How to check if ATA133 is supported?

[s1n9]

How does one know whether a mobo has ATA-133/100, etc., if the mobo manual is lost & its model # is not known? What I really want to know is whether there are some ways to visually check the hardware, etc. or some utilities in Windows that I can use to check which ATA modes my mobo supports? 'Device Mgr' in Windows doesn't show that info for the IDE controller, nor the individual IDE Channels.

I know it's a stupid question but I've checked various places & read FAQs but couldn't find the answer.

Another thing, if I use an ATA-133 adapter card on the mobo, can the computer use the HDD attached to the card as the primary boot HDD? Does the boot HDD have to be on one of the integrated IDE ports?

Thank you!!!

 

[Teq]

Well for starts, most motherboards do have part numbers on them.

IF you can find the part number for the motherboard (on the board itself, not the chips) just do a google search for it to find the manufacturer's website and look up the specs.

Worst case get the part numbers off some of the larger chips and look them up on Google... one of them will be the IDE controller (usually associated with or actually in the south bridge chip). The specs should be on the chip maker's site.





--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[elzt]

Another thing, if I use an ATA-133 adapter card on the mobo, can the computer use the HDD attached to the card as the primary boot HDD? Does the boot HDD have to be on one of the integrated IDE ports?

You can use the HDD attached to the ATA133 card as the primary boot device. Most BIOS will allow you to set the boot order to achieve that.

 

[s1n9]

Thanks, guys.

Well, actually I would like to know, <i>as a matter of knowledge</i>, <b>whether it's possible to check which ATA modes are supported by just using software utilities, or by looking at the hardware</b>.

The question I asked was a generic question, but the mobo I had in mind is an Abit BM-6.
I don't think it even supports ATA100, so I'm sure it doesn't support ATA133. On Abit's website, they have info on many of their mobos including those sold before & after the BM-6, but not the BM-6. I don't know why. Perhaps, they didn't sell many of those.

 

[CDBurner]

I don't know about software utilities, but one way that would possibly work is to plug in an ATA133 drive and boot up. Set the BIOS to automatically select what ATA mode to use, and whatever ATA mode the BIOS selects will be the maximum. Of course, this assumes that the BIOS will show what ATA mode is being used. ATA133 drives are backward compatible with older motherboards if the BIOS supports hard drives of that capacity. I have two desktops with AWARD BIOS which display this info when they boot. I hope this can help you.

 

[s1n9]

Thanks, CDBurner, that's a great idea. I'll try it out, but I also have a feeling that this *very old* mobo might not work properly with a 200GB HDD. If I used an ATA133 adaptor card, then I won't be able to use this technique to see the ATA modes of the integrated IDE.