P3B-F + Win2K + Creative 6X DVD-ROM forcing DMA

[dszd0g]

I realize this is in regards to a kind of old system, but it's my gfs so I want to make sure it's working right. This is all about forcing DMA enabled in Windows 2000, but here is the whole story.

I just upgraded her machine to Windows 2000. When I started installing Diablo II for her, the install crawled. The Diablo II patch has some info about fixing some copy protection issues with Creative DVD drives so that may be part of it. However, Diablo II was not the only issue. NAV kept using 100% CPU even after the install was done (forgot to turn it off, oops!) and Windows wouldn't let me kill it, so I reboot. I start playing with the DVD drive and notice any time I copy from it CPU usage jumps up to 100%, sure enough DMA is off. It was on in 98SE (I am positive of this).

I go into Device Manager and look at the Secondary IDE interface and it is set to PIO mode. I change it to DMA if available and reboot, no go. I delete the Secondary IDE interface, reboot, and let it rescan (this solves this issue sometimes), no go.

I go into the BIOS (version 1006) and UDMA is diabled in the BIOS. The device is set auto detect. I try each of the UDMA settings (2 should be correct) with it left in auto and when I go back in it has set it back to disabled. I try turning off auto and trying every combo of CDROM or Other ATAPI device, PIO mode, and UDMA mode enabled, and with every setting with UDMA enabled when booting I get a "secondary master failed" boot message.

I decide that Windows 2000 probably really doesn't care what the BIOS says anyways, so I set it to "Other ATAPI device, PIO 4, UDMA 2" and let the secondary device fail and force the boot. Guess what, Windows 2000 detects the device just fine with UDMA enabled! I reboot and tell the BIOS to fail on "All but disk errors." and leave it at that. Everything seems to be working in Windows 2000.

So currently I am using three workarounds 1) Forcing Windows 2000 to "DMA if available", 2) Forcing "Other ATAPI device", 3) "All but disk errors." But it is working.

Does anyone have a better solution to this problem? The current solution isn't very elegant other than to the true engineer (Workarounds are wonderful things)

Every time I have tried working with Asus's tech support they have been worthless, but this does appear to be an Asus BIOS issue on a product they probably don't care about supporting anymore. Any ideas?

 

[jrichrds]

I experienced the same thing with the Asus P3B-F (bios 1006) and Win2K. I had 2 drives, a Toshiba DVD-ROM and a Philips CD-RW (both non-UDMA) that stated DMA support and did indeed work fine in DMA mode in Win98SE. When I changed to Win2K, Win2k would run them only in PIO mode, which meant massive CPU usage whenever the drives were used.

Nice work on finding a workaround for this! I wasn't able to figure it out a year ago.

 

[jrichrds]

I tried your workaround, and it worked great. DMA is on for both drives. You're awesome! This seems to be the best solution to date on this aging motherboard. I asked the same question here a year ago and didn't come up with a solution.

 

[dszd0g]

Glad my workaround worked for you, jrichrds.

BTW, I also tried checking if Intel had drivers available to replace Microsoft's IDE drivers, but no luck. If I could find Intel drivers that could force DMA enabled that might be a better solution. Supposedly, Microsoft's drivers force PIO mode when they are not sure that DMA mode will work. Apparently, setting DMA mode enabled when it doesn't work locks Windows 2000 up on boot. That is probably the reason Microsoft does not have a force DMA option as they would get a bunch of tech support calls asking for how to turn it off now that Windows won't boot. At least that's a reason I read somewhere.

Jrichrds, did you ever try working with Asus tech support on this one?

 

[afzan]

I used to have this problem as well..

set the secondary master/slave to none in your bios..

 

[jrichrds]

Originally posted by: afzan
I used to have this problem as well..

set the secondary master/slave to none in your bios..

Hey, whaddayaknow, that works. Who would've thought setting it to "none" would be the solution. No disk error messages upon boot, and drives work properly in DMA mode in Win2k. And even with it set to none, I can still select my dvd and cd-rw drives as boot-up devices in the BIOS. Go figure...I didn't think the drives would even be visible if those IDE channels were set to none. Turns out it's the best setting.

dszd0g - I didn't contact Asus on this....thought the P3B-F was too old for them to care.

