Does the VT8237A southbridge have issues with SATA-II drives?

[Agent24]

As the title says....

I remember a lot of people having problems with the VT8237 chip and SATA-II drives, is it the same for the VT8237A?

As long as either automatic or manually setting HDD to SATA-I speed works, I don't mind - but I want to make sure that it will work somehow!

[tcsenter]

Should be no problem with the SATA 1.5Gbps compatibility mode set by jumper or firmware utility. If there is, its either a motherboard BIOS or drive firmware issue, which can happen with all chips.

[SaphireX]

SATA 2nd Generation drives use auto-speed negotation that SATA 1rst Generation Controllers like the VIA VT8237 cannot "understand" and thus you will need to "jumper" the drives so that they can be recognized by the controller

[SaphireX]

[nosen]

I have this perticular problem with my new SATA II drive and I also have the VIA VT8237. The SATA II drive can't be seen in BIOS.

I have tried to set up the jumper according to the instructions from the manufacturer, Samsung. I have tried a patch from their website that is supposed to chage the 3gb/sec to 1,5 Gb/sec. I also tried a disc management boot disc, but without results. The drive just can't be seen anywhere. I spoke to the support but that guy seemed to know less about the problem than me.

Now, is there anything more I could try or should I consider the drive to be defective and thus return it?

[tcsenter]

Is the SATA controller enabled in BIOS? If your drive has two power connectors (old style and new style), use one or the other but don't connect both.

[nosen]

Thanks for the input. Sorry for not being specific enough. My problem concerns an additional drive.

SATA is enabled in BIOS. I have connected a SATA cable and a power cable, I guess that would be a 40-pin IDE cable, as shown is this guide: SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - user guide

I have tried to swap sata cables between the two drives. The cables are both ok. I have tried to unconnect my old drive to see if my new drive would be detected then, But no. However, when I try the auto detection, it seems as BIOS is detcting something, because the auto detection window that pops up is up for ca 15 sec. But the drive is eventually not found.

Just to make sure, what is the old/new style power connectors like?

[SaphireX]

1rst off the SATA Data Cable is a 4 pin cable and not a 40 Pin IDE cable.

As far as the SATA power connector it is unique and not the same as a standard molex connector from your PSU. If your PSU does not have actual SATA power connectors then you will need to use a molex to SATA power adapter.

Mixing a 1rst Generation SATA with a 2nd Generation SATA on the same controller even though the 2nd Gen drive is "jumpered" or configured to lock the data rate to 150mb/sec since the controller the VT8237 is a 1rst Gen type controller usually does not work.

If you had two different controllers on the board ie: VIA and Promise or perhaps an Onboard Controller and a PCI Based SATA/RAID Card that is fully compliant with the SATA 2nd Gen specs then your chances of recognition and initialization are very good in mixing SATA 1rst Gen and 2nd Gen providing the 2nd Gen is on the card and not the Onboard 1rst Gen Controller.

In short RMA the Samsung and try either a Seagate or WD since you plan to use just a new drive instead of mixing types on the controller and make sure whichever one you swap for is jumpered

SaphireX

[pbuceta]

Hi,
I also have SATA2 issues with my VT8237.
I need to know which particular hardware I am using.
The actual chip says VT8237S but when I use software like System Info it appears as VT8237A.
How can I know for sure?

[SaphireX]

Originally Posted by pbuceta

Hi,
I also have SATA2 issues with my VT8237.
I need to know which particular hardware I am using.
The actual chip says VT8237S but when I use software like System Info it appears as VT8237A.
How can I know for sure?

Hi pbucera

The VT8237S is the same as the VT8237A "chipset" the only revision that was later made was the VT8237-R. Neither the VT8237A/S nor the
VT8237-R "SouthBridges" support the SATA II or 2nd Generation SATA drives. So you will need to "jumper" if the drive manufacturer has so designated in order to lock the data rate to 150mb/sec which will allow the drive to be used. Because the controller is not auto-speed negotiation capable. Also SATA "opticals" DO NOT work as well....

VIA updated the SouthBridge to the VT8252 "chipset" which is compatible with the SATA II standard...although some additional BIOS settings may need to be tweaked in order to be fully compliant with some SATA II or 2nd Generation dives.

Does this answer your question?

SaphireX