Very bad IDE throughput

[HarryBeanbag]

I can't figure this one out.
I am getting terrible performance with ALL of my IDE devices.
My WD 60GB drive is udma100 and i have checked that dma is enabled in device manager (DMA mode 5)and in the bios, but i am still getting bad performance and sandra benchmarks of around 66MB/s.
The strange thing is that the problem is not just my hd both my optical drives are slow.
I have a 56X afreey, and a 12X8X32X8 Ricoh cdr/dvd and both are getting around 8X through put with Nero cd speed.
I have also checked that all those settings are good, but i still cannot burn a disk a 12x without lots of buffer under runs.
I have tried switching all the drive placements, master/slave-pri/sec
Ihave installed the newest 4in1 drivers.

The system is: Abit KT7A(KT133A chipset), 1.2 Tbird, 512pc133 Crucial, Enlight 300W Power
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[crudas]

I was just reading recently that VIA chipsets have poor IDE performance compared to other chipsets. I hated to hear it because all my MB's use VIA chipsets.

I have noticed very slow IDE RAID performance with the Promise RAID on two of my motherboards also. I read that it has something to to with the VIA bus.

Sorry I don't have more details but I lost the link. Maybe somebody else has it.

CRU

 

[Pabster]

<cough> 686B <cough>

Welcome to the dismal performance land of VIA south bridges. I've never achieved a burst rate above 60ish MB/s with 686B. And you're right, IDE performance sucks.

Solution: get yourself a non-VIA chipset based mainboard.

 

[HarryBeanbag]

< I've never achieved a burst rate above 60ish MB/>

Yeah well optical drives are also dismally slow, well below thati cant burn, from hd or disk to disk, any faster than 6x.
and installing software seems like an all-day project.

 

[sharkeeper]

<< Welcome to the dismal performance land of VIA south bridges. I've never achieved a burst rate above 60ish MB/s with 686B. And you're right, IDE performance sucks >>



My KT7A RAID never had any problem achieving burst speed in excess of 90 MB/S.

The so called VIA bug doesn't really come into play until your STR requirement goes well above 100 MB/S. The only way to really achieve this is use more than 3 FAST ATA disks on independant channels. (3Ware, etc.)

I've heard of bad performance on the VIA IDE controllers in Windows 2000. I only used the VIA IDE controllers for optical storage though.

Those are two different things Pabster!

Cheers!

 

[sharkeeper]

<< Yeah well optical drives are also dismally slow, well below thati cant burn, from hd or disk to disk, any faster than 6x.
and installing software seems like an all-day project. >>



What BIOS revision are you running? What VIA service pack do you have installed? What OS?

Cheers!

 

[Pabster]

sharkeeper wrote:

"Those are two different things Pabster!"

He has a KT7A. Non-RAID. He's relying on 686B. Enough said.

 

[HarryBeanbag]

Sharkkeeper
I am running winxp pro,
Sandra says bios version 6.00 GP (2/14/2001) the version my board shipped with,
i don't know what VIA service pack this is, I just downloaded it today, how do i find out?

EDIT VIA pack 4.29v

 

[sharkeeper]

Yes, you should update your BIOS!

Current 4in1 driver is 4.37!

The pci throughput is supposed to affect SCSI controllers and the highpoint alike. Updating to the newest 4in1's (and a BIOS update too!) should fix the problem, especially with the optical drives! I have a KT7A RAID with a Yamaha CR2100E (IDE) burner and Pioneer DVD106S rom and the speeds are great. It can do a 16x copy on the fly without a problem.

You can find the BIOS file and instructions here. NOTE: Your board is old (rev 1.0) so please scroll down below all the rev. 1.3 choices!

Cheers!

 

[HarryBeanbag]

Sharkkeeper
If the newest 4in1 is 4.37 where can i get them, I downloaded 4.29 yesterday from abit-usa.com
Same question for my bios update.

Bump for New YEars hangover