Are PCI IDE Cards worth it?

[Chronic321]

I am having problems with my on board IDE ports as many Windows XP/kt333 users are having. Basically at this point the only way I can get UDMA for both my Hard Drive and DVD ROM is to have them both hooked up to my secondary port. I know my UDMA 6 hard drive is being slowed down by my UDMA 2 DVD ROM but the question is will I see a big performance difference if I spend $30-40 for an add on card just to give my hard drive its own channel. Thanks

 

[Chronic321]

Is anybody else having DMA issues, is it my motherboard's primary port or XP. Thanks

 

[Pariah]

If your setup is working in its current state and everything is running with DMA on, then don't worry about it, you will see no performance improvement picking up a PCI card. The only reason you would want a PCI card is if you run out of channels or you have ATA33 or slower onboard.

 

[Chronic321]

You mention that it would be worth it it I had an ATA 33 or slower board, am I not running my ATA 133 Hard Drive at ATA 33 since it is the master of an ATA 33 DVD ROM? My cable is ATA 133 and the port supports it, but I have been under the impression that it defaults to the lowest speed on the chain. Thanks

 

[Mavrick007]

As long as you have a fairly recent mobo, the ide devices will be independent when paired up with slower or faster drives on the same channel. On older mobos, ide devices would default to the slowest device on the channel (ie. ata 33 hd along with an ata 100 hd would all default to ata 33).