We will have to wait for an update from Intel for this I imagine.

Regarding the eSATA issue, as per your motherboard mine also shares one of the internal Marvel ports with the rear ports and I am currently not using it (which I think its what you mean). I also have the BIOS set to AHCI. I have also noticed that when the SATA ports are displayed in the BIOS and you click in one of them it says something rleated to External Sata ports and you can disable or enable these as appropiate. Have those got any bearing on the eSATA port?

Interestingly enough it says that you need a SATA Gen 3 cable 1M to use this connector. My current caddy I asume comes with a SATA II cable as that was the standard at the time when I bought it. DO you think this is what it could be causing the problem?

Has anyone here tried the eSATA port of their P67/Z68 Extreme boards?

[secured2k]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

I haven't had a chance to use the ESATA port on my X58 or P67 boards. My case simply has a SATA cable that plugs into any available SATA port like an extension cable.

For the problem you described, I would look more towards the driver. Using a SATA II cable should work fine on a SATA III device that doesn't constantly use 6G speeds. Some of the top mechanical hard disks will only get up to 200MB/s (SAS Cheetah 15k.7).

The cable quality and interference does matter. However, most SATA cables are fairly short and signal loss, attenuation, and crosstalk aren't a problem. Higher quality cables protect against these issues (and allow for longer cables) so you don't get signal errors which will impact the quality/stability of the data flow.

The SATA interface is supposed to detect those errors and slow down if needed, but if there are problems with the cabling and/or connectors, you could expect problems.

[EzyRyder]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

I checked the driver already installed and it was the latest (which can be downloaded from the Asrock Downloads - the 1.2.0.1002. I tried uninstalling it and installing again, no difference.

In fact it can't be drivers as the computer is also very very slow when booting up if the eSATA drive is switched on...

any other ideas?

[secured2k]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

If it were a problem I had, I would just keep testing. I'd try the system without any other HDDs installed, 1 HDD directly into the motherboard, the ESATA one diurectly to the motherboard, ect... until the problem was reproduced. Then you can narrow down the troubleshooting to that device. I would suggest testing on INTEL SATA-II ports as they are more likely to be more stable and supported.

For testing the system with only 1 hard drive in the SATA ports, I'd use a USB flash drive or hard drive to install a minimal Windows 7 x64 or linux x86 system (or a boot cd).

When testing, make sure you keep it as minimal and stable as possible. No overclocking or special BIOS options, no Crossfire, no extra devices plugged in at all. Even remove unneeded cables even if the other end isn't attached to anything. The minimum you need is Power, Keyboard (maybe mouse), 1 video card/monitor, and 1 cable(and power) to a storage boot device like a CD/DVD Drive or USB Hard drive.

BTW, make sure you have the latest OCZ SSD Firmware as that has caused me some problems in the past.

[EzyRyder]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

Thanks for the reply.

I will do some testing tonight. I have already upgraded to the latest OCZ so that shouldn't be a problem.

I can always test the method you describe and unplug everything else tonight as I have got a bit of spare time.

I have already tested that the drive works well in another computer with eSata and that it works when connected to a SATA 3Gb/s Intel port in the Z68 Extreme4.

[krkdnose]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

I have the same eSATA problem with my Asrock X58 Extreme 6 motherboard and Windows 7 x64. Whenever I try to use my external hard drive with the eSATA port on the motherboard, the computer slows down and the mouse lags. It doesn't stop until I turn off the external hard drive, and the hard drive never does show up in Windows.

The external hard drive works fine if I plug it into the eSATA port on the front panel of my computer case (which is hooked up to one of the sata3 ports on the motherboard). It also works fine when hooked up to a different computer.

I know that the eSATA port and the internal #6 sata3 port are shared on the Asrock motherboard, but I don't have anything plugged into the #6 internal sata3 port. I have also tried using the eSATA port with nothing plugged into any of the sata3 ports on the motherboard and had the same problem.

I don't know what else to do. I guess for now I'll just use an eSATA to SATA bracket instead of the eSATA port on the motherboard. But I wish I could figure out how to get it working properly.

[EzyRyder]

Re: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 - eSATA and "Wake up from Sleep" problmes

Thanks for letting me know. I have sent an email to Asrock and also passed the problem through to Asrock via the XtremeSystems forum thread for this board.

My problem is exactly, point per point, the same.

It is the only issue I have with this, otherwise, fantastic board.