Question

[nobody]

Something strange observed with one of my old boxes after WinXP
reinstalled (clean install - partition deleted and recreated).
Harddisk activities (files copied from drive to drive, or over the
network) causes CPU load up to 100% sustained for the duration of
activity(as per task mgr). Most of the load shows as kernel(red
graph). Otherwise the system looks just fine. It's FIC VA-503+ with
K6-2+ 500, 256MB of generic pc133, 2 IDE HDD 10 gig each, 3com NIC.
It has the latest BIOS flashed and reset to defaults. Did I screw up
something?
TIA
NNN

 

[Tony Hill]

Something strange observed with one of my old boxes after WinXP
reinstalled (clean install - partition deleted and recreated).
Harddisk activities (files copied from drive to drive, or over the
network) causes CPU load up to 100% sustained for the duration of
activity(as per task mgr). Most of the load shows as kernel(red
graph). Otherwise the system looks just fine. It's FIC VA-503+ with
K6-2+ 500, 256MB of generic pc133, 2 IDE HDD 10 gig each, 3com NIC.
It has the latest BIOS flashed and reset to defaults. Did I screw up
something?

It sounds to like the system is using PIO mode for disk I/O access
instead of DMA mode like it should be. First make sure that DMA is
enabled in the BIOS (it should already be if it was working before).
Next make sure that it is enabled in Windows:

Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> Primary IDE channel ->
Properties -> Advanced Settings

On that screen you should see what mode the drive is set to (usually
either "PIO Mode" or "DMA if available", you want the latter) and what
the drive is actually set to.


If this option is somehow not available in the settings that it may be
that the drivers for your motherboard chipset are somehow not
installed properly. Your motherboard shouldn't need any special
drivers other than what is built into WinXP, but with Windows drivers
anything can happen.

 

[nobody]

It sounds to like the system is using PIO mode for disk I/O access
instead of DMA mode like it should be. First make sure that DMA is
enabled in the BIOS (it should already be if it was working before).
Next make sure that it is enabled in Windows:

Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> Primary IDE channel ->
Properties -> Advanced Settings

On that screen you should see what mode the drive is set to (usually
either "PIO Mode" or "DMA if available", you want the latter) and what
the drive is actually set to.


If this option is somehow not available in the settings that it may be
that the drivers for your motherboard chipset are somehow not
installed properly. Your motherboard shouldn't need any special
drivers other than what is built into WinXP, but with Windows drivers
anything can happen.

That's what baffles me - it is set to "DMA if available" and shows
current mode UDMA2 (this is probably the best the board can do). What
else could be wrong?
But thanks anyway.
NNN

 

[Yousuf Khan]

That's what baffles me - it is set to "DMA if available" and shows
current mode UDMA2 (this is probably the best the board can do). What
else could be wrong?
But thanks anyway.

VIA sucks, just so you know. Have you installed the latest 4-in-1
drivers from VIA's website?

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

VIA sucks, just so you know. Have you installed the latest 4-in-1
drivers from VIA's website?

VIA doesn't suck that badly - I've never seen a VIA box which would not do
UDMA in some fashion or other... as far back as the 586A.

 

[George Macdonald]

That's what baffles me - it is set to "DMA if available" and shows
current mode UDMA2 (this is probably the best the board can do). What
else could be wrong?
But thanks anyway.

What other drives do you have in the system and on what IDE channels? If
you try the VIA 4-in-1 drivers be careful to get the correct ones - some of
the latest are not recommended with older chipsets... but you *do* want to
make sure that you have the VIA GART driver installed; the "ATAPI filter
driver" is one I'd only try in dire circumstances.

So it continues to show UDMA2 as active even after a reboot? Have you
checked cables?... cheap enough to try a different one. What is the HDD
mfr and its max UDMA/ATA mode? Have you tried uninstalling the IDE
controller -- probably better to do that from Safe Mode -- and letting
WinXP rediscover it?

