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Asus P5GDC-V IDE and DMA problems

kranky

kranky

Elite Member
Put this new motherboard in and something's not right. Disks are pretty slow and I suspect DMA isn't being used. Latest BIOS is installed, and I'm using XP SP2. No overclocking.

It has a ICH6R controller (handles up to Ultra DMA 100) as the primary IDE controller, where I have two hard drives. It also has an ITE 8212 controller (it can do RAID but I'm using it in IDE mode), where I have a DVD burner.

In Device Manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, I have
- Intel 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 2652
- Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 266F
- Primary IDE Channel
- Primary IDE Channel
- Secondary IDE Channel
- Secondary IDE Channel

The two Intel entries do not say anything about DMA one way or the other. The second Primary IDE Channel entry says use DMA if available but is using PIO. The other three entries all say use DMA if available and Transfer mode is "Not Applicable". Device Manager isn't indicating any problems with hardware. The channel using PIO might be the DVD burner but I can't tell.

Copying files between two NTFS partitions on the main hard drive runs slower than 1 MB/sec AND with heavy CPU usage. The drive is Ultra DMA/100, and I'm using a brand new Ultra DMA cable.

The hard drive is on the Intel controller but I can't figure out why things are so slow.
 
Fixed.

Still can't figure out what was wrong, but after removing the second Primary IDE Channel (which is the Southbridge controller) in Device Manager AND resetting back to BIOS defaults at least three times AND swapping the second HDD with the DVD burner (making the DVD burner the slave on the Southbridge controller, and making the second HDD the master on the ITE IDE channel), things got detected properly.

The BIOS still doesn't display options for setting the DMA mode for the IDE devices as the manual indicates it should, but at least it's working.

 
That is weird but...the only thing I can think of off hand is that some current RAID Controllers (@least Highpoints) can not detect Optical Drives any longer so maybe the Mobo was thinking on it's own until you reset the BIOS and moved the DVD playa 😉

Edit=You might want to do some Benches to make sure everything is up to Par...
 
I did have the optical working on the ITE RAID controller but there wasn't any point - system wouldn't boot from the drives on the ITE anyway, and you gotta be able to boot from a CD if necessary.

Funny but when both HDDs were on the Southbridge, they only operated in PIO mode. But I decided it's better to have the CD bootable, and the other HDD worked fine on the ITE, so it's all good.

I'll tell you, this is a strange motherboard. There ought to be third-party "strategy guides" for them like they do for games. 🙂
 
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