 

[Bovinicus]

I wouldn't be too worried about finding a different solution to your problem. One solution is just as good as the next, unless it requires user input every time you want to enable the function. Your fix sounds like a pretty good one.

 

[dszd0g]

Actually, I like afzan solution of "none" better because it doesn't require ignoring disk errors. The boot up is so fast it was hard to tell if I was getting an error message with my solution, but afzan's shouldn't produce an error message. Thanks afzan.

 

[afzan]

no problem, I found that solution here a while back..

 

[dszd0g]

Originally posted by: afzan
no problem, I found that solution here a while back..

Must be a while back, I read all the way through a current search of all messages with "DMA" in it. I even tried searching Peripherals and Operating Systems. I searched Microsoft's Knowledge base too. I hate not finding the solution to something. I spent a good four or five hours getting the solution I posted through trial and error.

Search Results matching the keyword DMA

back.

Pages: [ << 1 2 3 4 5 Previous ]
Poor 3DMark2001SE scores (GF 4 4600 - < 9000) - bad video card? 5 mfavin 09/06/2002 1:02 AM
by DougFrippon Recommend an IDE setup for me.... 4 ors 09/05/2002 10:48 PM
by CheungMoKee Does the DiamondMax Plus D740X 40GB have loud seeks? 17 Noriaki 09/05/2002 3:45 PM
by Rafael Upgrade advice: Want to double my 3dmark score 23 Mister T 09/04/2002 7:55 PM
by mithrandir2001 Why is my Barracuda IV stuck in PIO mode? 4 DrVos 09/04/2002 5:04 PM
by stonecold3169 Is UDMA and Ultra-ATA the same thing? 1 hostpath 09/04/2002 1:04 PM
by bigboxes Teac or Lite-On? 25 Tsaico 09/03/2002 9:02 PM
by Telinar When will there be a new 3DMark, like I guess 3DMark 2003? 0 mrman3k 09/03/2002 5:37 PM
by mrman3k Slow 800JB performance? 7 LuDaCriS66 09/02/2002 4:12 PM
by LuDaCriS66 Dropped computer - HELP

I either missed it or it is in the archives. I guess I should have searched the archives. I had already read numerous threads with the same issue and the only fix suggested was to remove the IDE channel. Next time I see this issue, I will have this suggestion to offer.

 

[afzan]

yeah.. it's in the archives now..

I just realized that Ronzon posted the solution on my birthday..

http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=34&threadid=720353

 

[jrichrds]

Since you guys are both using P3B-F with Win2k, mind if I ask whether you have "Plug and Play O/S" set to "Yes" or "No" in the BIOS?

I remember someone saying a long time ago it's better to have it at "no"...not sure if that still applies for Win2k though.

 

[Staver]

Mine is set to NO. Btw, I noticed I'm running a higher level bios. Mine is 1008Beta.

 

[jrichrds]

Originally posted by: Staver
Mine is set to NO. Btw, I noticed I'm running a higher level bios. Mine is 1008Beta.

I did a little more research, and according to MS themself, "NO" is the recommended "Plug and Play O/S" setting for Win2K/XP.

Thanks for the heads up on the the newer bios. I updated mine from 1006 to 1008b4, which was released almost exactly a year ago. Not bad for an aging motherboard!

 

[dszd0g]

jrichrds, did BIOS 1008b4 fix the issue? I'd rather not beta test on my gf's machine if possible. I have another P3B-F system, but I don't currently have any IDE devices in it. I'd have to find one that exhibits this issue to test myself. If you hadn't said you installed it, I would be doing so right now, but I don't mind letting someone else be the guinea pig

Here is the response I got back from Asus tech support (E-mailed tsd@asus.com Tue, 15 Oct 2002 04:25:14 -0700 (PDT)):

Dear User:
¡¡
¡¡¡¡¡¡Thank you for choosing ASUS, answer your question below..
¡¡¡¡¡¡Please download new BIOS and have a test :

ftp.asuscom.de--asuscom---bios---slot1---440bx--P3B-F


If you still have any problem, please feel free to contact us. Thanks!

zyc ,

ASUS China Customer Service Center
Innovative Solutions for a Limitless Tomorrow

The path given above is invalid. The valid path is:
ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Slot_I/INTEL_Chipset/i440BX/P3B-F/

The only ones in there are the 1006Final and the 1008f304.

