K7M VIA controller & DMA enabling problems

[compuser]

i have k7m with the via dma controller chipset. my problem is, after every clean install of Win98 , as soon as i install the VIA DMA busmastering drivers, it stops even showing the DMA enable/disable option in the system information window for ide devices.

however, the installation CD comes with a software DMA tool which can turn the UDMA/DMA option on/off for the ide devices. according to the tool, i have all my ide devices (WD HDD 7.2krpm, 10x dvd and 8/4/32 HP-RW) set to UDMA. however, i have noticed almost 70-80% usage of CPU when copying files from either of the CD drives to the HDD. burning of cd-r/rw is not a problem and finishes in the 8-9 minutes that an 8x drive would normally take.

can someone with K7M MB please confirm this and/or help me fix this problem? thanks.

 

[Anaxagoras]

go to via's web site and get their drivers.

http://www.viatech.com/drivers/4in1422.zip

http://www.viatech.com/drivers/agp403.exe

 

[NOX]

Compuser:

That sounds right to me, if the VIA Tools are showing enabled then you shouldn't worry about it. If I look under device manager to see if DMA option is enabled, It to looks like it's disabled, but it's not (because the option is no more). The CPU usage part, I don't know?

 

[medic]

Through my own testing on my K7M and others I found the fastest and most stable setup is to let Windows98 install it's own drivers.
Also if you install the Via drivers it's normal for the DMA option to be greyed out or not present.
You might get high CPU usage if you are transfering data from a CDROM to a H.D. if it's on the same channel, I bet your CDRW is on the secondary channel?

 

[Pariah]

On a somewhat related note. Does anyone have the file viamach.cat? Whenever I install the VIA drivers, it asks me to locate this file, but I have no idea where to get it from. It says it is in the 2nd cab file on the win98CD, but it isn't. I choose to skip the file, and things seem to work ok, but I assume it wouldn't ask for the file unless win98 needed it.

 

[compuser]

hmmm... ok then the non-existant DMA option is not unique to me. that solves one issue.

CRV, what do you mean by letting win98 install its OWN drivers? if you mean the default drivers it installs during the clean install process, aren't the default drivers that ship with win98 not the most recent/best ones? so then why use those instead of installing off the CD that came with the K7M MB?

one more thing CRV,


<< You might get high CPU usage if you are transfering data from a CDROM to a H.D. if it's on the same channel, I bet your CDRW is on the secondary channel? >>


you are right on the fact that dvd and rw are on secondary IDE (which is logically the best config... with HDD on Pri. Master) but then the RW and HDD are NOT on the same channel unlike what you said. so why the high CPU utilization? any idea? i understand your point as being valid, had my HDD and CD-RW been on the SAME, secondary IDE channel. but here the HDD is on a separate channel from the CD drives.

 

[medic]

Pariah

viamach.cat is the applet that gives you the Security Catalog info., part of the Microsoft Windows Compatibility Publisher which gives the Digital Signature Information for the package. (that's a mouthfull!)

It's not part of W98 but is included in the AGP 4.02 drivers and the Via inf update driver, when the setup program detects you have W98SE.

I extracted it if you want it...but you really don't need it!

 

[medic]

Hey compuser
CRV, what do you mean by letting win98 install its OWN drivers? if you mean the default drivers it installs during the clean install process, aren't the default drivers that ship with win98 not the most recent/best ones?

Yes, letting W98 install it's own during a clean install. I did a bunch of testing with the latest drivers (late summer last) and found W98's own drivers slightly faster(1-3%), I have also read comparisons on the net that also recommends that you let W98 use it's own.......However this was last summer so the newest IDE drivers could of easily been improved...I have a format coming up and so will test them out and check out the latest version. If you want to try a comparison let us know as well.
I said:
I bet your CDRW is on the secondary channel?
And you said it was because unrelated to the high utilization you can burn a disk in 8 minutes without a coaster, if they were on the same channel you most likely wouldn't have the luck. You are right the best place for a RW is Sec.Master.
Now why you get such high CPU utilization could be that the IDE drivers aren't installed properly or they are buggy. If you are all backed up, I would try uninstalling them and either letting W98 reinstall it's own or install the newest busmasters.