Have you checked BIOS settings for anything that might limit things?

Have you tried running HDTACH to see what it makes of it?

There *was* a problem with some VIA South Bridges and associated BIOS way
back, where they could not arbitrate the UDMA mode down to their level with
a drive which was capable of a higher level. The solution was to get the
HDD mfr's diag/feature software and force the drive to work at the best
level the VIA chip could support, i.e. UDMA2 in this case. While you're at
it, run the HDD diags to see if anything is out of whack.

Also, get a copy of Speedfan, look at the S.M.A.R.T. data for the drive and
check for a "Value" or "Worst" which is equal to or lower than "Warn".

There's been a lot of discussion about this kind of thing in various
Forums: the MSI one has a lot of subscribers so a search there... and the
HDTACH one might have something more specific. ISTR there's a registry
setting which forces WinXP to stay in UDMA mode but IIRC the IDE Channel
properties would show as running in PIO mode when it's been degraded... not
100% sure there. Of course there's also the www.viatech.com forum.

 

[George Macdonald]

That's what baffles me - it is set to "DMA if available" and shows
current mode UDMA2 (this is probably the best the board can do). What
else could be wrong?
But thanks anyway.

Oh in addition to my previous post, instead of Speedfan, which'd probably
work OK, there's HDD Health from http://www.panterasoft.com/.

 

[nobody]

What other drives do you have in the system and on what IDE channels? If
you try the VIA 4-in-1 drivers be careful to get the correct ones - some of
the latest are not recommended with older chipsets... but you *do* want to
make sure that you have the VIA GART driver installed; the "ATAPI filter
driver" is one I'd only try in dire circumstances.

So it continues to show UDMA2 as active even after a reboot? Have you
checked cables?... cheap enough to try a different one. What is the HDD
mfr and its max UDMA/ATA mode? Have you tried uninstalling the IDE
controller -- probably better to do that from Safe Mode -- and letting
WinXP rediscover it?

Tried 4in1 circa 2002, as well as M$ stock drivers - the result is the
same.

Have you checked BIOS settings for anything that might limit things?

Rest assured - that was the first place I looked at. The UDMA
settings may be picked from AUTO (as set) or DISABLED, nothing else is
available

Have you tried running HDTACH to see what it makes of it?

There *was* a problem with some VIA South Bridges and associated BIOS way
back, where they could not arbitrate the UDMA mode down to their level with
a drive which was capable of a higher level. The solution was to get the
HDD mfr's diag/feature software and force the drive to work at the best
level the VIA chip could support, i.e. UDMA2 in this case. While you're at
it, run the HDD diags to see if anything is out of whack.

The drivers are UDMA2 as well. Another drive I planned to use in the
system - a somewhat newer 30 gig - would wirk only in PIO mode, so
it's disconnected now, but thanks for the idea on how to downgrade it
to UDMA2 - will try when get a few hours to kill.

 

[dawg]

circa 2002?Are you kidding? I'm surprised it didn't just lock up. Get all
new drivers if you want full potential from your PC.

 

[George Macdonald]

circa 2002?Are you kidding? I'm surprised it didn't just lock up. Get all
new drivers if you want full potential from your PC.

If you check the VIATech web site you'll see that they say that the latest
drivers are designed for the later chipsets; for older chipsets, they
recommend older driver sets. At least they do have unified driver sets,
which is more than I can say for some other chipset providers.

 

[nobody]

circa 2002?Are you kidding? I'm surprised it didn't just lock up. Get all
new drivers if you want full potential from your PC.

Not kidding at all. I highly doubt the 1997-ish board is fully
compatible with the latest and greatest Hyperion driver (this one I
use on my main Opteron system). At
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070 it
is strongly advised to use older drivers for legacy systems.
After all, this box is used to test how client side apps run on
really slow hardware, and also to download stuff from some places I
would not take my main system to (even though this box has all
reasonable protection, it has to be reformatted once in a while
because of malware contamination).