DMA if available (pio if not)/ XP professional

[Bruce]

I have a Seagate st3160023a and a st340016a. Both disks are seen by the
ASUS A7A266 BIOS as being DMA/5 which is the way it should be. I have down
loaded an app from the Seagate website which separately confirms that the
disks are both DMA/5.

So far this is good. I have constructed my boot hard disk on st3160023a as
the disk seems to be more grunty - more cache etc. When I boot XP,
st340016a is shown as DMA/5 and st3160023a is PIO/4.

(Presumably) Because I am using a system disk that is rated as PIO the PC
cannot use a new DVD drive nor the write functionality of the old CD writer.
The system log does not report any CRC or timing errors from the disks.
Some sounds stutter eg the windows logon sound. Presumably the OS can't
feed the sound to the sound card when it is loging in a user.


In an attempt to get the system working I have
1) pulled all the non essential cards from the system
2) performed a fresh install of xp professional
3) applied the latest patches to xp via windows update
4) replaced the ide cable with another 80 conductor cable length < 18"


As seen via XP at no time did the system disk, the st3160023a, do anything
other than PIO/4 and the other disk on the same IDE cable.achieved DMA/5.

As seen via the BIOS both disks are DMA/5. The spec of both disks is that
they should achieve DMA/5

I have spoken to Seagate who advise that this is an XP issue. Seagate
referred me to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Microsoft have supplied the patch referred to in 817472

I have installed the patch and changed the registry.


AND

No change


Request
=====
Any comments suggestions welcome on how to get my PC to recognize that it
has a DMA/5 disk not a PIO disk.

OR

Are there any logs where I can track xp's decision process on down grading a
disks access speed at boot time

Thanks
Bruce

 

[PCEngWork]

1. Load the appropriate "Chipset" driver package.
2. Check BIOS for Auto Detect and IDE channel configuration
UDMA enabled, etc..
3. Verify you are using 80-Pin noise suppression cables.
4. Check/Verify Master/Slave jumpers (No Cable Select).
5. Check Vendor's web-site for BIOS updates where fix/patch
for ATAPI/IDE problems are addressed (Readme.Txt)
* After all of the above - Remove IDE Primary/Secondary
controller from Device Manager and reboot to re-enumerate
the drive(s).

 

[acdman]

According to the article, it looks like the hotfix only fixes it so it
will be less likely to happen again. It does not actually reset it
back to the correct drive timing. I had this problem and was able to
get it back to Ultra DMA Mode 5 by doing the workaround listed in the
article.

Here is the appropriate excerpt from the article:

WORKAROUND
To re-enable the typical, or faster, transfer mode for an affected
device:
Double-click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
Double-click the controller for which you want to restore the typical
DMA transfer mode.
Click the Driver tab.
Click Uninstall.
When the process completes, restart your computer. When Windows
restarts, the hard disk controller is re-enumerated and the transfer
mode is reset to the default value for each device that is connected
to the controller.

I would suggest that you get a good backup of your system before you
start deleting your boot controller as that is just begging for an
Inaccessible Boot Device BSOD, but it worked flawlessly for me.

I do not know if it will fix your burning problem, but it should get
Ultra DMA Mode 5 back for you.

 

[Bruce]

Thanks for the reply

I have undertaken these changes and the no change still stuck in first gear
aka PIO mode

- I have confirmed that the hotfix is in place - I can see it in the
add/remove programs

- I can also check on the driver- it is the driver mentioned in MS KB 817472

Well the good news is that the weekend is almost here - more time to see if
I can solve the puzzle

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a Seagate st3160023a and a st340016a. Both disks are seen by the
ASUS A7A266 BIOS as being DMA/5 which is the way it should be. I have down
loaded an app from the Seagate website which separately confirms that the
disks are both DMA/5.

So far this is good. I have constructed my boot hard disk on st3160023a as
the disk seems to be more grunty - more cache etc. When I boot XP,
st340016a is shown as DMA/5 and st3160023a is PIO/4.

