SATA drive stuck in PIO mode

[Guest]

Hi, I recently installed a new WD 250 GB Raid Edition (high reliability)
SATA drive. I have an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard. It uses the Intel
ICH5(R) Chipset. I have a WD 300GB SATA drive attatched to one of the 2 sata
ports, with the 250 attatched to the other.

The 300 GB drive shows as running in UDMA5 mode, but my 250GB drive (with
Windows on it) shows as running in PIO mode. Both are set to run "DMA if
Available". My BIOS shows that that drive is capable of UDMA 5.

I tried setting it to "PIO Only", then restarting, setting it back to "DMA
if Available", and restarting again. That didn't work, neither did
uninstalling the "Primary IDE Controller" and restarting the computer.

Any ideas as to why this is happening? Windows is really sluggish, and it'd
be nice to get it back to what is was off my older IDE drive. Thanks!!!

 

[Wesley Vogel]

DMA Reverts to PIO
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors
occur
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Guest]

That script didn't work ... my drive is still listed s PIO mode. The 5
drives in my system should all be UDMA .... 2 SATA drives, a 120GB IDE, and 2
DVD burners..... the only drive that isn't is my new SATA..... any more help
would be greatly appreciated.... Thanks!!

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Read the article.

DMA Reverts to PIO
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Jim]

Hi, I recently installed a new WD 250 GB Raid Edition (high reliability)
SATA drive. I have an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard. It uses the
Intel
ICH5(R) Chipset. I have a WD 300GB SATA drive attatched to one of the 2
sata
ports, with the 250 attatched to the other.

The 300 GB drive shows as running in UDMA5 mode, but my 250GB drive (with
Windows on it) shows as running in PIO mode. Both are set to run "DMA if
Available". My BIOS shows that that drive is capable of UDMA 5.

I tried setting it to "PIO Only", then restarting, setting it back to "DMA
if Available", and restarting again. That didn't work, neither did
uninstalling the "Primary IDE Controller" and restarting the computer.

Any ideas as to why this is happening? Windows is really sluggish, and
it'd
be nice to get it back to what is was off my older IDE drive. Thanks!!!

The usual reason is that there have been too many errors reported by the
drive. If the threshold ever gets reached, Windows sets the mode to PIO,
and the setting sticks.

A way to fix the problem is to remove the driver and reboot. On reboot,
Windows will download the unstuck driver from the \i386 directory and all
will be well unless the error rate once again gets too high.

Before you do this, it would be a good idea to verify that the driver for
the SATA drive really does exist somewhere in the \i386 directory. If it
doesn't, you will need to download the driver from the setup disk.
Jim

 

[Guest]

I tried following the directions in that article about deleteing the registry
entires and the restarting ... but when I did I got a "pci.sys is missing or
corrupt" error. I've since deleted the file in question and run a repair
install.... and it now boots partway, then suddenly restarts. Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

I have almost same problem.

Motherboard EPOX EP-5EGMI, Samsung SP1614C (160Gb, SATA150), WinXP SP2 with
all updates, and the lastest drivers avaliable.

Device Manager shows "UDMA5" in Samsung's propriets, but the HD is SATA, it
is wrong! It must be "UDMA7", or "SATA150", or something like this.

BIOS recognize as UDMA7 (SATA 1.5GB), and Ubuntu 5.1 Live recognizes, too.

What I can do to setup my drive to operate in SATA protocol?

Thanks!

PS.: sorry for any mistakes on English...

 

[Guest]

Hey,

I fixed my PIO mode problem by reinstalling Windows. Windows reports both
of my Western Digital SATA drives as running in UDMA 5. It could be that
while SATA is UDMA 7, the physical drive maybe cannot. If I can get it to
run faster, I sure would like to.

 

[Guest]

I try a re-install. The problem still there!

I have tried with a 64bit XP Pro. Same thing. With Linux Ubuntu 5.10, it
says UDMA7 in text mode, but I not 100% sure, because I don't know Linux very
well. But Linux is a little fast than Win to0 copy a 500Mb video file...

Waiting for a light...

Romulo

 

[Jim]

I try a re-install. The problem still there!

