Will my MOBO work with 5 ide devices?

[John Wilson]

I have a 450watt PSU, 2.4ghz P4, 650mb ram.

I just put in a DVD writer and now have a total of 3 cd drives and 2 hard
drives in my comp. The comp's performance seems sluggish now. I am also
wondering if there are any jumpers on my MOBO I need to change to
compensate/accommodate my new HDD and DVD drive.

Thanks.

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/asus_p4s533-mx.htm

 

[Egil Solberg]

I have a 450watt PSU, 2.4ghz P4, 650mb ram.

I just put in a DVD writer and now have a total of 3 cd drives and 2
hard drives in my comp. The comp's performance seems sluggish now. I
am also wondering if there are any jumpers on my MOBO I need to
change to compensate/accommodate my new HDD and DVD drive.

Thanks.

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/asus_p4s533-mx.htm

I don't know how you can accommodate 5 ide-devices unless you have a
separate PCI IDE controller.
There are no jumpers on the mobo. Just be sure to check jumpers on drives
,cables and that DMA mode is in use (check in device manager).

 

[Venom]

I don't know how you can accommodate 5 ide-devices unless you have a
separate PCI IDE controller.
There are no jumpers on the mobo. Just be sure to check jumpers on drives
,cables and that DMA mode is in use (check in device manager).

Unless you were seriously pirating discs why would you want 3 optical drives
when the DVD writer is enough?

 

[John Wilson]

Stay on topic please, and don't insult me with your erroneous assumptions.

 

[John Wilson]

Thanks. Yes, I have done all that, but the MOBO manual has all these
settings showing power/voltage in a diagram next to the devices I have been
installing.

Yes, I have an ATA133 pci card.

Thank you again for your response.

 

[Centurion]

Unless you were seriously pirating discs why would you want 3 optical
drives when the DVD writer is enough?

Hmm, lets see. The machine next to me has 3 optical drives and has never
been used as a disk duplicator. THe drives are:
1 x CDROM (because the system can't boot from the DVD - old BIOS[1])
1 x DVD+/-RW (and CDRW obviously)
1 x MO drive (to read archived data from a legacy system)

So your assumption is way off-base (even if the MO drive is SCSI).

James
[1] The BIOS can't be updated anymore - the manufacturer (IBM) no longer
supports the dinosaur and no 3rd parties have stepped up.

 

[RonK]

Coonect the hard drive by itself on IDE 1 on the motherboard and see if
performance increases.
That will still leave you enough connections for your other drives.

 

[John Wilson]

Ah, that is why I got the ATA133 pci card. Both hdd's are on their own
channel.

BTW, when I disconnect one of the cd drives, my performance picks back up
(windows and files open faster, programs save faster, etc.)

Thanks.

 

[ByTor]

I have a 450watt PSU, 2.4ghz P4, 650mb ram.

I just put in a DVD writer and now have a total of 3 cd drives and 2 hard
drives in my comp. The comp's performance seems sluggish now. I am also
wondering if there are any jumpers on my MOBO I need to change to
compensate/accommodate my new HDD and DVD drive.

Thanks.

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/asus_p4s533-mx.htm

I read the rest of the posts..............

How exactly are your devices connected?
What type of controller card is it?

Your power supply is sufficient as I have 6 HD's & 5 optical drives
attached in my machine and works perfectly on a 450W......Mind you I
have a different board but had to juggle devices around....Maxtors did
not like WesternD's, Plextors didn't like some shit brand optical
attached to it, etc.
ALL my opticals are on one Sigg controller though except one attached to
the MB IDE.......Maybe ya need some jugglin' round..........Be careful
attaching HD's if it's a Sigg controller card it will change disk order
and ya may not be able to boot the OS drive if you put a "data" HD on
the card........
--
*************************************************
The Tobes of Hades, lit by flickering torchlight
The netherworld is gathered in the glare
Prince By-Tor takes the cavern to the north light
The sign of Eth is rising in the air.
By-Tor, knight of darkness,
Centurion of evil, devil's prince.

 

[ByTor]

I read the rest of the posts..............

How exactly are your devices connected?
What type of controller card is it?

