BIOS says it has SATA port called HDD1 with AHCI controller? TMB311-31-C343

JimHoward
JimHoward Member Posts: 8

Tinkerer
edited May 2021 in TravelMate and Extensa
This is a TravelMate B3.  Externally it has (2) USB 3 ports, and internally (1) eMMC drive.  AFAIK, the eMMC has a direct interface in the CPU.  The mainboard has provision for an M.2 socket, but the socket is not installed.  What is the BIOS talking about?  Thanks.

Thread was edited to add model name to the title



Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,246 Trailblazer
    Which Travelmate B3 model is it? It should be something like TravelMate B3xx-xxx-xxxx. I believe in most of them the MB design was done with the possibility of loading different components to differentiate between models in the series. The chipset supports two SATA connections, one on the M.2 and one on the MB, but it sounds as if in your neither is populated. The non-existent SATA ZIF connector would have connected HDD2, the missing M.2 connector would have been HDD1.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • JimHoward
    JimHoward Member Posts: 8

    Tinkerer
    Thanks for the reply.  It's a TMB311-31-C343.  Absolute bottom end, lol, bought it to host automotive scantool software, but I've kind of warmed up to it generally.  Very well made, long battery life.  It is a lapse for the BIOS to report a feature that isn't there, however.


  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,246 Trailblazer
    OK, I did some extra digging and there are supposed to be space for two drives in the BIOS, the eMMC drive and the M.2 drive, they never actually loaded a second SATA on the MB. Here's what the BIOS information screen should show:
    And here is an image showing the top of the MB. Port #8 is for the SSD.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • JimHoward
    JimHoward Member Posts: 8

    Tinkerer
    Thanks for the reply.  This stuff can be fun, right?  The BIOS screen and board you show are for a different model.  Mine has a 2-core Celeron and 4GB of RAM.  On my board (using the numbers in your picture), socket 8 has a WiFi card plugged into it and socket 6 is missing.

    I wondered about socket 8, because it looked like it could take a short M.2 card.  Socket 6 (if it were there) would take a long M.2 card.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,246 Trailblazer
    The BIOS screen and the position of the M.2 connector are the same for the TravelMate B311-31 and TravelMate B311-11. The motherboards come with a two core Celeron, a four core Celeron or a four core Pentium Silver. It looks like they have the #6 and #8 descriptions backwards, since #6 looks like a "B" and #8 looks like an "E". If #6 isn't loaded then you are out of luck for an M.2 drive. I expect if the socket isn't there than other support chips for it also will be missing...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • JimHoward
    JimHoward Member Posts: 8

    Tinkerer
    An AHCI (SATA) controller is built into the Celeron SoC (System-on-Chip), but that controller can't possibly see anything when there's no M.2 socket.  That was my point to begin with, that it's a lapse for the BIOS to report the AHCI controller (even though it's there) when no drive can possibly be installed for that controller to see.  Which is why I raised the question, in case I missed something in there somewhere.  So bottom line, what you are saying is no, I didn't miss anything.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,246 Trailblazer
    Nope, they are using the same BIOS build for likely all versions of the B311-31, whether they have the M.2 connector loaded or not.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Categories