To DMA or not to DMA - That is the question...

[Motero]

Do I need to enable DMA on my harddrive? What are the advantages/disadvantages of DMA? Will it screw anything up?

Thanks for any help.

 

[bacillus]

enabling DMA for your hdd will increase performance & decrease cpu utilisation!

 

[AndyHui]

Enable DMA for a significant increase in performance.

The only drawback is that not every hard drive supports DMA. All current hard drives do support DMA.

 

[jpprod]

Yes. DMA mode transfers are essential to a computer's performance. If they're not enabled, any hard disk activity immediately takes up to 90% of your CPU time. Practical impact on performance is very evident, in any heavier-duty gaming you're bound to see lots of stuttering and you won't be able to play DVD movies smoothly if DMA mode transfers are disabled. DMA mode can cause data loss on systems with PCI bus overclocked at 40MHz'ish range, but if your system is configured properly (if everything else is functioning, it propably is) and is running at default clock, there should be no danger.

 

[machina]

i had a promblem in my hd (it just disappeared from device manager) after i set dma. if this really has to do with dma, it does mean that i can't use it?

(bacillus, you have answered that to me but i still don't know what to do...)
:|

 

[Motero]

Kewl, thanks guys. I'll check that out when I get home. I don't think my 1ghz tbird, ibm 7200rpm ata 100 sys is running fast enough

 

[Davegod75]

def enable DMA

 

[bacillus]

<< def enable DMA >>


have it checked in the settings for your hdd in device manager. the check box is only available if the drive is using windows drivers. when a third party driver is installed (such as the promise EIDE Driver), the DMA box
will no longer appear. However, the driver is programmed to use all devices
in their most optimal configuration. Therefore, if DMA is available for that
particular device, the driver will use it.

 

[Lvsheng]

Yes, i too agree, definately must enable DMA if HDD can support to reduce CPU utilisation. Well, for my system, the HDD is still in Device Manager and I enabled the DMA. I didn't use any third party controller, just the normal SouthBridge controller.

 

[BassDominator]

When I go into control panel and check DMA, I get a message along the lines of &quot;enabling this setting may have adverse affects on your hardware, be sure your hardware supports it.&quot; Anyone have an idea of what these adverse affects might be?