Dell 5737 problem with USB3 HDD caddy

It sounds as if you are not getting enough power to the drive. I know that HDD enclosures can be a pain, especially if there is a power issue. The enclosures usually market themselves as self contained, but depending on the HDD you connect it to and the system you connect it to, you may need more consistent power than the system is willing to provide. 

I do not know if the Samsung tablet charger will be fully compatible I would recommend contacting the seller to ask about supported power supplies.  

Thanks.

That sound like just what I need, but couldn't find a power tab. Where do I find that? I did try a quick google re this, but without success.

Also, while the drive itself shows up connected to the USB3 hub in device manager, the power lead does not (windows also doesn't announce that it has been plugged in, as you'd expect).

Thanks for your continued help. Much appreciated.

cheers, Martin

I would double check the ports in device manager directly. 

1. Go to Device Manager


2. Click View > Devices by connection.

3. Click on your Machine Name, hit the * to expand everything.

4. Look through the properties of the different USB Hubs, you can see what devices are connected.

5. On the power tab, you get to see the power a device is consuming and what is being offered.

I would also test going into power management and turning off the permission to allow windows to turn off the device. 

The errors you describe are showing that there is a drop off in response from the drive. The PC is trying to communicate but the drive is not responding. This is most often because of power issues. 

With the above method you can check just how much each port is putting out and that it is operating normally as well as not shutting off during use. 

If this does not resolve any issues, I would also recommend testing a different drive if you have one. Double check the power requirements of any drive you want to use, and then put it in and see if it works. The USB power output and management can definitely be better on a desktop than on a laptop, but you should still be able to use it on a laptop for your needs. 

I would also recommend checking BIOS and drivers to make sure everything is up to date. Always good practice to check, even if you are not having issues. 

Hope this helps

No problem. Are you running Win 8.1 or 7?

May be slightly different steps or options. 

Also, I may recommend, on a whim, if you can arrange it, try plugging the second USB connection, the one for power, into the desktop USB and the data transfer USB into the laptop and see how it works then. 

I still believe that it is a power issue, and that the laptop is simply not sending enough power to the caddy. This can actually vary by the HDD you have included. You are also not the first person to have this issue. Other users of the same laptop have tried similar things with the same trouble you have, However, one user, as an example, put in a 500gb hard drive with different power requirements into the caddy and it worked fine, but the HDD that came out of the system before swapping to SSD, did not.

If you are having trouble modifying the power settings in the device manager, you can also modify then in the power settings. Simply right click on the battery icon in the task bar, select  "power options" then find the plan you are using and select "Change plan settings". then select "Change advanced power settings"

Then change the usb settings as shown in the picture...to disabled. 

What this essentially does is prevent Windows from putting the usb device to sleep. I often modify these settings because I use the power share port when my system is sleeping in order to charge my cell phone, tablet, or run a small fan, and various other things. It is nice feature because I can leave my laptop in my bag and plug my cell phone in to charge it, and not worry about the laptop having to be on and trying to cool itself while stuffed in a bag..which turned the bag into a furnace of sorts. 

Check out some of these options and let me know what happens. Keep in mind the screen shot is for Windows 7. I do have a windows 8.1 laptop, and the steps should pretty much be the same on it but I will double check. Aside from a few small things they did not really mess too much with the power options menu between windows versions. 

I disabled selective suspend & re-ran. Same fail.

Also tried with power cable plugged into desktop. Again no difference (USB SS was left disabled for this test).

Whatever I do, the device seems to disconnect a few minutes (3-5) after the run starts (perhaps 4-7 mins after plugged in).

I'd find that suspicious, but what's left to turn off that might stop this from happening?

cheers, martin

Running win 8.1.

I'll try plugging power cable into desktop USB port, but would be surprised if that can supply power better than a dedicated USB PSU. Stranger things have happened, though. Downside is that cables are very short, and I'll need to leave both laptop & caddy on the floor to achieve that, which I'm not very keen on.

I didn't have any trouble finding the power options (I was right-clicking the battery), but you said there was somewhere in Device Manager where I could list the power draw of the individual components, which would be perfect for diagnosing this issue.