Your power supply is sufficient as I have 6 HD's & 5 optical drives
attached in my machine and works perfectly on a 450W......Mind you I
have a different board but had to juggle devices around....Maxtors did
not like WesternD's, Plextors didn't like some shit brand optical
attached to it, etc.
ALL my opticals are on one Sigg controller though except one attached to
the MB IDE.......Maybe ya need some jugglin' round..........Be careful
attaching HD's if it's a Sigg controller card it will change disk order
and ya may not be able to boot the OS drive if you put a "data" HD on
the card........

BTW: Attaching a lower end device like an optical drive to a HDrive is
not good practice......If you are connected like that, remove the
optical and see what happens.........
--
*************************************************
Across the river Styx, Out of the lamplight
His nemesis is waiting at the gate
The Snow Dog, ermine glowing In the damp night
Coal-black eyes shimmering with hate
By-Tor and the Snow Dog Square for battle
Let the fray begin

 

[John Wilson]

Hi. I think you will be right. I will have to do some juggling around. The
Asus cd drive seems to be causing the problem. I also have a HP cdwriter and
a Sony DVD writer. The 2 hdd's are western digital. I have nothing connected
to the HDD's, but the first one is a very old 20gig drive with the OS on it.

The ATA controller pci card is indeed from SIIG. I have the new 320 gig
West. Digital HD on the primary cable and the HP cdwriter on the secondary
cable. Both are set for Master, because nothing is attached to them.

 

[John Wilson]

Hmm, lets see. The machine next to me has 3 optical drives and has never
been used as a disk duplicator. THe drives are:
1 x CDROM (because the system can't boot from the DVD - old BIOS[1])
1 x DVD+/-RW (and CDRW obviously)
1 x MO drive (to read archived data from a legacy system)

So your assumption is way off-base (even if the MO drive is SCSI).

Right. And my DVD drive is used only for monthly backups of books and other
articles that I edit. I got a double layer because the backups are now up to
4gigabytes in size. I want to save the wear and tear on the DVD writer,
which is why I use the CD writer to burn the CD's. Plus the cd writer has
been inside the computer for about three years now. It is not like I just
went out and bought it. The other cd drive reads much more faster than the
cd writer and DVDwriter, so I use it as the reader. Plus, copying my data
CD's (not music or movie cd's) goes much faster using this other optical as
a reader.

Thank you all who replied.

 

[ByTor]

Hi. I think you will be right. I will have to do some juggling around. The
Asus cd drive seems to be causing the problem. I also have a HP cdwriter and
a Sony DVD writer. The 2 hdd's are western digital. I have nothing connected
to the HDD's, but the first one is a very old 20gig drive with the OS on it.

Actually my system is setup as a 30gig for my 4 OS's on the primary IDE
of the MB with a plain ole CDROM attached to that as slave........But, I
know I mentioned not connecting an optical drive but in this scenario it
works perfect and there is no degradation in the system, plus I need a
ROM attached to the MB for booting purposes, booting to the siig roms
gives me grief.....My secondary IDE on the MB has 2 WD's attached.......

The ATA controller pci card is indeed from SIIG. I have the new 320 gig
West. Digital HD on the primary cable and the HP cdwriter on the secondary
cable. Both are set for Master, because nothing is attached to them.

I have 3 DVD burners and a Plextor CD Burner all attached to my Siig
controller and performance of burning is extraordinary......I can burn 3
DVD's at once and hardly notice a dent in memory & performance, buffers
maintain almost 100%....And all this on a 1.4ghz, 1gig ram
machine..........I have 3 HD's attached to a promise Ultra 100TX2
controller and all handle perfect.....

I am very hardcore with burning and will NEVER attach a burner to the MB
for reasons as I explained; performance....The siig is amazing at
handling burners, the promise is better for HD's in my
opinion.......I've only once attached a HD to the siig and because of my
multiboots it gave me a helluva problem in certain scenarios that I
found out the hard way, it does indeed change disk order when attaching
drives.....You will probably find that the HD on your MB may now be
DISK1 & your 320 DISK0....In your case you're safe though......

Good luck, make sure we hear how ya make out..........

BTW: I am not much of a top poster so I apologize if this looks wierd as
I do not want to cut out the remaining replies.....

--
***************************************************************
Please reply to this thread/article only and not the binary
lines of the actual ep posts....If you don't know how to keep
it in the same thread, create a new thread with comments or
issues(if you use GrabIt I'll understand). If you reply using
a binary line in a response I will not see them and of course
won't respond and can't help.

