ASRock K7S8X - SiS746FX - Bus Master?

[MIDIman]

Just picked this up last week, and I've been putting it together this weekend. A few questions:

1) What is the IDE Bus Master option in BIOS? I have it enabled, and WinXP installed everything, but the HD (ATA100) is showing up as PIO4 instead of UDMA5, and no available option for DMA enabled, same as the CD-ROM of course. The HD shows up as UDMA5 in BIOS.

2) This mobo is so new that I can't find any drivers online. Everything is installed, but the CD-ROM is quite confusing. Anyone have a listing of SiS drivers that must be installed, and in what order - i.e. like how Via chipsets have to have the 4-in-1 etc. before everything else. I've tried installing a few actually, and I get an error installing! Yikes.

Just would like to hear others' experiences.

 

[Iron Woode]

The IDE bus master in the BIOS is for faster and less cpu intensive IDE access during boot up (and if available - DOS) before the OS drivers take over.

Make sure that all IDE settings for PIO and UDMA are turned on or Auto in the BIOS usually under Integrated Peripherals.

In winXP right click my computer and go into properties. Choose Hardware and click device manager. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers click the primary IDE and then click advanced. Look for your HDD and if it says PIO mode try clicking the arrow and choose Use UDMA Mode if available. Just for fun reboot the machine and then check it again to see if the change is successful.

Make sure the LAN is turned on in the BIOS for it to install the drivers. Same goes for USB and sound.

 

[MIDIman]

thx for the reply!!

Oddly enough, I just booted up one time, and behold, DMA was available.

Question - there is an IDE miniport driver included on the CD. Is this needed? I dont really have much of a choice, cause trying to install it, it gives an error in asian characters, but was curious anyway.

There's also an AGP miniport. Is that needed?

 

[Iron Woode]

Yes there is and some people refuse to install the IDE one.

It makes your IDE drives appear as scsi. Everything works fine for me though, using the newest Nvidia drivers ver 2.03.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Iron Woode
Yes there is and some people refuse to install the IDE one.

It makes your IDE drives appear as scsi. Everything works fine for me though, using the newest Nvidia drivers ver 2.03.

I take it you mean SIS drivers v2.03?