Help with flaky optical drives

[tren001]

I just bought a Dell 8400, and I bought a NEC 3520 DVD writer to put into my new computer. When I opened up I realized there's only ONE ATA port on the motherboard (while there are four S-ATA connectors) so I had to put both the NEC and the Samsung 16x DVD reader on the same channel.

The problem is whoever is on the slave connector performs very badly (plays audio cd garbled, system resources at 50% just when reading/copying from the drive) and when I looked at System -> Device Manager -> IDE controller it says the master drive is under Ultra II DMA, but the slave drive is on PIO, even though the setting for both drives is on "DMA if available." If I switch the drives, whoever is the master drive gets DMA, but the other drives gets PIO only. So now I've got the NEC on master, and it works great with reading and writing DVDs, but the Samsung DVD reader is pretty useless.

Am I missing somthing here? How do I set it up so both drives can operate smoothly without having to buy a PCI IDE controller card and connecting one of the drives to that? And if I do have to get a controller card, why on god's green earth are they so damn expensive? $30 for a stupid ATA controller card!?

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's bizarre. Either one of your devices is defective, or your IDE cable is defective, or your IDE port is defective, or you are having some wierd BIOS or IDE driver bugs.

I would delete/uninstall both opticals from the Device Manager in Windows', then shut down, remove both drive's power and IDE connectors, and the IDE cable from the mobo, and then boot the system, and in the BIOS setup, "Clear NVRAM" or "Clear PnP Data" or "Clear ESCD". (All are the same thing, it depends on how your BIOS is worded.) Make sure that the settings for each of the two drive positions attached to that IDE port are set to "AUTO" as well.

These two steps, essentially ensure that both the BIOS and it's PnP data stored in flash, and Windows' config data, are installed fresh after you re-connect and re-install the drives. However, when you do so, and you may do that now, try to use one of those "UDMA" IDE cables, the ones with the 80-conductor cable. Also, check your master-slave jumpers, and I would explicitly set the drive that will be located on the far end of the cable to "Master", and the middle of the cable to "Slave". Some opticals just don't work quite right while set to "Cable-select" settings, if that's what they are, and a factory-installed drive on a Dell might be.

After you get everything connected back up, and Windows' re-installs the devices, then go into Device Manager, and for that IDE port, re-set the drives to "DMA if Available" and reboot.

I'm not certain about OEM BIOSes these days, but if you can see the banner screen when the system boots, listing your installed drives, see if the opticals show up, and what PIO/DMA/UDMA mode that they are listed as.

Another question - has this *always* been like this, or has one of them suddenly dropped out of DMA mode? Windows' will do that automatically, for IDE devices that report errors, which can easily happen to an optical drive that is trying to read a scratched disc, etc., and then Windows' will "punish" the drive for it by dropping it down to PIO mode. Solution in that case is to delete the drive out of Device Manager, re-boot, and let it re-detect.

 

[tren001]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
That's bizarre. Either one of your devices is defective, or your IDE cable is defective, or your IDE port is defective, or you are having some wierd BIOS or IDE driver bugs.

I would delete/uninstall both opticals from the Device Manager in Windows', then shut down, remove both drive's power and IDE connectors, and the IDE cable from the mobo, and then boot the system, and in the BIOS setup, "Clear NVRAM" or "Clear PnP Data" or "Clear ESCD". (All are the same thing, it depends on how your BIOS is worded.) Make sure that the settings for each of the two drive positions attached to that IDE port are set to "AUTO" as well.

These two steps, essentially ensure that both the BIOS and it's PnP data stored in flash, and Windows' config data, are installed fresh after you re-connect and re-install the drives. However, when you do so, and you may do that now, try to use one of those "UDMA" IDE cables, the ones with the 80-conductor cable. Also, check your master-slave jumpers, and I would explicitly set the drive that will be located on the far end of the cable to "Master", and the middle of the cable to "Slave". Some opticals just don't work quite right while set to "Cable-select" settings, if that's what they are, and a factory-installed drive on a Dell might be.

After you get everything connected back up, and Windows' re-installs the devices, then go into Device Manager, and for that IDE port, re-set the drives to "DMA if Available" and reboot.

I'm not certain about OEM BIOSes these days, but if you can see the banner screen when the system boots, listing your installed drives, see if the opticals show up, and what PIO/DMA/UDMA mode that they are listed as.

Another question - has this *always* been like this, or has one of them suddenly dropped out of DMA mode? Windows' will do that automatically, for IDE devices that report errors, which can easily happen to an optical drive that is trying to read a scratched disc, etc., and then Windows' will "punish" the drive for it by dropping it down to PIO mode. Solution in that case is to delete the drive out of Device Manager, re-boot, and let it re-detect.

Thanks VirtualLarry for your thorough troubleshoot guide! I'm going to go home and try some of your suggestions out. Both drives should be okay because they both work good when they are on the Master connector, so maybe it's the cable (even though it's brand new rounded cable...)

I still might get a ATA card off eBay or something, just so the drives can be on different channels, and hopefully perform better. Damn these new computers sure are money blackholes. Although I also blame Dell and their one lonely ATA port on the motherboard. What the hell do I need four S-ATA ports for? I would be much more happy with 2 P-ATA and 2 S-ATA ports.

Anyway, thanks again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: tren001
Both drives should be okay because they both work good when they are on the Master connector, so maybe it's the cable (even though it's brand new rounded cable...)

Ahh, you didn't mention that. Depending on length and placement, that could be your problem right there. Definately try re-installing with a standard flat cable first, and preferably an 80-conductor one, as I mentioned.

Originally posted by: tren001
I still might get a ATA card off eBay or something, just so the drives can be on different channels, and hopefully perform better.

Unless you plan to do a lot of disc-to-disc copying between the two, that really shouldn't be necessary. However if you do, then yes that would be a recommended solution. Silicon Image/CMD PCI IDE controllers are probably the best ones for ATAPI devices, get one with a '0680' chipset onboard. SiiG makes one using the reference design, look for "ATA/133 PCI IDE controller". Newer Promise PCI IDE controllers aren't really meant for opticals, and are rather hit-or-miss, oftentimes they will be stuck running in PIO mode on it.

The easiest and first thing to try would be to just delete the drives out of Device Manager, reboot, and let Windows' re-detect/re-install them, then double-check that the PCI IDE ports are both "Use DMA if Available", and then reboot, and see if things improve. If not, then go through the more intensive troubleshooting.

 

[tren001]

Alright I think I've fixed it.

Dell's BIOS seem different than any I've seen before, and each SATA and PATA port only has a "on" and "off" setting. For whatever reason, the PATA slave port is on "off," so I turned it to "on" and now I'm getting DMA on both drives, and they both seem to work reasonably well. I don't see much disc to disc copying in the future, so I guess I don't have to waste my money on a controller card after all.

Thanks for your help!