esata external drive connection

If you have a problem shutting down, i.e., your system remains on although the monitor is off and the system is unresponsive, you must physically turn the system all of the way off, and yet Windows does not show a shut-down error, the problem might be your nVidia driver (assuming you have an nVidia GPU). 

 

I had the identical problem in another similarly-spec'd system that I returned a few weeks back. Quite annoying, and it started happening only after I upgraded my nVidia driver. Knock on wood, but it hasn't happened with my 420 yet... 

I did downloaded the latest divers from nvidia and put them on the desktop then i deleted the drivers from device manager and then i used the cleaner and then i clicked on the file i had on the desk top and installed the drivers  it worked ok maybe two or three times and then it started all over again ,not shutting down ,I have contacted a dell tech and he did that Dell connect thing but still have the same old problem. It is a nice machine though its built real good  took a lot of planning . Its a snap to install a floppy or dvd drives , If anyone is installing a floppy in the xps420 watch that cable hook up it only goes in one way,check the pins!!! The ends are different

 

Bob Moyer

On the shut down problem I do not have any usb cables hooked up to the computer. I have been keeping the external hard drive disconnected until I am ready to use it after using it I pull the cable out from the computer. the external hard drive I am trying to use with the computer now is a western digital  wdg1su5000 my book premium es edition 500 gb usb/esata external hard drive and I am using a esata 3 foot cable by starteck. When i hook up the esata cable I get no response from the computer, if I hook it up usb ,the computer responds.. I have not look how it is hooked up in the inside as of yet I just got through today installing the floppy drive and setting up the apc backup emergency battery power. I will check that out in the morning , do you know if anyone has got it working yet ,??

 

 Bob Moyer

perhaps while you were in the process of checking the connections you reseated the connection and that is why it came to life..

For the benifit of others is it a plug connection or just a wire that come out of the silver box you describe.

 

I checked the inside of the computer and that connection is a little silver box tied into the mother board  I checked all cables to make sure they were all in tight put the cover back on and re connected the esata cable back up turned the computer back on and guess what it is now working  boy that hard drive is fast ,don't know what i did but it is working now ,yesterday I could not get the computer to reconize the external drive

 

Bob Moyer

sometime it doesn't take much..

Glad you got it fixed...

The silver box is closed up you cannot see anything its flush with the motherboard what i did i went around to all the connections in that area and pushed on the them to make sure they were seated.real good(ribbon) thats all I did and the esata connection came active..

 

Bob Moyer

Robert, based on the exact same problem as you are having, I think I may know what is wrong.

 

Check the female eSata port on the back of your MyBook--what happens is that the plastic casing that houses the drive prevents the eSata cable from making complete connection with the port.

 

Some cables may not experience this problem, but I tried 3 before finding the solution.

 

My solution was to cut back the plastic shielding around the male end of the eSata cable that connects to the MyBook. I trimmed off about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch and guess what; it went right it, and the drive was detected.

 

Prior to finding an obscure reference to this problem on a blog, I had replaced 2 pci express eSata cards for my M1710 and an external card for my XPS 700. There was nothing wrong with them as it turns out and I was convinced it was some kind of driver issue, since the MyBook functioned fine when connected to USB.

 

Hope this helps!