The description for the changes are:

Microcode update for Cu-Mine C-0 stepping (SC242) Cu-Mine C-0 stepping (PGA370)
Revise legacy USB code to Fix Win2K reboot failure
Fix data corrupt when USB Mouse/PS2 KB or USB KB/PS2 Mouse active at the same time.
Revise CPU multiplier handling for unlocked CPU.

I don't see any that seem to fix this issue.

 

[jrichrds]

There doesn't appear to be any negative effects of setting the CD-ROM to [none] in BIOS, so it's pretty much a non-issue. It still works as a bootup device, and it still works in DOS. The only difference is proper DMA support in Win2k.

So upgrading to 1008b4 won't change anything as far as this DMA issue is concerned. My DVD-ROM still runs only in PIO mode in Win2k if any drive on that channel is set to something other than [none].

 

[dszd0g]

Next response from Asus:

Dear User:
¡¡
¡¡¡¡¡¡Thank you for choosing ASUS, answer your question below..

Please enter windows device manager of WIN2000,
DISK controller--advanced---secondary ide---Choose DMA .
¡¡¡¡¡¡

If you still have any problem, please feel free to contact us. Thanks!

zyc ,

ASUS China Customer Service Center
Innovative Solutions for a Limitless Tomorrow

I provided a link to this thread in the first e-mail I sent them. I wonder how long it will take them to read it. I wouldn't really worry about pursing this further (after afzan provided the none option) with them, other than I am pretty sure there are other people being affected by this. A BIOS fix available on the Website or at least a known solution on their Web site knowledge base would go a long way to solving this problem for anyone else that hits it.

 

[car3on]

my lg 32x10x40 burner WAS running in dma under xp, right up until I did what you guys said, just to make sure. Now it won't run in dma mode at all, no matter what I do. AAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrghghghghg
what was that saying again, If it ain't broke, and all that. Anyone care to help me make it work again? Also, after I changed things the first time, pc-cillin 2002 stopped working properly, giving me this message on startup:

Error!
Real-Time scanning service is not started. Do you want to start it?

Any ideas on how to fix it?

M/b is an asus a7n266-vm/lan

 

[dszd0g]

Originally posted by: car3on
my lg 32x10x40 burner WAS running in dma under xp, right up until I did what you guys said, just to make sure. Now it won't run in dma mode at all, no matter what I do. AAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrghghghghg
what was that saying again, If it ain't broke, and all that. Anyone care to help me make it work again? Also, after I changed things the first time, pc-cillin 2002 stopped working properly, giving me this message on startup:

There would have been many better ways to test if it was running in DMA mode, the best being hard drive benchmarks that actually monitor CPU usage. I wouldn't have touched it if it had said "Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode".

The first thing I would try if I were you is to set your BIOS back to Auto, then in Windows 2000 delete the secondary IDE channel (hopefully you are having problems with the secondary IDE channel), and let Windows 2000 rescan the bus. From what I have read and seen, that will generally fix this issue.

 

[jrichrds]

This post was about the P3B-F, Win2k and DMA not being enabled. We're forced to use "None" as a workaround.
You have a different Asus motherboard, WinXP, and DMA was working properly. You must've been really bored to try this on your setup.

Anyways, do what dszd0g said to do.

 

[car3on]

Hahahahaaa, yeah, I was a little bored, but I figured out that deleting the secondary channel would make it rescan properly, which it did.. Pc-cillin is still doin its thang, but that don't really matter, after all, as I am bored, I was thinking of getting rid of xp and going back to 98 or me....Xp plays too many little games for my liking, and has far too many little subprograms, which don't really need to be there
Whilst I do know how to stop all that, I just couldn't be bothered, after all, the only reason I put it on was to try and get my sys to work a little better, but my games all STILL freak out, medal of honourAA won't run properly, neither will blue shift or op forces, so ah heck it, rather than sit through 100hours of 56k d/loading to get patches for everything, I will revert, and use all the patches I already have lol...Thanks dudes...

 

[dszd0g]

Win2K is my preference at the moment. I just finished upgrading the last of my 98 machines to Win2K recently.

I haven't had any problems playing any games under Win2K with a little bit of work. Some games I've had to install patches for. I've even been able to play some old DOS games using Dosbox. I know there are games out there that don't get along with Win2K, but I haven't come across one that I couldn't get to work yet.