Question re sata cables

[gene heskett]

On Wednesday, October 06, 2010 09:55:53 am Brian Wootton did opine:

> On 06/10/10 06:18, kubuntu-users-request at lists.ubuntu.com wrote:
> > Greetings;
> > 
> > I have a pretty expensive ASUS M2N-SLA Deluxe motherboard, and I am
> > having lots of log messages from the sata stuff, disconnects and
> > reconnects/resets virtually anytime the cat walks by.  Reaching in
> > and just touching any of the cables will fill a couple pages of the
> > messages log.
> > 
> > Has anyone else encountered this, and if so where did you obtain the
> > replacement cables that stopped this particular PITA.  Or, are we
> > stuck with it till the "Next Great Thing"(TM) comes out?
> > 
> > Thanks all.
> 
> I bought an amd64 Asus motherboard, and after a couple of months I
> started to get bunches of of error messages, random reboots and other
> hiccups, I could generate these just by banging the desktop enclosure
> I narrowed this down to tapping the HDD with a finger-nail. I took the
> drive out and had it tested in the workshop where I bought it and they
> gave me a new drive and cable set - haven't had any trouble since. The
> w/shop body just said the HDD failed their tests - wouldn't/couldn't
> tell me if it was HDD or cables. Anyway I changed the lot - still under
> warranty so didn't cost me nuffin' - except the time to re-install the
> OS of course. I've got 4 SATA channels on my motherboard, I tried all 4
> with the old HDD and cables and got nowhere - have you tried a
> different one?
> brian

Yes, I have replaced several cables, I have 4 extras laying here.  It seems 
they will work for a couple of months, then become seismic detectors.  If 
undisturbed, they will be fine for quite a while, but a cable that goes 
crazy when it is touched and moved 1 cm, 20 cm from the connector, is not  
a very confidence inspiring connector.

What I am hoping will happen is that we will eventually get a fiber optic 
connector with a much more rigid attachment for sata III if and when it 
happens.  The never ending quest to reduce cost seems to have bypassed some 
of the lessons the phone company learned about cheap AND reliable 
connectors.  It seems to me there is not sufficient contact spring pressure 
in this design, with its fragility probably driven by the transmission line 
requirements inherent in the performance specs.  This connector, inspected 
with a time domain reflectometer, probably looks a heck of a lot better than 
the more "telco" styled ethernet rj45 does, that thing has got to look like 
a bump in the impedance that goes almost to a short circuit at 3Ghz.

Thanks Brian.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be 
doing.