Bus Mastering

On a old dell PC Intell 266, With a clean install of 98 SE, I noticed that Bus mastering is in device manager,but The Primary and secondary IDE controllers (Dual Fifo) Have the old yellow!!!. Also the CD rom can be found in explorer but is not listed in device manager. I have read that bus mastering under WIn98 can cause this and you should alter the registery to help this problem. Does anyone have any insight into this, I am trying to help a good friend out. He has been getting some weird error reports here and there and on the net. Thanks Bruce

Hi, Bruce~

Sounds like you have a problems with the IDE subsystem.

The thing you need to know about the system is the type of chipset on the mainboard. The ways to locate this vary, but with a Dell system, you can look up the specifications for the system by entering the service tag number or the system model number on this <A HREF="http://support.dell.com/us/en/register.asp?redirect=yes&segId=5DS" target="_new">page</A>. If that isn't a viable option, you could call Dell, give them the model number, and have them identify the chipset. Or you could open the case, and look at the chipset on the mainboard.

The chipset is likely to be the Intel 440BX PIIX4e, if the system is in the OptiPlex series, but I can't be sure without extra information.

With this information in hand, you can download and install the chipset drivers, which will almost certainly take care of the problem, without resorting to Registry editing. Drivers for supported chipsets can be downloaded from <A HREF="http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/driver.htm" target="_new">here</A>.

That's my opinion.

Toejam31

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Thanks for the quick reply, I went to the intel sight and down loaded drivers and know of them worked.You are right it is a Optiplex GX1 with the intel 440 BX chip set. I think I will try a clean install myself and see if that don't work. The only thing I am afraid of it has a USR 56k winmodem and I don't have the drivers and the card does not have to many numbers on it. They can be a bear to get working. I did write down the communication port and the IRQ adress for some help in the reinstallation. Thanks Bruce