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DMA-PIO Question

1K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  doogdoog 
#1 ·
Aloha,
I took a look at my ATA/ATAPI controller in the device manager and have some questions:
Device 0 says Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 says Ultra DMA Mode 2
Primary Master Maxtor 160gb 7200rpm Ultra ATA/133 HDD.
Primary slave Sony DVD read only drive 16X DDU1621.
Secondary Master Plextor DVD+-R/RW PX-708A
Secondary Slave: None

How high can the device go? For example, device 0,1,2,3,4 etc.?
Is device 0 for the primary HDD?
What goes with device 1?
Why does device 1 say Ultra DMA Mode 2 and not DMA Mode 5?

I also discovered that I installed the 2 512kb ram in slot 1 (blue DIMM_A1) and slot 2 (black DIMM_A2) and according to the manual it says that is for single-channel. I moved slot 2 to slot 3 (blue DIMM_B1) for dual-channel so will that improve the performance?? TIA

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe mobo.
1gb ram.
Intel CPU P4 /3.0GHZ 800M 478P/512 HT RT.
Windows XP Pro Sp1

Mahalo,
doogdoog
 
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#2 ·
Device 0 is your hd. Those settings are correct. As to modes I think 5 is the fastest right now.

Dual channel memory gives a slight improvement in performance. It really is not anything you will notice unless you run a benchmark program.
 
#3 ·
Why does device 1 say Ultra DMA Mode 2 and not DMA Mode 5
Most of the time optical drives [which is what cdrom, dvd, etc are] transfer at a slower rate than hd. Check the manual [or the web site] for your optical drives. If it says that they use mode 5 [ATA133] then you can change them.

Before you change any setting, make a restore point.
 
#4 ·
UDMA5 is ATA-100, UDMA6 is ATA-133. crjdriver is correct on the dual channel memory, I setup one of my AMD systems with a gig of dual channel memory, and the difference on typical applications was impossible to see. :)
 
#5 ·
Aloha,
Thanks for the replies. I kind of see the light on the DMA Mode so if my HDD is an ATA/133 I should see the Mode 5 and I don't know what the specs are on the burner so DMA 2 for that one makes sense since it's not as fast as the HDD. Now, why isn't there a Device 2 for my DVD-Reader drive assuming Device 1 is for the DVD burner?? Now on the single-channel and dual, I installed the ram in the first two slots (1 & 2) without reading the mobo's manual on that and then after a couple of weeks I read that part again and saw the placement of the ram's. Like I said in my previous posting, I removed the ram in slot 2 to slot 3 to make it a dual-channel and yes, I can't see any difference. I am going to leave it that way because it was a bear to get it in and will only move it back if there is a good reason to. TIA

Mahalo,
doogdoog
 
#6 ·
Most optical drives only transfer at UDMA 2 or 33MB/s since they don't need the extra speed. Your ATA/133 drive would be UDMA 6 however not all chipsets support that so it is running at UDMA 5, current drives aren't even fast enough to transfer at 100MB/s so its not problem. In Device Manager you should have a Primary and Secondary Channel listed, the DVD burner should appear there unless you have it connected to one of the RAID controllers on the motherboard in which case it would be listed under a different heading, maybe RAID or SCSI.
 
#7 ·
Aloha Triple6,
Thanks for the reply and I looked at my device manager and the only thing that I came across that says "primary and secondary channel" is when I click on the IDE ATA/ATPI controller icon.That is where I saw the Mode 5 and Mode 2 and there is another icon that says "DVD/CD-Rom drives" and when I click on that icon, it shows my Plextor burner and Sony DVD rom drive. I don't have anything connect to SCSI or Raid. So am I right in thinking that for each drive (HDD,DVD burner,DVD reader,) I should see 1 device that is attached to? For example Device 0=Primary HDD, Device 1=DVD burner, Device 2=DVD-rom and if I had a second HDD, Device=3 Secondary slave or am I looking at it all wrong?? TIA

Mahalo,
doogdoog
 
#8 ·
Yes if all are connected to the regular IDE ports, in your case I mentioned the other possibilites because the motherboard has 4 IDE connectors; two are for RAID but support any IDE device as well. I do not know where those devices would appear in Device manager. The fact that it appears under CD-ROM's is saying that it is detected and I assume it works fine as well?
 
#9 ·
Aloha Triple6,
Yes, everything seems to working ok and recognized but I can't see logically why my DVD-Rom drive doesn't appear as Device=2. Just being curious because if Device 0=HDD and Device 1=DVD burner then I thought that Device 2 should be my DVD-Rom drive. I guess maybe someday I will find out the reason. Thanks for all the help and I was reading somewhere in Microsoft that if there are too many CRC errors then the DMA mode will decrease to PIO (I think). I was worried that since Device 1= DMA 2 and Device 0= DMA 5 maybe it was going downhill to PIO so I wanted to find the problem. TIA

Mahalo,
doogdoog
 
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