Esata controller (SIL 3132) causing system to hang?

[Skipper007]

Hello,

Back around 2010 I bought a Silicon Image SIL 3132 based eSata card and four Rosewill eSATA/USB 2.0 enclosures. I've used them along with some WD Green 2TB and 3TB drives for years in order to back up my data. The card is installed in a system that uses an Asus M2N-e motherboard (nforce 570 chipset) and runs Windows 7. I keep that system at my parent's place - it gives me a place to backup my files outside my apartment as well as a PC to use when I visit.

This configuration worked great until a month or so back. Since then, whenever I've read or written data to the drives (both 2TB and 3TB), there's a high likelyhood that the system will completely lock up. As in the cap lock and num lock lights on the keyboard won't even respond if I press those keys. And if data was being written to the drive at the time, it will be corrupt.

If I use the USB 2 ports on the Rosewill enclosures instead of the eSATA ports, I have no issues - at least using the 2TB drives. The USB ports on the Rosewills won't work with drives above 2TB, some I'm completely reliant on the eSATA interface for the 3TB drives.

The eSATA drivers are the same ones I've been using for years as Silicon Image hasn't issues any new drivers for the SIL 3132 for years.

Anyone have a guess what's going on?

 

[izx]

It's not so much the actual chip, but the supporting circuitry on the card may have degraded over time. Just get a new controller, preferably using an Asmedia chipset. $20-30.