HAY GUYS

Rock · Local time: May 4, 2006, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Grawl

Try this trick first - http://winhlp.com/WxDMA.htm (long story short, uninstall your IDE-drivers, reboot and the settings will be restored it's CAN'T go wrong, trust me).

Note that this is only true if you use the (crappy) default Microsoft IDE drivers supplied with XP. Most (if not all) onboard controller manufacturers (like NVIDIA) have better IDE drivers that don't alter UDMA modes. If you have the option, use them. The MS IDE drivers sacrifice transfer speed in favor of stability (which isn't an issue if you're using decent quality IDE cabling).

Originally Posted by Grawl

If the thing doesn't set itself in Ultra DMA Mode 5 (highest available), it may just be the cables indeed. Get yourself a new pair for a few bucks and see if it works.

Actually, if his motherboard supports ATA-133 (which he states), the highest available mode ist UDMA mode 6 (as long as the drive supports it, of course). Also note that 80-ribbon IDE cables are a technical requirement for modes 5 and 6 to work (as stated by Cetra). You won't squeeze these speeds out of an old 40-ribbon cable.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Rock · 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Grawl

I used a motherboard with Nvidia somethingforcewhatever2, and it still switched back to PIO-mode.

Most probably because you were still using the default IDE drivers.

The NVIDIA IDE driver for nForce2 boards doesn't "support" DMA fallback whatsoever. In fact, even NVIDIA themselves don't recommend installing their highly optimized drivers because there are numerous issues with certain drives and CD/DVD writers in particular. I just happen to be one of the lucky ones benefitting from a considerable increase in IDE transfer speeds with their driver set without experiencing any compatibility or stability issues at all. Both my parallel ATA drives work just fine in ATA-133/UDMA-6 mode since day one.

As far as I know, they aren't even a standard component of their unified nForce driver packages and have to be installed seperately.

There's nowhere I can't reach.