I am going nuts: enabling UDMA on my SATA hd (a8n-sli)

[karmadharma]

I used to have 2x200GB in RAID1 on the silicon image controller, for some reason after a few days since I got my PC things started slowing down to a crawl: HD tach gave me a transfer rate for my raid of 2 megabytes/sec! (and 30msec seek).

I kind of got fed up with it and decided to just go with a single drive and just backup to the second occasionally (probably an even better idea) so I moved an HD to one of the 'normal' SATA ports and left the other disconnected.

Currently I have a DVD-RW on IDE0 as a master, and my drive on SATA2. Doing an HDtach gives my transfer rate at 13MB/sec with 100% cpu which is a dead giveaway of dma being 'off'. All of my entries in the device manager are 'dma if allowed' and the one I *think* the SATA HD is in is set to PIO.

How do I enable DMA for my HD? For some reason I also always thought that SATA wouldn't be shown together with the other IDE controllers, not to mention that I thought it would use the NVIDIA driver rather than the MS one (right clicking on my HD in the device manager shows a MS driver).

I am really going nuts here, been trying to get this to work for several hours but no dice: could somebody please give me a hand? thanks in advance.

 

[FastEddie]

Have you tried using the nv sata ports? When you installed the chipset package from the Asus cd, did you also install the nv sw ide drivers?

 

[karmadharma]

the HD is connected to the nv SATA1 port, I have installed the IDE drivers from the nvidia website (when I do an add/remove in the control panel I can see 'NVIDIA IDE driver' among the installed entries) it just seems that XP doesn't want to use them for my IDE controller for some reason, any ideas?

 

[karmadharma]

ok, I installed the NVIDIA PCI drivers from the mobo disk but no dice, nTune tells me that everything but the DVD-RW is set to PIO, when I go in device manager I have 9 entries for IDE controllers, 3 primary, 3 secondary and 3 'standard dual PCI IDE controllers' all using MS drivers (nothing using NVidia). The HD seems to be connected to the second primary IDE controller. When I go to 'update drivers' it says the controller is using the best driver available and doesn't even give me the choice to use an NVIDIA one.

I am really stumped here.

 

[karmadharma]

ok, I think I might have made some progress: if I try to upgrade the driver of the 'standard dual PCI controller' I am given the choice between the MS one and the CK804 (unsigned) NVIDIA one, HOWEVER when installing it I get an error that says 'This installation package is not supported by this processor type. Contact your product vendor'. What gives?

 

[FastEddie]

Just got back in. You've got way too many controllers showing in Device Manager. You have a cdrw on the Primary IDE Controller as Master, and an sata boot drive on the SI controllers port 2.

First, uninstall the nv ide drivers from Add/Remove Programs. Reboot. Then go to Device Manager and tell me how many controllers you have showing.

Well get your drives straight after you deal with the controller issue.

 

[karmadharma]

I did a lot of add/removes, experimented with different nv controllers but still no dice. I have 3 controllers showing (dual channel IDE controllers, one for IDE1/2, one for SATA1/2 and one for SATA3/4 I think). My HD is on the second 'primary IDE controller' (which is SATA1), my DVD is on the first 'secondary IDE controller' (it's a master on IDE2).

I've tried removing *all* controllers but on reboot they all get redetected and reinstalled exactly the same

When I work in the device manager trying to update the driver and making it choose from the nvidia 6.39 directory it shows that it tries to install the 'nforce 4 ADMA controller', HOWEVER when I don't set it to choose from that directory it tries to install 'NVIDIA CK804 ADMA controller (v2.7)' for some reason and it shows that option even after I've completely cleaned the system from nforce drivers (even using driver cleaner). I wonder if this latest one is part of XP/SP2.

I feel that if I was able to install the nforce4 IDE driver I would be able to get DMA working, I just wonder WHY I am getting the stupid 'not supported by this processor type' error from the drivers (and no, I didn't download the 64bit ones by mistake).

 

[FastEddie]

Check how the ports are setup in the bios. Boot and enter cmos setup, then go to Advanced/Onboard Device Configuration/IDE Function Setup

Make sure that the IDE DMA transfer access is Enabled (this setting is for your standard ide controllers), and Enable the Serial Port your sata boot drive is attached to, also Enable the SATA DMA access setting.

Turn off the ports you're not using, (hd attached to sata1, then Disable Serial Port 3,4).

Then tell me what's listed in Device Manager.

 

[karmadharma]

enabling/disabling things in the BIOS has weird effects: my HD is on SATA1 and my CDROM is a master on IDE1

if I disable only IDE0 I get a 'NVidia RAID trying to find an array' screen just after the POST screen, then winnt boots but freezes (black screen) just before going in the graphical login
if I disable SATA3/4 it doesn't find my drive (which is on SATA1)! so XP doesn't boot
if I disable SATA1/2 it *does* find my drive (weird, since it's on SATA1) but again I get the 'nvidia RAID' screen and XP doesn't boot properly.

All the DMA stuff in the BIOS is enabled BTW.

I really wonder what's going on here! I also am not sure if I have the nvidia RAID drivers installed (I did do the 6.39 setup so they *should* be there, right?) but if they aren't maybe it makes sense that XP wouldn't work properly if they aren't installed (as I've heard that with 1hd the NVraid controller just 'pretends' it's a normal IDE for XP).

 

[FastEddie]

You can get rid of the nv raid post message by turning off the nv raid controller in the bios. Same place as before...../NVRAID Configuration and make sure Raid Enabled is Disabled.

Do you have the IDE Prefetch Enabled? (Advanced/Onboard Device Configuration/IDE Function Setup)

I don't know why you're not using the nv sata ports, they are faster than the SI sata ports.

