How do I enable DMA HDD when using PCI IDE Controller Card?

[hollowman]

I bought a 250gb WD hdd and using it with the PCI IDE Controller Card that was included in the box. But I am not sure where to go to enable the DMA option.

The drive seems to slow down quite a bit when I am copying files from one partition to another.

Any helps are appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Georgeisdead]

Controllers are listed under Device Manager. It is not necessarily listed under the storage icon. You should find PCI IDE controller if you right click on my computer, click on properties then under the hardware tab click device manager. Somewhere, you'll find PCI IDE controller and under its properties there should be the setting to enable DMA.

This of course assumes you are running windows.

 

[hollowman]

Thanks for your input Georgeisdead.

The method you just told me is how I used to enable DMA when I was using onboard IDE controller. The PCI controller is listed under Device Manager/Raid and SCSI controllers.. but I can't seem to find the option to enable DMA on it.

I think I remember seeing somewhere that the PCI Controllers are always DMA enabled but not sure. But if it is always enabled, then why is my drive laggin when copying files from one partition to another? hmm...

 

[Gstanfor]

are you using the correct drivers for the card? An IDE controller should not appear under SCSI Controllers.

Mine (A cheap CMD PIC-0649 based card) appears under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", where you would expect it to.

 

[hollowman]

hmm.. I am using the driver that was included from the package. I guess I will try to update the driver and bios to see if that will help any.

Thanks for your input Gstanfor

 

[aka1nas]

Actually many IDE controllers will appear as SCSI controllers in dev manager. This is because the driver is implemented as a SCSI miniport and then translated back to IDE commands.

 

[pillage2001]

Alot of people seem to be having the same prob. I still could not figure how to enable it till this day.

 

[Viper96720]

No way to controller bios detects your HD mode and uses that. What does the promise bios say the speed is on boot up?

 

[hollowman]

Originally posted by: Viper96720
No way to controller bios detects your HD mode and uses that. What does the promise bios say the speed is on boot up?

I have set the speed to ATA100 via using the Data Lifeguard Tools software that was included in the package. I think the transfer rate and all are fine.. it is just that the system lags quite bad when you transfer large amount of files.

 

[hollowman]

Originally posted by: pillage2001
Alot of people seem to be having the same prob. I still could not figure how to enable it till this day.

Oh man... that really sucks. I may just use the drive without the controller card if I can't figure out how to enable DMA mode.

 

[oldfart]

You dont have to enable DMA on an add in PCI controller card.

 

[hollowman]

Originally posted by: oldfart
You dont have to enable DMA on an add in PCI controller card.

Yea, I think I heard of that before... but then could you tell me why the hdd lags as if the DMA wasn't enabled on the onboard controller?

 

[picardal]

i was having the same problem.... so i just took out my ata card and ran the hd off the ide controller -- now it works perfect!

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Actually many IDE controllers will appear as SCSI controllers in dev manager. This is because the driver is implemented as a SCSI miniport and then translated back to IDE commands.

Stuff like that should not be happening in this day and age. Thats roughly how they used to get IDE drives going on amigas for gawd sakes.

As I said my card is a proper IDE controller and its the cheapest of the cheap. If the low end can get it right, surely the likes of promise, adaptec etc can too...

 

[aka1nas]

The card does have DMA, its just that you can't enable it usually like a normal disk controller. Try different jumper settings. I know some IDE RAID controllers are very picky about whether a single drive is set to single or master or even cable select. Also see if there is newer firmware for the card.

 

[bluntman]

Yea, I think I heard of that before... but then could you tell me why the hdd lags as if the DMA wasn't enabled on the onboard controller?

As aka 1nas mentioned, go the website of the manufacturer of the controller card and download the latest XP driver.

I am almost sure that you have the same controller card that I have, a Promise TX2, either a 133 or 100. I came across the same problem that you are experiencing, slow disc transfers and sometimes my mouse would lag while one of the drives on the card was being accessed. It turns out that the driver that came on the installation disk was old and that the newer one addressed the problems that I was experiencing. After installing it and rebooting everything was fine.

 

[SUOrangeman]

I'd just you guys run a quick test (say, HDTach) to see if you are getting DMA-like numbers). I don't think any of your numbers would break 30MB/s if DMA is in use. The lag is probably due to your over-utilized PCI bus, whereas you onboard controllers are directly in the southbridge.

-SUO, HD controllers on the 66MHz PCI bus for me