Perhaps your drive is still generating errors. Merely replacing the driver
won't fix this problem.
Jim

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Perhaps your drive is still generating errors. Merely replacing the driver
won't fix this problem.

Yes, I've heard that XP will scale back from UDMA to PIO if it hits
"too many" HD errors (as if 1 such error wasn't enough!)

------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope

 

[Guest]

What type of errors?

My HD works fine, it have good results in HD Tach and HD Tune... but I'm
curious about the UDMA5 (not PIO!) in device manager. The BIOS recognize the
SATA mode correctly (SATA 1.5G).

And remember, in Linux it is a little faster than Windows. Maybe Linux
recognize UDMA7 correctly, but I don't know this OS very well.

In WinXP 64bits the problem still, but in the device manager it have an
option to make the drive faster (below "enable write cache). This option
don't exist in WinXP 32bit. It works, the drive run faster, but UDMA5 still
there.

I send an email to EPOX and Intel, lets wait a reply.

More ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Jim]

What type of errors? Any
Jim

My HD works fine, it have good results in HD Tach and HD Tune... but I'm
curious about the UDMA5 (not PIO!) in device manager. The BIOS recognize
the
SATA mode correctly (SATA 1.5G).

And remember, in Linux it is a little faster than Windows. Maybe Linux
recognize UDMA7 correctly, but I don't know this OS very well.

In WinXP 64bits the problem still, but in the device manager it have an
option to make the drive faster (below "enable write cache). This option
don't exist in WinXP 32bit. It works, the drive run faster, but UDMA5
still
there.

I send an email to EPOX and Intel, lets wait a reply.

More ideas?

Thanks!

 

[ChrisC]

Hi, if you have good results with the HD benchmarks then I would suggest
that XP is just misreporting the drive. I have 4 sata drives on my Asus
A8R32-MVP, it doesn't read them as UDMA devices but as scsi discs...
ChrisC

 

[Guest]

Both of my WD SATA drives attatched to an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe report as UDMA
5 in Windows .... yet a I get a read rate of 56+ megabytes, and I'm not
talking burst. Isn't that about what SATA drives perform at?

Dan

 

[Guest]

To DANRFXz

I run HD Tach 3 times. It got about 55 - 60MB/s, burst 106 - 117MB/s, 5 - 9%
CPU usage. I know, is a good results, but i'm curious about the UDMA5, only
this...

Another computer have the same problem, but the chipset in nVidia. With this
chipset, the HD stucks at UDMA6.

I'm thinking about the driver (disks.inf). Maybe it have a bug or problem?

To ChrisC

Maybe yours HDs are on a RAID matrix, or your chipset have support for this.
It is not for me, ICH6 don't have any RAID, only ICH6R or ICH6M.

To all

Epox reply with an error, saying my host (gmail) is blocked by the server. I
try with yahoo, and the same thing. Don't wait support from Epox, is in vain.

Intel says: "we do not support Intel Accelerator Technology anymore". Well,
is not my problem, I don't use IAA because ICH6 isn't supported by this
software. Lets wait another reply.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Mon, 8 May 2006 04:58:01 -0700, Romulo

What type of errors?

SMART detail may show them as "Ultra DMA CRC Error Count"; at least
that's what HD Tune displays on my SMART detail tab.

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Don't pay malware vendors - boycott Sony

 

[Guest]

I have HD Tune. My HD is fine.

Intel give me a reply, teke a look people:
"Hello Romulo,

Thank you for contacting Intel(R) Technical Support.

The PIO, DMA and UDMA concepts are exclusively for IDE ATA/TAPI drives.
These terms do not apply for Serial ATA drives. The fastest ATA mode is UDMA
6 (133 MB/s) while the Serial ATA controller can transfer data up to 150
MB/s. Operating systems and other applications may recognize Serial ATA
drives as UDMA5/6 for compatibility purposes only. However, this does not
reflect the correct transfer rate of your drive.

Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you need further assistance."

Well... if this is correct, my problem is solved. But I ask you people...
you think this is correct?

 

[ChrisC]

Hi, yes I do. You are correct, as I said before, if your drives are
performing as they should do and are not creating any errors then just
ignore the pio mode reading. If they were really in that mode you'd notive a
marked decrease in performance. Yes I do have raid_0 on all my drives.....
ChrisC