Can speed of 2nd harddrive in 6510b DVD-bay be improved

[diskfreak]

No, only to delete the ide channel (not in safe mode) and then reboot with the sata drive installed in the dvd bay - on first reboot it didnt find the second hd, but on second boot it found it and connected it in mdma2 ... I will try that...

[chrixx]

Under Linux, it refuses to switch to any other mode and only stays in UDMA2.

[diskfreak]

UDMA2 not multiword DMA 2 ?

[chrixx]

Originally Posted by diskfreak

UDMA2 not multiword DMA 2 ?

Yes UDMA2, but MDMA2 under Windows. In Windows, I can set -X to UDMA without errors, but it yields terrible performance exactly like you described.

[nando4]

Originally Posted by chrixx

Yes UDMA2, but MDMA2 under Windows. In Windows, I can set -X to UDMA without errors, but it yields terrible performance exactly like you described.

[.deleted.]

[chrixx]

Originally Posted by nando4

You could log a call with HP asking why does their ICH8M PATA optical drive interface default to slow UDMA2/MDMA2 mode rather than the full speed UDMA5 mode? Only problem they'll tell you it's not a HP product so go away.

Ok, calling up HP with a truly technical question like that is out. HP's support (even enterprise level) is unable to handle questions like this and neither will they have the answer for it from my experience. You will need to speak to an internal engineer working with the PSG notebook design team, but you can never get to them through regular support channels because the engineers do not deal with customers.

[nando4]

Originally Posted by chrixx

Ok, calling up HP with a truly technical question like that is out.

Easiest way to save oneself a stack is frustration is to seek Shortest path to working solution. $17US-delivered alternative optical bay caddy worldwide. If it works, please post working solution here and perhaps also at
DIY: Adding SSD and/or HDD storage using an optical bay caddy thread.

HP could help you here, by selling you a 6530P or 8730W. Though they'd be helping themselves first.

[stumo]

Ok I have done some more testing on my 8710w now...

To cut a long story short, it still doesn't work at anything above MW-DMA2 (15MB/s). This is after many hours of tweaking, trying all the tricks posted in various threads, master/slave hardwiring, registry tweaks, hdparm, even under knoppix, it is always stuck at a max of MW-DMA2. I can set it lower using hdparm, but when set higher it always baulks at the first test, then resets to MDMA2.

The 2 caddies I currently have look very similar to the ones on eBay, the PATA caddy has no bridge chip, and the SATA caddy has a Marvell 88SA8040.

My initial posts on this subject were from my memory of trying to get this to work early last year, so I have some corrections/updates to make (like how I thought the PATA caddy had a bridge chip).

So I have tried the 2 caddies again in an old nw8000 in the proper multibay slot (using the adapter plate off a CD drive), and initially they were also at MDMA2, which is what I previously reported. But this time I also found that an actual genuine HP multibay HDD adaptor was stuck at MDMA2, so I knew something else was at play.

So I used the registry tweaks detailed elsewhere, and I can now confirm that both caddies are capable of UDMA5 (SATA) and UDMA3 (PATA) on the nw8000 multibay - probably limited by the HDDs themselves. The speeds were confirmed with hdparm.

So back to the 8710w, I also tried a bit of hacking with BAR-Edit, but it didn't work - I don't have a lot of spare time, so I could easily have missed something. I also set the main HDD to non SATA native mode in the bios, and that seemed to change the order of the drives and devices under XP, so the main HDD is the Primary IDE channel, and the caddy is Secondary IDE channel. Still no change to the speed issue.

I think I'm ready to admit defeat at this point.

nando4 I think you should change your other summary thread where it says it works on the 8710w. You could add a note that it only works at 15MB/s. I hope you realise this is pretty much a useless speed these days. It means real-world transfers of 8MB/s if you are lucky. So while it is technically working, it definately isn't a viable solution.

I'm currently thinking about using the spare mini-PCIe slot pads (no connector soldered on it) to rig something up. Maybe a small SSD connected via the USB2 pads in there. Or maybe a proper SATA raid card via a mini-PCI to PCIe slot adapter. It could be wired to go into the optical bay (but you would loose the optical bay permanently). Also there wouldn't be much room left for SSDs. So maybe an expresscard SATA wired to the mini-PCIe would be better space/power wise, but I don't know if they are bootable. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[nando4]

Originally Posted by stumo

Ok I have done some more testing on my 8710w now...

To cut a long story short, it still doesn't work at anything above MW-DMA2 (15MB/s).

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I would take the description given by Chrixx, stumo and diskfreak with a grain of salt as believe they are inaccurate.

Technically, the PATA controller will not switch to UDMA2/MDMA2 mode unless instructed to do so, which may come from the driver if in encountered bad signalling between itself and the drive, if it had say a bad cable or connection. Something that HP would need to rectify if it was the case and something you would already have noticed with sporadic optical drive response.

In the interim, others who may wish to try the $17US caddy are welcome to do so. Please refer to DIY: Adding SSD and/or HDD storage using an optical bay caddy. Worthwhile noting the point in the linked thread:

A SSD+HDD setup can work out, on balance, to be a better-bang-per-buck performance upgrade than a system upgrade. Storage usually being slowest component of a system.

[diskfreak]

Hi Nando4 - I´m very thankful for your interest in the "project" of getting som speed on the hp DVD-bay. But I don´t really understand what you think is "inaccurate" about the descriptions of the problems.

I browsed the web yesterday and found a lot of discussions on different Linux-forums with people trying to get DVDs run at more than UDMA2/MDMA2 under Linux on HP laptops from this time period. With absolutely no success despite the DVD running at higher speeds on other non-HP notebooks. Several of this discussions ended up concluding that HP seemed to have restricted the possibilities via the BIOS which give close to zero possibilities to tweeking any thing.

The Hitachi 7k200 disc i first tried to run in the DVD-bay i now in a external enclosure with USB and Esata and i´ve bought a AKE BC188 Esata/SATA PCMCIA card which doesn´t protrude from the PCMCIA slot for the 6510b. I get max transfer rate of 70 MB/s and 52 MB/s on average using HDtach - exactly the same average rate as when testing the drive internally in my desktop (though max transfer then passes 100 MB/s....). The external 2.5" casing even has a dock, which I have mounted in a 3.5" diskslot in my desktop so it is very ease to share data between my notebook and my number-crunching desktop. I think I will stick with this solution until I get another notebook with more speed on the DVD-bay....