 

[DaddyG]

My votes with CRV, no need to use the VIA drivers. The 98 drivers perform slightly better and are not as 'buggy'

 

[Pariah]

Thanx CRV, no need to get the file. Was just wondering what it was, and if I needed it.

 

[compuser]

<< You are right the best place for a RW is Sec.Master. >>



actually, my DVD is sec. master and RW is sec. slave. could that be the problem? however, fact reamins: i have had stunning performance with dvd movies with the ATI AIW128 card and despite being on sec slave, the RW - as i mentioned - DOES burn CD-R in about 8-9 minutes @ 8x.

i originally had a HP 4/4/24 8250i RW which took unusually long time to burn (i posted regarding this in a thread... about 35 min. for a 4x burn and so on. almost double the time it should take). when i called the HP CSR, their HP-CSR-crapola was:

&quot;you have an athlon and HP drives' chipsets are optimized for intel MB chipsets... maybe that might be causing the problem in the 8250i drive.&quot; ... yeah right! :| <sarcasm> that really explains the normal performance on the faster 9100i HP drive i now have, right?!</sarcasm>

anyways, besides that, one suggestion that a CSR made was to swap the DVD and RW so that RW = sec. master &amp; DVD = sec. slave.

i never tried this config but from what you are saying, it sounds like RW is best put on sec. MASTER not slave. is this true? then what about the DVD performance? will it drop?

EDIT:

can i not uninstall the VIA drivers right from the system properties in windows... and i think VIA installation left its trace in the add/remove programs list so maybe i can remove it from there. only drawback is, then i won't have the VIA DMA status tool telling me the current status of the drives. i guess, once set on UDMA, i really don't need this.

 

[medic]

I know I read in my instructions for my 8X4X32 and have heard it before that burners like to be masters, seems to cause less coasters.
Enabling or disabling DMA seems to play the biggest role in CPU utilization however.
Fact remains you get awesome burns and DVD playback is great as well so I would maybe leave them alone setup as they are.
The only problem is the high utilization which isn't really that big a deal if you have good horsepower in your system and it right now it works.
If you are backed up and feel up to experimenting then you could try uninstalling the IDE drivers, reinstalling the latest ones or let W98 handle it.
Edit to your edit:
If you are backed up then if there is an entry in Add/Remove try that or remove the entry in D.M.
You can run HDTach and it will tell you your CPU utilization as well after you check the DMA box for the drives in D.M.

 

[compuser]

crv and others, sorry for the delay. got caught up in some things.

anyways, i installed the 4in1 VIA drivers in win98 and win2k (i have a dual boot) and also ran some benchmarks. in win98, i was mainly concerned about the cpu usage so i didn't worry with benchmarks from sisoft sandra 2k.

some interesting facts about the 4in1 VIA driver:
- installing it did improve the performance in both win98 and win2k. for win2k (i've even listed the results below).
- installing it returned the greyed out DMA button in device mgr. properties of the HDD, cd-rw and the dvd. however, the original VIA tool (showed the status of the drives on the 2 channels) that i installed from the MB cd was uninstalled, i guess with the older drivers that came with it.

and here are the sandra test results: (sorry, they are a little long)

sisoft sandra 2k benchmarks: drive benchmark
============================================
before updating to 4in1 drivers for WIN2K
-----------------------------------------
ref. drive = 13000 for UDMA66 27GB drive

drive c: 11642 (avg cpu util = around 10%)
12476 (avg cpu util = aroud 10-15%) 2nd try
drive d: 11096 (avg cpu util = around 10%)
13117 (avg cpu = around 20%) 2nd try
11696 (avg cpu = around 10%) after exploring d: for a while
drive e: 12737 (avg cpu util = around 15-20%)
drive f: 11427 (avg cpu util = less than 10%)

NOTE: looks like the 2nd round of testing is not as accurate. i think sandra writes the page file to the drive or writes the entire memory content to the drive being benchmarked. thus, rewriting in the 2nd round probably improves the scores. though correct me if i am wrong.