Now for your ports. Look at page 2-3 in the manual. Note where the sata ports are. The four sata ports closest to the pci slots are the SI raid ports. See how the manual has them numbered. Turn on the pair of ports your drive is attached to, turn off the pair of ports your drive is not using.

I was going to get to this, but you should have your cdrw on the Secondary IDE controller, as Master, not on the Primary controller. In the Bios, the Primary is IDE0 and the Secondary is IDE1.

 

[FastEddie]

And if you are using the SI raid ports, you don't want to install the nvraid drivers, you want to install the SI raid drivers.

 

[karmadharma]

nvraid is/was disabled in the bios, that's why I wondered why the heck I get that message. SI raid is disabled as well.

ide prefetch is enabled

hds are connected to the nv sata ports, NOT the SI sata ones (they used to be in RAID1 on the SI but after it went down to 3MB/sec I figured what the heck and moved only 1 HD over to the nv sata ones (and disconnected the other HD)

the DVD-R is on the secondary IDE (IDE1) as master (used to have it on the primary but I moved it over)

 

[FastEddie]

Hit me via pm, it'll be faster. Will get you sorted out.

 

[FastEddie]

And just sent you a pm.

You'll do a reinstall of the os, on the nv sata ports, with both drives. Have it running smooth.

 

[karmadharma]

well, I rebooted on the 'other' SATA HD (since it was RAID1 they were the same) which was very clean and before I did all the messing with the drivers and so on and you know what, 6.39 installs *but* it still gives the 'not supported by this processor type' error message for some reason (and the HD is stuck in PIO) I am kind of giving up, as much as I don't have mission critical stuff on these drives I've been spending a lot of time fixing things up so I wouldn't want all of this to be for nothing.

arrgh, I guess I will have to live with PIO until somebody figures out why I can't seem to install the nvidia SATA drivers (the 'This installation package is not supported by this processor type. Contact your product vendor' error).

I might try reinstalling XP on the drive (since I have two I'll have a backup in case it's for nothing) but won't really have time to do that for a week at least I just wish this #)%%* driver would install!

 

[FastEddie]

The driver will install, but you can't just swap the drive from the SI sata ports to the NV Ports. Or install Raid1, then remove one of the mirrored drives. You've got way to many drivers installed.

The easiest way is properly setting up the correct bios configuration for Raid1 on the NV Raid ports. Use the nvraid configuration to set up your mirror, then boot to the WinXP cd press F6, pressing 's' two consecutive times to load both of the nvraid drivers, and install the os. If the WinXP cd includes SP1, then install the chipset drivers from the Asus cd, then install SP2. If your version of WinXP already incorporates SP2, then install the chipset drivers.

Once all the hardware is properly recognized, as attested to by no unknown devices in Device Manager, THEN install the new NF4 driver package from nvidia. In the meantime, you don't install any of the other programs on the asus cd, no network manager, or any other utilities, until you get your system up and running correctly. A complete install of the os would take me less than an hour. Where you've spent way more time here trying to fix a cf't driver mess.

 

[karmadharma]

ok, let me rephrase the situation (I hope that if anybody else is having this issue they might benefit, that's why I'm not switching to PMs).

= originally my PC had 2 drives in RAID1 on the SI ports
= everything was fine for 3 days, then all of a sudden everything became really slow: not quite sure exactly when this happened but it was sometimes around the time I tried to install a PCI video card to have a secondary monitor working even with SLI: maybe it caused IRQ issues, not sure, but in any case I was starting to wonder about RAID1 not being right for me (I prefer to backup weekly vs having a mirror, b/c if I screw something up with a mirror it will be screwed on the second HD as well).
= RAID1 is just mirroring of the HDs, doesn't really have any sort of 'control' information embedded, the two drives are just basically identical copies of each other, so I took them off the SI controller, connected ONE of them to the SATA1 nv port and I was good to go
= HOWEVER at this point said HD was in PIO mode only, which is not that great: I've been trying to get the nv IDE drivers to install but I get the 'installation package' error, which seems *very* weird
= there have *never* been unknown devices in the device manager or conflicts reported by it, it's just that for some reason I can't seem to install the NVidia IDE drivers (the video card ones and the lan ones work perfectly).
= the only 'extra' driver I probably have installed at this point is the SI one, but it shouldn't matter as SI is disabled in the bios and anyways it would be on a completely different controller (which is not seen by device manager, which is seeing only the IDE + SATA1/2 + SATA 3/4 as it's supposed to)

 

[karmadharma]

just one more thing: if I have time in the future I might try to reinstall everything and put it again in raid1 on the nvraid, although I have heard about the nvraid not being as bug-free as the SI controller.

 

[returno]

Same error for me, but different setup (DFI LP U-D - NF4, 1 SATA drive). I can't install the nVIDIA PCI drivers. So, every time I boot I get two errors from hardware wizard - one for ATA, one for ADMA:

This installation package is not supported by this processor type

I've poked around the logs and event viewer - can't find much. From setupapi.log it seems to be trying to install the x86 section of the nvatabus.inf instead of the amd64 section. Maybe that is the problem? I don't know why everyone doesn't have this problem then:

#-011 Installing section [Crush11_Inst.NTx86.Interfaces] from "c:\nvidia\nforcewin2kxp\6.39\ide\winxp\nvatabus.inf".
#I054 Interfaces installed.
#-166 Device install function: DIF_INSTALLDEVICE.
#E151 Coinstaller 2 of 2 failed. Error 1633: This installation package is not supported by this processor type. Contact your product vendor.