Modding mSATA-IDE adapters to force 80 conductor cable

[Wasmachineman_NL]

I came across this thread on VOGONS: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=338734#p338734

Which got me thinking, what if I grounded pin 34 of those Chinese mSATA-IDE adapters, tricking my Precisions into thinking they have a ATA133 HDD instead of a UDMA2/ATA33 drive? Normally I would need to use hdparm and BAR-Edit to force ATA133 but if a hardware mod can do it without extra software bloat, i'd rather do that.

[Calbris]

I believe it might work, but only if pin 34 is connected to the motherboard. Most of my ThinkPads are engineered in such a way that pin 34 of the IDE/PATA connector is left unconnected. This means that grounding pin 34 of the PATA connector will have no effect, which seems to be the situation for my ThinkPad R32 (pin 34 is not connected to the motherboard for this machine).

On my ThinkPad R40, pin 34 isn't connected to any part of its motherboard either. However, the mSATA-to-PATA adapter works at ATA100 speeds for some reason. At this point, I suspected the BIOS to be messing around with the I/O controller's PATA speed negotiation.

Which brings me to my ThinkPad R50p (pin 34 isn't connected), and that turned out to be the problem. For whatever reason, the older BIOS releases restricted the speed to ATA33, but the latest BIOS release does not.

I finally concluded this dumb problem to be a BIOS-related issue, assuming that pin 34 is not connected.

If I were you, I would check the schematics for pin 34 of the PATA connector to see if it's unconnected or connected. If it's connected, you might have a chance. If it isn't, there is nothing that you can do to fix it. Well, apart from a BIOS modification...

[Wasmachineman_NL]

https://old.pinouts.ru/HD/Ata44Internal_pinout.shtml

"Passed Diagnostics. Is grounded by the cable when an 80 pin cable is installed, or wired through to the drives with a 40 pin cable"

Pulling a wire from pin 34 to pin 30 would ground it and theoretically force ATA133/80 conductor cable.

[Calbris]

So, are we talking about a Precision desktop or a Precision laptop? I'm pretty sure one of them doesn't utilize a cable to connect a storage drive to its PATA channel.

[Wasmachineman_NL]

[Calbris]

I have no information on the Precision M40 as I can't find the schematic for it, but I managed to find the schematics for the Precision M50, M60 and the M70.

Assuming that these schematics reflect the retail production machines, they should all have pin 34 connected to either the I/O controller (M50), a test solder pad 'T32' (M60), or a SATA-to-PATA controller (M70). The SATA-to-PATA controller does complicate things, but I believe the other two doesn't.

As I had never, ever seen or experimented on a laptop with a PATA connector that has pin 34 connected to any part of its motherboard, I cannot say for sure that it would work if it were to be grounded. You're on your own here, there's not much that I can do apart from speculating things.

If it doesn't work at ATA100 speeds with pin 34 grounded, you have a BIOS issue as I had stated in my previous post. That's all I can say.

[Wasmachineman_NL]

[Calbris]

Perhaps it may be the SATA-to-PATA controller's doing, or it's just the I/O controller itself. I don't know for sure and I don't have the means nor the ability to find out what makes it work properly.

If it works without requiring modifications to be performed, good. Otherwise, refer to the above statements.

[ibrazhko]

Calbris,

I also have an R40 with PATA-mSATA adapter and Kingston SSD, but it only works at UDMA/33 speeds. Have even tried grounding the 34th pin, but no luck...

Do you have any ideas how I can get my R40 to work at UDMA/100 speeds, just like yours does? (Also sent you PM with the same question.)

[Wasmachineman_NL]

[ibrazhko]

Thanks man, but the links in that thread don't work.

Also, I am trying to find a more elegant solution. So far, I sense that the BIOS version may make a difference.

Calbris, could you tell me what version is BIOS on your R40? And what is your machine number? Thanks in advance.

[Calbris]

[ibrazhko]

Calbris, thanks a lot for your reply. But I am so lost now...

I have the same BIOS bersion, my R40 is also Pentium-M based, and my adapter also has a Marvel controller! I am starting to run out of ideas.. but not giving up so easily.

You said that only one mSATA-PATA adapter allowed for UDMA/100 in R40 - but have you tried that adapter in R32? Because if the problem is on the adapter's side, you could get UDMA/100 in R32 too, simply by using the correct adapter.

Anyways, I will dig more into this. So far, I see two possible solutions: (1) using a thin wire to solder the 34th pin of the internal connector to where it should go in the I/O controller hub (some GPIO pin?); (2) modifying the BIOS.

As always, your thoughts and rich experience are highly appreciated!

[Calbris]