Original 1,1 Mac Pro "hidden" SATA ports. Apple EXPERT needed!

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jamesbecke Author

Level 1

0 points

Original 1,1 Mac Pro "hidden" SATA ports. Apple EXPERT needed!

Hey All,

I've posted on this problem before. It wasn't resolved and it just won't go away.

After scouring the internet, and never quite getting a definitive answer, I'm trying Apple's forums again.

Here is my problem: The 2 "Extra" SATA ports on the Motherboard are frustrating the heck out of me.

I removed the ODD, IDE cable, and ran 2 SATA cables (from the "hidden ports") out the back of the Mac Pro, for attaching external eSATA drives to.

Before I put the Mac Pro back in it's Climate Controlled home, I tested the ports. Perfect. Drives mounted. Great. Wonderful.

I switched the drives & their cables around. Rebooted. They mounted.

Copied 1 GB files back & forth. Fine.

Let the machine run for a bit. Fine.

Rebooted with only 1 drive mounted. Fine.

Switched ports, same drive, rebooted, fine.

Repeated with other drive. Fine.

Used eSATA RAID enclosure. Fine.

Now, with the system all put back-together & loaded with expansion cards and internal hard drives, the drives tested moments before will randomly appear & disappear, sometimes they will boot with the computer, sometimes they won't. Sometimes everything works great, then randomly, the drives will dismount & I get the "Drives improperly dismounted" error. Pulled the eSATA plug on the drive that wouldn't mount. Plugged it into the PCI eSATA card. Pops up on the desktop in 3 seconds.

It's not the drives. It's not the enclosures. It's not the SATA Cables. These ports have the same issues with every external eSATA drive connected. I've cross-tested at least 6 different enclosures flawless on other machines. Flawless on the same machine--there are 2 PCI eSATA cards which mount the exact drives that are "problematic" with the onboard connection.

In some of my inter-webs readings, there are definitely lots of issues with these ports on 1,1 generation Mac Pros, especially with Boot Camp.

I'm NOT running boot camp, OS X 10.6.4 Latest firmware.

I definitely think it is somehow related to the "Intel ESB2 AHCI"

Here's the most interesting thing that guarantees it's somehow related to this "Intel ESB2 AHCI". This problem has occurred in the exact same manner on 3 different Mac Pro 1,1 models we have. I have ripped all 3 of these machines apart, cross tested the equipment, cables, drives, etc.

These machines have the exact same specs. Same Ram. Same Firmware. Same OS. Same. Same. Same.

Another piece of the puzzle: The drives using the 2 "hidden" SATA ports are very reliable when no other hard drives are in the machine (with the exeception of the system drive, of course.)

The moment all the internal bays are utilized, those "hidden ports" become very, very sketchy.

How do I fix this?

Please.

Help.

James.

Specs:

OS X 10.6.4

Boot ROM: MP11.005C.B08

SMC Version 1.7f10

2 x 2.66 Dual-Core Xeon

9GB RAM

WD Caviar Black 2TB System Drive

3 x 2TB WD Caviar Black internal Media Drives

2 x SeriTek 2ME4 8 Port eSATA cards

1 x IEEE 1394 Open HCI card

1 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

iMac, Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Apr 28, 2011 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 28, 2011 5:10 PM in response to jamesbecke

take a look at this kit from OWC/macsales. They use an angled SATA cable for one of the motherboard connections.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MPQXES2/

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Answer 2

Apr 29, 2011 4:42 AM in response to jamesbecke

out of curiosity, would you have a clone of one of your previous systems like leopard to boot/test with?

have you had any error messages?

do you or have you RAIDed with these drives?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHCI

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-015988.htm

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-029980.htm

". . . AHCI is separate from the SATA 3Gb/s standard, although it exposes SATA's advanced capabilities (such as hot swapping . . ."

which cant be done off the ODD ports (not saying you hot swap the ODD, but that if the connection is not perfect, maybe theres a problem)

none of your media drives are or have been formatted with anything besides HFS+j ?

". . . Some operating systems. . . do not configure themselves to load the AHCI driver upon boot if the drive controller was not in AHCI mode at the time of installation. This can cause failure to boot with an error message if the SATA controller is later switched to AHCI mode. For this reason, Intel recommends changing the drive controller to AHCI or RAID before installing an operating system . . ."

what im understanding is that even though you boot OSX, that driver is configured before OS installation.

i was going to say that the ODD ports might be physically 'loosened' but then you say all is fine until all bays are used.

that interesting

there is a total internal SATA bandwidth in these machines, around 1000MB/s, if im not mistaken, for all 6 ports.

do you push that envelope with all bays and eSata cards transferring data?

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Answer 3

mooblie

Level 4

1,954 points

Apr 29, 2011 5:05 AM in response to jamesbecke

You sure the fan assembly is not applying pressure on to the SATA connectors where they attach to the motherboard? and making them intermittently disconnect?

Right-angled SATA connectors on your cables might help avoid foulling?

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Answer 4

jamesbecke Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 29, 2011 6:38 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks Grant,

That's not the problem.

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Answer 5

jamesbecke Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 29, 2011 6:39 AM in response to mooblie

Thanks Mooblie.

That's not the problem.

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Answer 6

jamesbecke Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 29, 2011 8:02 AM in response to l_elephant

I_elephant,

Very, very interesting.

Yeah, we have a clone of the original drive, Leopard 10.5. The problem started with Leopard, and I figured it would get fixed with Snow Leopard.

I think you're on to something with the 1000MB bandwidth. That could be the problem?

The only RAIDs are external enclosures (6 are attached via 2 x 4 port eSATA PCI cards)

(http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/)

I thoroughly tested the machine BEFORE I put all the other system drives & peripherals back together. It booted fine with the drives on the extra SATA ports. Once the tower was populated with remaining hard drives, the external SATA drives were no longer mounting.

Only OSX 10.6.4 is being used (it's an Avid MC 4.0.5) all drives are HFS+J

No hot-swapping, with the exception of drives on the PCI cards.

Lastly, 1 enclosure is on an eSATA channel on the PCI card, and it is port-multiplied with 5 additional 2TB drives. The enclosure & card are by the same manufacturer & totally fine working together.

I'm curious about the AHCI drivers. Is there a way to reinstall them?

The system had a fresh reinstall of Snow Leopard onto a brand new 2TB Caviar Black a few months back.

Really pulling my hair out with this one!

James.

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Answer 7

Jun 14, 2013 6:37 PM in response to jamesbecke

Just wondering if you had any luck with this. i'm having the same problem. thanks.

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Answer 8

jamesbecke Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 18, 2013 11:27 AM in response to Eric George

Unfortunately, no.

Apparently, there is no solution.

The first Gen Mac Pro can only have so many SATA ports in use.

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Answer 9

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jun 18, 2013 11:54 AM in response to l_elephant

ODD does not share the same bus controller, and via testing with SSDs has pointed to 4 x SATA II drive bays having less than 800MB/sec, if there was actrually "300MB/sec per drive bay" as marketing material touted, there would be 1.2GB - rare, and even rarer for a mobo that was designed in 2005 and saw light of day in '06 when SATA drives were still not reaching 100MB/sec (even SCSI was just hitting that) and was closer to 75MB or FW800 bandwidth -- they were only starting to be native SATA designs.

The Intel chip firmware and EFI firmware are where you would be looking. There are some instructions for enabling AHCI for Windows on Mac... Windows won't even see those ODD ports for use which also shows that they are apart from the other drive ports.

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