HD Acceleration

**fkdup74** · 05-14-2005, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by clocker

I hate laptops.

as does the hamster no doubt, what with the limited room and all.
I sincerely hope its being fed lowfat Starbucks...

**Aurora** · 05-16-2005, 01:38 PM

I did not undrestand that!
What is DMA and how do I check if it is running in PIO?
I defragment once (sometimes twice) a week, doesn't help much.
I do have two HD's, but one is external, and I don't really understand your question: did you change the disc your pagefile was on after the reinstall??? What page file?

I'm bad with hardware and don't know much about it.

**lynx** · 05-16-2005, 05:37 PM

Easy bit first: If you've got more than 1 internal hdd putting the virtual memory file (also known as page file) on a drive which doesn't hold your system and programs can give a big performance boost, but never put it on a removable drive. Since you've only got one internal drive you don't need to worry about that.

There are two possible modes for data transfer: Direct Memory Access or Programmed Input/Output. DMA is much quicker, and there are also several levels of DMA. To find out which your pc is using, go into Device Manager (via Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management) and find the IDE controller(s). Right click and select properties. Then find the Primary controller and look at the transfer mode for any drives you have connected, and repeat for the Secondary controller. If it says anything other than "Ultra DMA" for the HDD then you've got a problem.

I assume the external HDD is connected via USB or firewire. If so I don't think you can tell what mode that's running in since it isn't directly connected to a controller.

**Snee** · 05-16-2005, 05:45 PM

Sorry, Aurora, I should have explained it better, I was in a hurry, and then I just forgot about making the post I guess.

Lynx explains it well, though.

I think it may be possible to set it to DMA manually, through the device manager, if it's running in PIO, I did it once with win2k and it worked. But if it is running in PIO it means that it's not being recognized properly, so if that is the problem, new chipset drivers may be necessary.

**Aurora** · 05-18-2005, 11:21 AM

Hi guys, just to tell you that I'm on a trip right now, and that I'll try checking that thing out soon as I get home, I'll let you know what it sais

**Aurora** · 05-27-2005, 03:31 AM

Hi Guys!

I’m back

I found what you told me and here is what it said:

Primary IDE Channel Properties:

Device 0 : Transfer mode: DMA if available

Current transfer mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

Device 1: Transfer mode: DMA if available

Current transfer mode: Not Applicable

Secondary IDE Channel Properties:

Device 0 : Transfer mode: DMA if available

Current transfer mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2

Device 1: Transfer mode: DMA if available

Current transfer mode: Not Applicable

Now for the transfer mode there is only one more option and is: PIO only.

Please divine these findings for me

hahahahahaha

**lynx** · 05-27-2005, 05:22 AM

Assuming the Primary Master is your internal HDD and the Secondary Master is your CD/DVD drive (if not, that's the problem), then it all looks good.

The fastest available speed is UDMA 6 which is the same as ATA133, but not many drives work at this speed. UDMA 5 is the same as ATA100, which is correct for most modern parallel ATA drives.

UDMA 2 is the same as ATA33, which is the speed used by many DVD drives and some CD burners.

In case people are interested, UDMA 4 is the same as ATA66.
There are also definitions for modes 0,1 and 3 (=16.6, 25 and 44.4 MHz respectively) but they've never been used.

**Aurora** · 05-27-2005, 03:52 PM

I do have cd/dvd reader/burner.
So that means there is no problem there?
So what else can be a problem? Computer is only year and some old.

P.S. just curious, what is ATA100?