Intel's Busmaster driver better than MS?

[TimeKeeper]

I was reinstall my sister's 810 board and found that Intel has its own ATA driver. http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/storagedrivers/ultraATA/warning.htm

I didn't run the benchmark on MS's driver before I install this Intel driver, thus, I do not know if it is better or not. But so far, running stable.

It's software also able to detect if your CD-ROM is UDMA support or not.

 

[PCAddict]

According to the system requirements these are for Ultra66/Ultra100 ATA configurations.

Do you have a Promise card or another UATA controller?

 

[TimeKeeper]

The 810 does support UDMA66 in the mobo, where she also got a maxtor UDMA66 HD.
I have uninstalled the Intel Ultra ATA driver and run simple Sisoft2k.
The result which compare w/ MS's busmaster driver is the same.

I guess, MS win98se does a good job already.

The only different is that under "device manager", it actually show you what HD you have, instead of Type XX w/ Intel's Ultra ATA driver.
And in its "companion", it will show you the detail description of
HD model, firmware, serial #, device type, PIO mode, DMA MW mode, as well as detecting Cable Type (40 pin or 80pin)

 

[PCAddict]

Uhhh... didn't your post say that she had a BX motherboard before you edited it?

 

[TimeKeeper]

I was stupid..😉

 

[PCAddict]

Gotcha. 😉

 

[mschell]

Intel's BM drivers used to have compatibility problems with some ATAPI drives(CDROMS). A commons scenario was after installing the drivers, the CDROM would disappear during the installation process. This was usually accompanied by a Windows message asking for a file from the WinXX disk to complete the driver installation. If you were unfortunate enough not to have the WinXX folder on the HD, you could then look forward to a complete Windows re-install as early Intel drivers had no uninstall option.
I do believe the newest drivers are a bit faster than the MS drivers when paired with the I810E chipset, they are the only option if you want ATA/100 support from the I815 chipset. They seem to be more compatible with ATAPI devices although I?ve never tried them with any real mode CDROM drivers loaded via the config.sys.