after the 4in1 driver update
----------------------------
drive c: 12704 (about 10% cpu usage)
drive d: 12411 (about 10-15% cpu usage)
drive e: 12525 (about 10% cpu usage)
drive f: 11903 (about 10% cpu usage)


FACTS:
======
20.5G HDD partitioned into 1.45G (C:win98), 3.41G (d:win2k), 2.92G (e:storage), 8.77G (f:video capture/editing)

And the cd-rom/dvd --> HDD test:
================================
copying a large 76+ MB zip file off the cd drives - measured time and cpu usage.

- in win98: the speed of copying the file was noticeably faster than that in win2k (this is after installing the 4in1 drivers in both)
- in win2k: the cpu usage was almost half of that in win98 (100% constant in win98 vs. about 51% in win2k)

so looks like the 4in1 drivers did wonders for transfer speed but i still don't know what is causing the high cpu usage. CRV, you're right, i don't need to worry about it much since i do have a decent 700 athlon but just something that's bugging me. let me know if anyone has any other suggestions. thanks for all your help guys!

 

[medic]

Interesting stuff....Looks like they have been improved. I tried some of my own tests on my K7M/700 Athlon Maxtor ATA66 7200RPM drive and with the new 4in1 (didn't install the AGP as that is only for the Via North) and got 13,134 and 13,184
Uninstalled it and reinstalled the new Mini-Port and now get 13,606 and 13,892
So my benchmarks went up without the 4in1/busmaster but this is very system specific, bios settings, ram, background apps, whether you just defragged ect. can all determine results.

Have you run HDTach and checked the utilization?
http://tcdlabs.com/hdtach.htm

 

[compuser]

actually, no. that's what i was going to ask next... a good program to benchmark my system... well hdd atleast. i remember seeng HD Tach before in the thread but there was no link. i had encountered it a while ago in a different thread but couldn't find the link. anyways, long story short, thanks for the link. now i will run the tests using this and post the results.

<tick tock, tick tock, tick tock...>

edit:
-----
is the non-registered version of hd/cd tach useful if it won't support win nt (and win2k)? i'll give it a shot though.

 

[compuser]

well, i was pleasently surprised and relieved to see the 'real' cpu utilization using hd tach... that is if i assume that hd tach benchmark is more accurate than sandra. either way, here is the data from win98 (couldn't run write tests and couldn't even run the program in win2k b/c it was unregistered version).

sequential read speed:
max = 24-25 MB/s; min = 11-12 MB/s; avg = 23 MB/s

random access time: 10.7ms
read burst speed = about 37MB/s

cpu utilization = 5.1 - 5.2%

so there you have it. cpu was way below the 10% avg shown by sandra. well, again, i don't know which one is more valid but all the same, i can say one thing for sure. the hdd is performing as it is supposed to. it's probably the drivers or the firmware for the cd drives that might be causing such a high cpu usage, esp in win2k.

all in all, this small discourse proved very helpful for troubleshooting, clarifying and solving the problems. i'll try to see if i can play around a little more and get the cpu utilization to go lower. again, i can't thank you enough crv! you've been very helpful and equally prompt in your replies! i love anandtech forums! full of great and helpful people and minimal off-topic issues to sort through.

 

[medic]

Hey that sounds good, I also get 3-6% CPU with HDTach and have always trusted the results.

 

[Zoe]

Hi, I installed the Via 4in1 driver, but I'd like to revert back to the default Windows bus-mastering drivers. How do I do this? I'm running an MSI-6309.

 

[compuser]

i guess you can try to pop in the cd with the drivers in and try 'updating' the drivers. when it says that the current drivers are newer than the ones from the cd, there might be a way to still override that option and go ahead with old-is-gold drivers. though i don't know why you would want to do so. seems to me that the 4in1 drivers work great... well except win2k. it gives me mediocre performance. haven't tried playing dvd on it but i don't think that's the problem. anyways, try it out and let us know whech one of the drivers are better for you and what system you are running. good luck.