Funny you should mention 500GB vs 1TB drives. I have the following caddy in my laptop. Was intending to put the 1TB drive in there, but it wasn't recognised. A 500GB drive (WD5000BEVT) works fine. (I've confirmed this isn't affecting the results with the USB caddy by removing it. No difference.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E7MPF8O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I don't think my Dell has powershare?

Power menu is pretty much the same in Win 8.1. I presume disabling selective suspect will reduce battery life? How much of a hit do you find it to be?

Thanks again for your help.

cheers, Martin

Its hard to say. Does the HDD you are having issues with list the power requirements on the drive?

Have you tried the drive in another laptop vs just another desktop?

I have limited resources for some for the information I wish I had. If you select USB root hub you can see the listing of power in device manager, but I was wondering if the hub was giving power to each port separately or if was splitting power between ports. It makes me wonder if the second power USB is also working. The desktop may be overloading on USB power and giving enough power on just one USB connection, but the laptop is unable to do this, so it may be a problem with the power only usb connector. Its a long shot, but you have run through most other common problems, so whats left are the uncommon ones. 

Try connecting just one usb connection to the desktop and see if that works. 

I would also recommend switching off of RAID in Bios and going to ahci if you can. 

I would also try starting your system and going into bios. making sure the drive is registered, and then watching the drive. Let the system sit in BIOS for about ten minutes and see if the drive is still spinning up in the caddy. If it is still spinning in the caddy with the comp in BIOS, then we can safely assume it is a windows issue and need to focus there.

There are other things at play but I do not have the information handy to pinpoint. Some laptops have this issue, others dont, and there are different reasons behind it. I do external HDDs a lot, and I actually have done my own homemade caddy with a sata adapter and had things work fine, but other HDDs dont work. There are some things specific with the HDD that prevent them or are incompatible with the laptop. Like I said before, you are not the only person who has this problem. At least one other user had the same exact problem, just different Caddy. 

Im sorry I have not been able to find a resolution on this for you. Let me do some further research on the matter and see if I can find something out. 

In the meantime, i would recommend trying the 1tb in the caddy on a different laptop, if you have one available

and I would also see if the hdd stays powered up when just sitting in BIOS on your laptop. 10 minutes in the BIOS window only, and just see if the drive is spinning. 

Its hard to say. Does the HDD you are having issues with list the power requirements on the drive?

"Drive specs are 2.2w avg when reading/writing (yes, could spike higher)..." See http://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/support/docs/samsung-ds/100698122c.pdf

Have you tried the drive in another laptop vs just another desktop?

That, I haven't.

I have limited resources for some for the information I wish I had. If you select USB root hub you can see the listing of power in device manager, but I was wondering if the hub was giving power to each port separately or if was splitting power between ports. It makes me wonder if the second power USB is also working. The desktop may be overloading on USB power and giving enough power on just one USB connection, but the laptop is unable to do this, so it may be a problem with the power only usb connector. Its a long shot, but you have run through most other common problems, so whats left are the uncommon ones.

The power cable doesn't show on any of the USB ports.

The "USB root hub (xHCI)" doesn't have a power tab!

When *data* cable is plugged into a USB2 port, it says power required 0A.

Try connecting just one usb connection to the desktop and see if that works.

"I disabled selective suspend & re-ran. Same fail. Also tried with power cable plugged into desktop. Again no difference (USB SS was left disabled for this test)."

(And, of course, I've tried it with the caddy powered from my tablet's 2A PSU.)

I would also recommend switching off of RAID in Bios and going to ahci if you can.

It was AHCI - didn't have to change it.

I would also try starting your system and going into bios. making sure the drive is registered, and then watching the drive. Let the system sit in BIOS for about ten minutes and see if the drive is still spinning up in the caddy. If it is still spinning in the caddy with the comp in BIOS, then we can safely assume it is a windows issue and need to focus there.

BIOS lists the SATA attached drives, but not the USB one.

There are other things at play but I do not have the information handy to pinpoint. Some laptops have this issue, others dont, and there are different reasons behind it. I do external HDDs a lot, and I actually have done my own homemade caddy with a sata adapter and had things work fine, but other HDDs dont work. There are some things specific with the HDD that prevent them or are incompatible with the laptop. Like I said before, you are not the only person who has this problem. At least one other user had the same exact problem, just different Caddy.

