DMA and PIO?

[Karlsbad]

Hi,

I have a WD 160 gb spec ed and a Toshibas SDR-5002 DVD/RW on my Asus P4PE mobo. The docs and some wizard for my 9700 pro says DMA should be enabled in XP for both drives. Windows help says if the drive supports DMA there'll be an advanced tab in Dev Mgr under the controllers, which there isn't for either drive, but I can't believe they are both UDMA drives(though I don't know for sure if that's the same as supporting DMA, I would think so). In the bios there's settings for PIO and DMA modes, and it has PIO set to 4 and DMA set to 5, I think for the DVD/RW its set to DMA 2 and PIO something, definitely on the DVD/RW they're both non zero, do you think the fact that PIO is set to anything other than 0 is causing this and they should both be set to 0?

Committed to excellence, willing to make do with high average, able to get by on mediocrity in a pinch.

 

[svol]

Better leave the to auto inside the BIOS as your drives will tell your BIOS which PIO/DMA modes they support.

Your HD is probably DMA 5 and your DVDRW DMA 2, but I'm not sure about the DVDRW.

You might want to install the latest chipset drivers first.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

 

[Karlsbad]

I have the latest everything for all the components, but are PIO and DMA mutually exclusive?

Thanks


Committed to excellence, willing to make do with high average, able to get by on mediocrity in a pinch.

 

[svol]

Not really. First there was PIO Mode 1 to 4... but it got replaced by the faster UDMA. Your drive will always try to run at the fastest setting, so if it support UDMA it will run at UDMA when the mobo supports it, if the mobo only support PIO then it will run in PIO Mode.

With correct drivers installed and when you're using the onboard IDE controller the settings should be found under Device Properties - IDE/ATAPI Controllers and then under the properties of the primary and secundary IDE-channel.

My CPU fan spins so fast that it creates a wormhole

 

[JP5]

I think you can access DMA from right click of C drive, then properties, but I'm not 100% sure since I'm not sitting at an XP computer now.

 

[Karlsbad]

Hmmm even the drivers that shipped with these drives should have supported DMA, don't you think? I'll check that I have latest, thanks.

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[Karlsbad]

There are no drivers available for these drives, and I have the latest bios. In Dev Mgr under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers I have Primary IDE controller, secondary IDE controller and Intel 82801DB ultra ATA controller. I can't find any drivers on the intel webiste for this thing, but I have the latest INF update and application accelerator installed.

I have my hard drive connected to primary IDE as master and my DVD/RW connected to seconday IDE as master. The mobo manual says they both support UDMA 100/66 and PIO 3 & 4. The mobo also has Raid Ultra ATA/133/100 connector which"

"supports Ultra ATA/133/66/33 HDD set to master mode. Together with a Serial ATA HDD on the SATA connector, the Master HDD on this Ultra ATA 133 connector may be configured as RAID 0 or RAID 1."

So does this mean I'm supposed to have my hard drive connected to this connector? Aren't Ultra DMA 1000 and Ultra ATA 100 the same thing?



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[Karlsbad]

Oh yeah and setting PIO to 0 on the HDD in Bios didn't change this. If I let it auto set them it picks PIO 4 and DMA 5 for the hard drive and PIO 4 and DMA 2 for the DVD/RW.

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[Karlsbad]

Just to reiterate, my problem is that there is no Advanced tab on the properties of the IDE controllers in Dev Mgr, which XP help says indicates that my hardware doesn't support DMA, this is where Western digital, Toshiba, Windows and ATI say I'm supposed to enable DMA. These devices aren't listed in DMA in system info, so I don't think windows has DMA enabled on them.

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[bella]

So what tabs do you have on the primary IDE?? My XP has 4, General, Advanced Settings, Driver, and Resources....


I have a problem for anyone knowing about PIO and DMA.....
Running Win XP, with West Dig HDD, and I had been having problems with very slow performance, distorted sound, etc....managed to pin-point this problem down to the IDE being stuck on PIO. Apparently once XP changes to PIO, it doesnt recheck to see if it can revert to DMA again.... I managed to force it to recheck the drive by deleting the value in the registry, and sure enough it had it as DMA. Within an hour it had changed to PIO again, and the HDD LED on the tower is constantly on.... I was wondering if anyone could help.... would changing the IDE cables have any effect? This is the only reason I can think of for the PIO having to kick in.... but any other opinions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Karlsbad]

I only have General, Driver, and Resources.

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[Bean]

I was having DMA problems with my P4P800 Deluxe and DMA settings. My drives would only register as UDMA 2 instead of 5

I finally found out what was causing my problems. In the BIOS, under "IDE Configuration" on the "Main" tab, go to "Enhanced Mode Support On" and set it to S-ATA only. For whatever reason, this took care of my problem and the true speed of my drives were detected.

This may not be true for your case, but play around with those settings and see if it doesn't take care of it for you.

Here are my specs:
Windows XP SP1
Asus P4P800 Deluxe (Bios 1008.004) - no overclocking or aggressive settings
P4 2.6 GHz (800 MHz FSB)
2x256 DDR 400 RAM
Radeon 9500 Pro
WD 80 GB JB
IBM 30 GB

Bean

 

[Karlsbad]

Actually the S-ATA controller was disabled, re enabling it and setting "onboard ATA controller first = yes", hasn't helped.

