Multi-Word DMA Mode 2

[Daave]

A friend recently asked me to look at his Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
because he was having printing issues (which I won't go into
presently -- I haven't gotten that far yet). He also stated that he has
noticed some sluggish behavior, including the desktop taking a while to
refresh. That is what I wanted to address first.

I ran AVG and also the Bit Defender Live CD in addition to MBAM in Safe
Mode. There is no evidence of malware. Also there is at least 70% free
space on the hard drive. And there is extremely little paging activity
going on as well.

I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not optimal;
it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."

After entering the Service Tag # at the Dell site, I see that the hard
drive is:

4G167 Hard Drive, 40GB, I,9.5MM, 5.4K HIT-EUCL

I intend to perform the Dell diagnostics (the laptop does have a
diagnositcs partition) on the hard drive, but I'd also like to run the
hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic, too. But I can't tell what would
be. I suppose I could try Sea Tools for DOS. But if there's a better
method, I'm all ears.

Also, there is a method I've successfully used to force a drive that has
slipped into "PIO" mode to revert to DMA mode:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

(I believe there is also a .reg file available that automates this
process.)

But I'm not sure this is the same situation. So all input is welcome.
Thanks in advance.

 

[smlunatick]

A friend recently asked me to look at his Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
because he was having printing issues (which I won't go into
presently -- I haven't gotten that far yet). He also stated that he has
noticed some sluggish behavior, including the desktop taking a while to
refresh. That is what I wanted to address first.

I ran AVG and also the Bit Defender Live CD in addition to MBAM in Safe
Mode. There is no evidence of malware. Also there is at least 70% free
space on the hard drive. And there is extremely little paging activity
going on as well.

I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not optimal;
it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."

After entering the Service Tag # at the Dell site, I see that the hard
drive is:

4G167 Hard Drive, 40GB, I,9.5MM, 5.4K HIT-EUCL

I intend to perform the Dell diagnostics (the laptop does have a
diagnositcs partition) on the hard drive, but I'd also like to run the
hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic, too. But I can't tell what would
be. I suppose I could try Sea Tools for DOS. But if there's a better
method, I'm all ears.

Also, there is a method I've successfully used to force a drive that has
slipped into "PIO" mode to revert to DMA mode:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

(I believe there is also a .reg file available that automates this
process.)

But I'm not sure this is the same situation. So all input is welcome.
Thanks in advance.

The only true method of get a PIO mode set hard drive back to DMA is:

Use 80 wire 40 pin UltraDMA data cable

Install the UltraDMA IDE drivers. These are either part of the
motherboard chipset drivers or a separate module. What is the chipset
used?

 

[Andrew E.]

Its hard to imagine that any laptop would have 40-pin cables installed from
the mfg.Youre best bet is to open the BIOS,usually "advanced chipset","OnChip
IDE Devices",default lets the BIOS choose,click on user defined or
disable,lets
the user select,see what settings are available..Also,read the owners manual
for any changes you might make...Usually hds are set to 4 or 5.