On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:58:42 -0800 (PST), "larry moe 'n
curly" wrote:



Archimedes' Lever wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:57:06 -0800 (PST), "larry moe 'n curly"
wrote:

I have some motherboards designed for 4-6 SATA ports, but only 2 SATA
connectors were installed, and I'd like to add the missing connectors
plus any needed termination resistors.
Here's an example with an ECS GeForce 6100SM-M v. 1.0 motherboard:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/...b349938d_o.jpg

What are the values of the missing resistors? I thought that each
pair of SATA data lines needed one 100 ohm resistor between them, but
on this circuit board the resistors seem to be arranged differently.

There is usually a bit more to it than simply attaching the SATA
connectors. The BIOS ALSO has to support it, and since THAT MOBO did NOT
have those ports, you will not be able to find a BIOS for that MOBO that
will have those ports in it. SO even with the right parts, the BIOS on
the model MOBO does not support your "need".

After all the hours you would spend,

Hours??? Similar mods in the past took me 20 minutes, including the
time to desolder the parts from a junked mobo.

He's obviously never done this kind of thing so the hours
are needed to assemble the tools and practice. It wouldn't
be especially hard to solder given practice with similar
work, would be harder to find an incompatible SATA header
than an compatible one, and indeed is a 20 minute job if the
board's not already in a fully assembled system.


you could SIMPLY go BUY another, proper motherboard.

That would entail a 500' walk to Fry's Electronics.

Uphill both ways!




That is, unless your personal time is only worth
minimum wage. In that case, you will likely fail for other reasons.

My personal time is worth a couple hundred bucks an hour,

If I got paid that much, I'd also take hours to do this job.

LOL



This is an exercise in futility, not to mention a big waste of time,
even if all you needed to install was the connector. Just sourcing the
right part alone might be difficult, since they do NOT all match.

I don't see any problem except possibly an active termination voltage
regulator, but because differential signals are involved, I assume
that only ordinary resistors are used.


The resistors you could probably just measure, since they're
present for the other two ports. "IF" all other elements of
doing this were in place, at most the bios would have the
feature hidden but still present logically if the capability
were otherwise present.

Are nVidia 430 and 410 pin-compatible, at least enough that
ECS did what they do best, economized by using the same PCB
layout for either possibility? That seems to be the
problem, use of 410 chipset which only supports 2 SATA ports
instead of 430 chipset which supports 4. Unless nVidia is
pulling a fast one and 410 is just a whole 430 chip
rebranded that manufacturers have agreed not to implement
all 4 SATA ports on, it seems having the 410 is the
show-stopper.