Shouldn't there be some drivers or firmware for Intel 82801DB Ultra ATA controller somewhere on the intel site?




Committed to excellence, willing to make do with high average, able to get by on mediocrity in a pinch.

 

[Bean]

Hi,

Just to make sure we're on the same page.

Were you in the BIOS, at the "Main" tab, under "IDE Configuration" make sure "Onboard IDE Operate Mode" is set to "Enhanced Mode" and then set "Enhanced Mode Support On" to "S-ATA only"

Check pg 4-11 of your P4P800 Deluxe manual to see a screenshot of what I'm talking about.

I think the default is P-ATA + S-ATA and this caused me grief. Once I set it to S-ATA only, my problem went away.

Bean

 

[Karlsbad]

I have a P4PE, not a P4P800, but on the Main tab there's no IDE configuration setting, only Primary Master etc, language, floppy size, legacy diskette support, and passwords. When you click on Primary Master etc, there's only block size stuff and DMA and PIO mode stuff all of which is auto set and setting DMA mode and PIO mode differently hasn't helped.

There is an option on the PCI configuration page which is accessed from the Advanced tab which is "Onboard SATA/IDE controller" [enabled/disabled] which was disabled and I don't have any drives connected to it, and when you enable it it gives you another option "Onboard ATA device first", which was set to No, and when I change these it doesn't fix my problem

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[Karlsbad]

It was the presence of the Intel Application Accelerator that was causing this problem, I made a post about it in Tom's Motherboards and chipsets forum:

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=545109#545109" target="_new">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=545109#545109</A>

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[Toejam31]

With the Intel Application Accelerator installed, the Advanced tab under Properties for the IDE controller channels that shows the DMA settings is not available. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NORMAL. To check the DMA settings for your devices, go to Start - Programs, and look for the Intel Application Accelerator.

What you did was create a problem for yourself that didn't actually exist.

FYI, on Intel chipset boards, the standard method of driver installation is to first download and install the <A HREF="http://developer.intel.com/design/software/drivers/platform/845g.htm" target="_new">Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility</A>, and <i>then</i> the Intel Application Accelerator (if supported by the chipset).

Toey

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[Karlsbad]

Err in the pdf manual for the app accelerator they don't mention the tab disappearing in XP, but they do mention it in 98 and say its a known issue and to uninstall the app accelerator to correct it.

<A HREF="http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/manual.htm" target="_new">http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/manual.htm</A>


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[Toejam31]

Yes, it's a known issue. But my point is, a phrase like this does not always translate into an actual <i>problem</i>. Sometimes known issues are only theoretical in nature, or just an observation listed in a knowledge base. In this instance, although the tab may disappear, it's not something that must be <i>repaired</i> for the system to operate correctly.

All that was ever necessary once the Application Accelerator was installed, in order to view the DMA settings for the devices on the IDE channels, was to access the Application Accelerator Diagnostic Utility on the Start Menu. See sections 9 and 9.2, page 24 of the PDF file: "® Application Accelerator Diagnostic Utility".

While the PDF manual <i>doesn't</i> mention that the Advanced Settings tab would disappear in Win2K or WinXP (a glaring ommision that should be corrected), you could have confirmed that the correct drivers were installed. See section 8.9, page 20: "Confirming the Intel Application Accelerator for Windows* XP and Windows 2000 is Installed".

You should have also been able to observe the DMA settings for the devices during the Post, unless you have a proprietary system, with a Windows display that covers this information up when the system is booted, like with a Compaq. It can go by quickly, so you have to be ready with the Pause button to read it at your leisure.

The information provided by the Diagnostic Utility about the DMA settings is actually better than what can be found in the Device Manager, IMHO.

By the way, this was just for your information, so you would understand that what happened was a normal occurance, and not something you had to worry about, or correct. I wish I had seen your post earlier, and I could have saved you some time and trouble. But that's just the way it goes, I guess.

I've installed the Application Accelerator with Win2K and WinXP many times, without any difficulty, and without system errors ... so as long as your chipset is supported, and there are no compatibility issues, it should run exactly as advertised.

While I'm thinking about it, a quick note: DMA and PIO devices should not share the same IDE cable, as this negates a feature supported by the chipset called Independent Device Timing. IDT allows devices that are different in speed to run independently ... otherwise, the slowest device on the cable would knock down the faster device to the slower speed. But it doesn't work when PIO and DMA devices are mixed, and both devices will run as PIO when this occurs.

Later ...

Toey

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[nach]

Shortcut direct from ASUS the mobo maker.

<A HREF="http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=P4PE" target="_new">http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=P4PE</A>

About halfway down page, look for "Intel Application Accelerator V2.2.2 Production Version"

Install and check what Toey said...

All that was ever necessary once the Application Accelerator was installed, in order to view the DMA settings for the devices on the IDE channels, was to access the Application Accelerator Diagnostic Utility on the Start Menu.

From the original post you mentioned .....

Windows help says if the drive supports DMA there'll be an advanced tab in Dev Mgr under the controllers, which there isn't for either drive, but I can't believe they are both UDMA drives(though I don't know for sure if that's the same as supporting DMA, I would think so).

The way to get here is is to ....

After you get the thing to setup your Bus Mastering to <i><b>DMA</i></b>, uninstall the Intel Application and the TABS will appear, its like magic, who cares why it just works.