XP and Ultra ATA/100

[sojum]

I have a WDC 40GB 7200 RPM ATA/100 drive than is performing considerably slower than it should under XP (according to SiSoft's Sandra benchmark utility). I installed the latest Intel ATA drivers for my motherboard's chipset (Tyan Tomcat i815T S2080, Intel 82801BA Controller) but see only a marginal improvement. To be certain the DMA33 drive (slave) I have using the same IDE channel isn't slowing it down, I removed it from the system and ran Sandra again to benchmark and got the exact same results.

I've noticed that if I display the IDE Primary controller in Device Manager, it shows that the drive is using DMA Mode 1. I have read elsewhere that ATA/100 is Mode 5, and if I run Intel's Application Accelerator tool it does show the drive as Mode 5. Has anyone had similar problems or can anyone offer any advice on how I can increase my drive speed?

In addition to the hardware above, I'm running a P3 750 100FSB with 256MB PC-133 RAM and 128MB PC-100 RAM. I have a CD-RW and CD-ROM on my second IDE channel, and I am using the correct 40 pin cable for the HD's.

 

[brianF]

This page talks about it here
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/memory-winxp/xpmem-2.shtml

Not sure I always believe everything sisoft sandra says.

at least you can check if your settings are the same as described in the article.

 

[sojum]

Thanks for the reply. Per my message above though, the problem is that these settings show my drive is using DMA Mode 1, when it should be showing DMA Mode 5 (and Intel's Application Accelerator utility does show it using DMA Mode 5).

 

[brianF]

Try this from western digital about configuring dma mode with datalife guard tools
How do I change the ATA mode on my drive

 

[eurodochter]

Are you using a right IDE flatcable. You can regconize this flatcables by the smaller ripples ( smaller wires ) ??

 

[sojum]

The Data Lifegaurd tools do show the drive as set to 100, and the Intel Application Acceleration tool also recognizes it as such. I do have the correct cable (as per the initial message, I am using the correct 40 pin cable for the HD's), but have not tried swapping it out with another DMA cable - I suppose that's worth a try at least.

 

[drewwpb]

I had this problem and found 2 things you can try , the first one is the one that worked for me....

1)-----------------------
1. Go to Device Manager
2. Go to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers"
3. Remove "Primary IDE Channel"
4. Reboot
5. WinXP detect "Primary IDE Channel" again and ask you to reboot.

On reboot, your IDE drives should be detected correctly.If XP sets the

drive to "PIO Only" just reset it to "DMA if Available" and reboot

again...


2)--------------------------
Go into the registry to the the following Key and add a DWORD Value "EnableUDMA100"...and set it to 1....
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet\Control\Clas
s\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
EnableUDMA100=dword:00000001

 

[sojum]

Thanks Drew. I'll give both of these a try.

Per previous threads: I swapped out the cable with no change (and double-checked my MB BIOS - which still shows the drive is using DMA Mode 5 even though WinXP doesn't).

 

[drewwpb]

I hope one of them helps you....I had the same thing with my Bios showing DMA 5 and XP was showing DMA 2....After I did step 1 all was well , this also works with CD Roms that use DMA but are stuck in PIO from XP.....Good Luck..