(Presumably) Because I am using a system disk that is rated as PIO the PC
cannot use a new DVD drive nor the write functionality of the old CD writer.
The system log does not report any CRC or timing errors from the disks.
Some sounds stutter eg the windows logon sound. Presumably the OS can't
feed the sound to the sound card when it is loging in a user.

If there is too high an error rate, XP drivers will revert to PIO as
being slow but steady, and stick there.

So

First check the hardware - is it using proper 80 wire in 40 pin plug
cables? And is the master drive on the end plug of the cable, other end
on the motherboard, with any slave device in the middle?

Having checked, go to Device Manager, find he top level controller, just
above Primary channel, and Action - Uninstall, then reboot to let PnP
start things over

 

[Bruce]

=========History========
I have a Seagate st3160023a and a st340016a. Both disks are seen by
the mother board ASUS A7A266 BIOS as being DMA/5 which is the way it
should be. I have down loaded an app from the Seagate website which
separately confirms that the disks are both DMA/5.

So far this is good. I have constructed my boot hard disk on
st3160023a as the disk seems to be more grunty - more cache etc. When
I boot XP, st340016a is shown via xp as DMA/5 and st3160023a is PIO/4.

(Presumably) Because I am using a system disk that is rated as PIO the
PC
cannot use a new DVD drive nor the write functionality of the old CD
writer.
The system log does not report any CRC or timing errors from the
disks. Some sounds stutter eg the windows logon sound. Presumably the
OS can't feed the sound to the sound card when it is loging in a user.


In an attempt to get the system working I have
1) pulled all the non essential cards from the system
2) performed a fresh install of xp professional
3) applied the latest patches to xp via windows update
4) replaced the ide cable with another 80 conductor cable length < 18"


As seen via XP at no time did the system disk, the st3160023a, do
anything other than PIO/4 and the other disk on the same IDE
cable.achieved DMA/5.

As seen via the BIOS both disks are DMA/5. The spec of both disks is
that they should achieve DMA/5

I have spoken to Seagate who advise that this is an XP issue. Seagate
referred me to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Microsoft have supplied the patch referred to in 817472

I have installed the patch and changed the registry.


AND

No change



=========END History========


The problem continues

I have replaced the ide cables with new cables ( 40 pins/80 conductor
18" long)

I have rearranged the order of the disks with the boot disk at the end
of the ide chain – I thought that this was an obvious winner but no
change

(I have taken the drivers in and out but also no change)

I visited Asus's website & got a driver for every win platform up to
xp but not including xp. This updated the drivers but did not provide
a solution

I visited alius.com – they had a master bus driver for the chipset
(Ali M1647 & Ali M1535D)– this provided the latest aliide.sys drivers
– fyi they are dated 6/3/03 the MS ones are dated 1/7/01

Still no change

By this time I have down loaded an app Ali IDE Controller set up
utility
- it reports the disks both of them as being drivers
System32\DRIVERS\alide.sys UDMA100

Yet XP control>computer management>device manager ….>advanced
settings> Primary IDE channel reports PIO.

At this time I installed boot magic and ran Redhat Linux which
reported UDMA5 on both disks, I was able to get NT to work on DMA – I
switched on DMA but it worked ok (NT does not report the speed of
DMA) . So it seems that DMA is working well from a hardware view
point but not an xp view point.


At this point I felt that I was getting somewhere so I looked at the
Seagate website for the disk specifications & saw that it was xp
compatible

I looked on the MS website and also saw that it was xp compatable


I have downloaded the tools provided by Seagate for testing disks –
both disks pass 100%

Hypothesis
==========
I think that the hardware works ok but xp does not. This is against
what MS help desk says. They have advised me that I have a hardware
fault and that I should contact hardware support. It was not relevant
to them that the disk manufacturer Seagate believed it to be an XP
problem. Nor that it works on NT/Red Hat

Request
=====
Can anybody offer suggestions on where I can go from here?


Are there any logs where I can track xp's decision process on down
grading a disks access speed at boot time?



Thanks

 

[E. Lee]

Have you tried http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/a7a266 ?

 

[Bruce]

No - but it worked wonders - thanks

Have you tried http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/a7a266 ?


(e-mail address removed) (Bruce) wrote in message