Really appreciate all your help with this.

cheers, Martin

SSD's draw MUCH LESS Power than Hard Drives.  This is why the caddy has aux power input.

You need a 2AMP 5v power supply aka  10W or more. USB 2 puts out .5 AMP or 2.5W and USB3 puts out .9AMP

This is why the caddy has aux power connection.

It's also NOT using correct USB 3.0 connectors but rather appears to be a USB2 design retrofitted with newer chipset.

SSD's draw MUCH LESS Power than Hard Drives.  This is why the caddy has aux power input. You need a 2AMP 5v power supply aka  10W or more. USB 2 puts out .5 AMP or 2.5W and USB3 puts out .9AMP This is why the caddy has aux power connection.

The caddy worked fine with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD inside, without the secondary power cable connected. The OCZ is rated at 2W "in operation", and tests on the internet rate the HDD at only 0.5W more (2.5W).

If the caddy operates OK with a 2W SSD without auxiliary cable connected, then it should be able to get the other 0.5W it needs from the power cable.

You will see that I did test with the power cable connected to the charger for my Samsung tablet, which is 5V @ 2A. Using this, I should have 7W headroom (over 3x the combined draw of the HDD + caddy), even ignoring any power the caddy could draw from the data cable.

It's also NOT using correct USB 3.0 connectors but rather appears to be a USB2 design retrofitted with newer chipset.

That is very true. However, the data socket looks to be the same sort of USB3 socket that the Dell uses for output. If the dell can put out 0.9A on that socket, it looks to me like the equivalent at the caddy end should be able to accept 0.9A.

Yes, it's a kludge, but one that looks like it might be able to take advantage of the power available on USB3. The Amazon page says as much:-

In most cases, the additional internal power supply isn't needed, Only used for USB 2.0 Port that the USB interface is unable to provide enough current, the power supply can be activated as an option.

The drive operates for several minutes under some stress (formatting at > 100MB/s) before disconnecting. My suspicion is that the Dell decides it can cut the power to the data socket, and that is what causes the failure.

The drive runs without a hiccough formatting a 700GB partition (2-3 hours) when it's connected to my desktop PC.

All that said,the difference between theory and practice is much smaller in theory than it is in practice!! Another way of saying, you may well be right despite everything I've tried above.

If there is a recommendation from someone that's experienced these issues with the 5737 (common, according to the reports above), who has then had success with a different model of caddy (one that has UASP support), I'd be willing to switch over.

cheers, Martin

Its not a static DC connection.  The troublesome caddy is NOT using USB 3.0 connectors.  USB 3.0 is replaced by USB 3.1 :P  Adding Blue Plastic to the connector opening is not making a USB 2.0 design compliant electrically.  USB 3.0 connections use more wires than USB 2.0  so they design the port so that the older standard can plug into the new connection port.  The additional wires and connections are to carry higher frequency data and almost 2x power being 900MA vs 500MA.

USB 3.0 Connectors and Cable Assemblies Document Rev. 1.02

USB 3.0 Specification
Universal Serial Bus 3.0 Specification (.pdf file format, size 32.4 MB) provides the technical details to understand USB 3.0 requirements and design USB 3.0 compatible products.

Non USB 3.0 Connectors and Cables mean that its not designed properly for transmitting the faster data.  Its the same reason that UDMA 33/66/133 ide cables need 80 wires instead of 40 wires for PATA Drives.  The additional Power is because of the faster Clock Rate or Frequency of the transmission.  Just Like a 1.6 Ghz processor uses less current than a 3.2 Ghz processor of the same make and series.

A proper cable for USB 3.0 designed enclosure looks like the one below.

The drive operates for several minutes under some stress (formatting at > 100MB/s) before disconnecting.

Quick question - can a "faked up" USB2 plug operate at a continuous 850 mbps+? Thought it had to be operating as USB3.0 to do that?

The caddy only manages ~22 MBPS (~175 mbps) when plugged into a USB 2.0 socket.

cheers, Martin

Fair 'nuff.

Looks to me like the port has the extra connectors?

cheers, Martin