HOW DO YOU ENABLE DMA FOR HARD DISK?

[Guest]

I use ATI's Multimedia Center to watch TV on my computer. I just installed
the programs from a CD I have, and when I clicked on the TV button which then
led me to setting everything up, I received the following message:

-----------
Personal Video Recorder and TV-on-Demand Performance will be degraded on
this system as DMA for the hard disk is not enabled.

Please check the Syetm Settings in the Windows Control Panel for the
following Devices:

DROP DOWN BOX: WDC WWD 2500JB-00GVA0
----------

I checked in Control Panel without much luck, so i searched for DMA with
Windows Help. I was reading and it mentioned something about BIOS, and I
remembered seeing the 'WDCWD2500" info in BIOS before. So I went to BIOS
under Standard CMOS Features: (it read)

-------
IDE Primary Master- WDCWD2500JB00GVA0
-------
I clicked on it which led to this next MENU:

-------
IDE HDD Auto-Detection (you can only press ENTER and it auto-detects the
hard drive's size)

IDE Primary Master - SET TO AUTO
Access Mode- SET TO AUTO
-------
The options for the last two can be changed to "NONE" or "MANUAL"



So I don't really know what to do to ENABLE DMA for the hard disk. If you
could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks in advance,
Mike

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

I use ATI's Multimedia Center to watch TV on my computer. I just
installed the programs from a CD I have, and when I clicked on the TV
button which then led me to setting everything up, I received the
following message:

-----------
Personal Video Recorder and TV-on-Demand Performance will be degraded
on this system as DMA for the hard disk is not enabled.

Please check the Syetm Settings in the Windows Control Panel for the
following Devices:

DROP DOWN BOX: WDC WWD 2500JB-00GVA0
----------

I checked in Control Panel without much luck, so i searched for DMA
with Windows Help. I was reading and it mentioned something about
BIOS, and I remembered seeing the 'WDCWD2500" info in BIOS before. So
I went to BIOS under Standard CMOS Features: (it read)

-------
IDE Primary Master- WDCWD2500JB00GVA0
-------
I clicked on it which led to this next MENU:

-------
IDE HDD Auto-Detection (you can only press ENTER and it auto-detects
the hard drive's size)

IDE Primary Master - SET TO AUTO
Access Mode- SET TO AUTO
-------
The options for the last two can be changed to "NONE" or "MANUAL"



So I don't really know what to do to ENABLE DMA for the hard disk. If
you could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks in advance,
Mike

Mike

Open Control Panel/System/Hardware tab/Device Manager. Expand the IDE
ATA/ATAPI Controllers item. Right click the Primary IDE Channel and select
Properties/Advanced Settings tab. Click the Transfer Mode drop down menu and
select the DMA if available option. Click OK, exit and reboot the system.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Mike the DMA should be enabled by default. To check go to Control panel and
click the System icon. In the system properties window click the Hardware
tab. Now click Device manager. In device manager expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers. Right click on the Primary IDE channel and select Properties
from the drop down menu. When the Primary IDE channel properties window
opens click the Advanced Settings tab. If your hard drive supports DMA the
transfer mode option for device 0 (zero) will show DMA if available. Beneath
this you should see Ultra DMA Mode 5. If you have more than one drive the
second device (device 1) should display the same results.

 

[Guest]

AWESOME GUYS! Thanks for your help. I have one last question:
There are a bunch of different DMA settings I can choose from. My system
doesn't say the "DMA if available" option. It's probably cause I've installed
nVidia drivers on my computer.

Instead, the first thing that shows up is
ULTRA DMA 5-Ultra 100

then the other options are......
ULTRA DMA 4-Ultra 66
ULTRA DMA 3
ULTRA DMA 2-Ultra 33
ULTRA DMA 1
ULTRA DMA 0

Multi-word DMA 2
Multi-word DMA 1
Multi-word DMA 0

PIO Mode is an option but I believe that's not what I want.

Under the DROP-DOWN BOX, there's a series of checkboxes. The choices are:

-Let BIOS select transfer mode (this was automatically checked...only when
unchecked can you view the different DMA options in the drop-down box)

-Enable read cachin (gray and not available at all with any combination of
checkmarks)

-Enable write caching (automatically checked)

-Enable command queing (gray and not available for checkmarking)
------------------------------

My question is: is Ultra DMA 5 the BEST option I could possibly use to
enhance performance? Also, should I uncheck any of the boxes (Let BIOS select
transfer mode-------and-------Enable write caching). After these
recommendations from your responses.....should I not have a problem with the
message from ATI about degrading performance?

Thank you VERY much for your time!

God Bless and Happy Holidays,
Mike

 

[Alex Nichol]

I use ATI's Multimedia Center to watch TV on my computer. I just installed
the programs from a CD I have, and when I clicked on the TV button which then
led me to setting everything up, I received the following message:

-----------
Personal Video Recorder and TV-on-Demand Performance will be degraded on
this system as DMA for the hard disk is not enabled.

Please check the Syetm Settings in the Windows Control Panel for the
following Devices:

If using standard MSoft drivers for the hard disk, go to
Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager
and look under IDE ATA/ATAPI Disk controllers
for the Primary channel - double click and look on Advanced Settings

(If you use third party drivers, like Intel Application Accelerator, or
VIA 4 in 1 this will not be there - these assume DMA no matter what)

In the upper pane it should have 'Use DMA if available' selected. -
lower one is the slave device, probably CD. Secondary channel is for
the devices on the second controller and cable

If in spite of that it is on PIO it means that there is a hardware fault
(possibly wrong cabling) that has generated unacceptable levels of
errors and it has fallen back. Possible example are not using an 80
wire UDMA cable; or having the drive plugged in to the middle connector
of the cable, with the end free or going to a CD that does not terminate
it properly.

After putting that right, go back to Device manager, and highlight the
top level controller, just above Primary channel; Action - Remove,
accept OK out and reboot for PnP to start over