ByTor

 

[Bill]

Ah, that is why I got the ATA133 pci card. Both hdd's are on their own
channel.

BTW, when I disconnect one of the cd drives, my performance picks back up
(windows and files open faster, programs save faster, etc.)

Thanks.

<snip>

Sounds like that drive was running in PIO mode. See if you can set it
to DMA mode, which may not be possible, but try it anyways.

Bill

 

[John Wilson]

Sounds like that drive was running in PIO mode. See if you can set it
to DMA mode, which may not be possible, but try it anyways.

Well, well, well. In bios it says the drive was set for #4 in PIO and #2 in
DMA. The numbers range from 0 to 5 in both sections so I wonder what I
should set them for? I took a guess--because I really don't know anything
about this--and changed PIO from 4 to 0. I changed DMA from 2 to 5. The
difference it made was incredible. It accesses the cd at least 3 times
faster than before and makes practically no noise now when it spins.

I have had that Asus drive since 2001, so I am wondering if it should be set
for DMA 5? Why not 3 or 4? Should PIO be set to 0 when the bios default was
4?

Thanks!

 

[John Wilson]

Uh, I think I jumped the gun on this one. When I restarted the computer the
settings went back to PIO 4 and DMA 2. There was no difference. Maybe my
drive is just finally going bad. You can't play a music cd on it because it
acts like the power briefly drops out every few seconds. I think I am going
to put this cddrive on the ata133 pci card I have to see if that makes any
difference.

There is a setting in bios that lets me turn off PIO altogether for this
drive and make DMA =5. But it had no effect as far as playing a music cd is
concerned.

 

[Egil Solberg]

Uh, I think I jumped the gun on this one. When I restarted the
computer the settings went back to PIO 4 and DMA 2. There was no
difference. Maybe my drive is just finally going bad. You can't play
a music cd on it because it acts like the power briefly drops out
every few seconds. I think I am going to put this cddrive on the
ata133 pci card I have to see if that makes any difference.

There is a setting in bios that lets me turn off PIO altogether for
this drive and make DMA =5. But it had no effect as far as playing a
music cd is concerned.

Do not alter the BIOS transfer settings. Check in windows device manager
whether DMA is turned on. For your adapter card, there might be special
software to use.

Hdtach can measure transfer speed, access time and burst speed. Burst speed
should be as high as possible, and CPU usage low. If CPU usage is 90-100%,
you run in PIO(programmed I/O mode, using CPU for datatransfers at rather
slow rate) .

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

For ATA133 drives correctly cabled using DMA, burst speed should be above
100MB/s.

Check burst speed for your optical drives with f.ex www.cdspeed2000.com.
With ATA33, it should be above 20MB/s.

Try not to run optical drives off a PCI ATA controller card. Onboard ports
are better for that.

Use 80wire ATA cables for disks, 40wire is sufficient for optical drives
(ie, speeds upto and including UDMA2)

 

[ByTor]

Try not to run optical drives off a PCI ATA controller card. Onboard ports
are better for that.

Why's that?
Is that a particular reason for that board or just in general?

--
*************************************************
The Tobes of Hades, lit by flickering torchlight
The netherworld is gathered in the glare
Prince By-Tor takes the cavern to the north light
The sign of Eth is rising in the air.
By-Tor, knight of darkness,
Centurion of evil, devil's prince.

 

[Egil Solberg]

Why's that?
Is that a particular reason for that board or just in general?

ATAPI support has been flaky on most addon PCI IDE controller cards, so the
general recommendation has been to use onboard IDE-ports. That may have
changed.

 

[ByTor]

ATAPI support has been flaky on most addon PCI IDE controller cards, so the
general recommendation has been to use onboard IDE-ports. That may have
changed.

Oh okay.....I thought maybe you read my replies also and seen how my
system is setup is why I asked.......I thought maybe I was missing
something and just wanted info.............Only cards in my experience
with opticals that are not as good are Promises.....They work great with
HD's........
--
*************************************************
The Tobes of Hades, lit by flickering torchlight
The netherworld is gathered in the glare
Prince By-Tor takes the cavern to the north light
The sign of Eth is rising in the air.
By-Tor, knight of darkness,
Centurion of evil, devil's prince.