DMA issues on Asus P3B-F

[Eirik]

I wasn't sure if I should post this here or on the Mobo forum, but since I've seen alot of threads discusing DMA here before, and I'm not entirely certain the mobo is the villain in this case, I thought I'd go with this forum.

The problem is that I don't seem to be able to switch my DVD-ROM and CD-RW from PIO mode to DMA mode.

I've tried all of the tips I could find on this forum (removing and reinstalling the IDE channel, checking the registry, firmware, etc.) and elsewhere on the web, but none of them really work, since I can't choose DMA mode for the DVD-ROM and CD-RW in the bios.

I have the following (old, but still...) conf:

Asus P3B-F Motherboard with BIOS Revision 1006
Windows XP Pro
Celeron 466@525 MHz

Primary IDE channel:
IBM Deskstar 22GXP (master) running at UDMA2
Samsung DVD-ROM SD-606 (slave) running at PIO mode 4

Secondary IDE channel:
(master) empty for now
Sony CD-RW CRX120E (slave) running at PIO mode 4

Both the DVD-ROM and the CD-RW are compatible with multiword DMA mode 2, but I can't find any option for this in the bios, and the auto-setting forces them to PIO 4. I've also tried forcing them to UDMA0, since I figured that has the same speed as DMA2, but that didn't work either.

So it seems like the P3B-F has support for PIO modes 0-4 and UDMA modes 0-2, but that it skips the "normal" DMA modes. Is this possible?

In the mobo manual, it says it does have support for "Bus Master IDE DMA Mode 2", so I think I *should* be able to choose it somewhere...

In Windows XP, I've chosen "DMA if available" and tried all the registry and reboot tricks and stuff, but it still just says "Current Transfer Mode: PIO mode".

Please help!

[x51out]

I'm suprised your harddrive is not running at UDMA 5. According to THIS (http://usa.asus.com/download/mbdriver/slot1-440bx.htm) you seem to be using the latest bios... correct me if I'm wrong. Are you using any one of THESE (http://usa.asus.com/download/mbdriver/mbdriver-index.htm) IDE drivers, or the WindowsXP resident drivers? Maybe you need to replace the cables and/or rearrange the drives. Why do you have a drive set to slave on the second channel when it is alone?
Oh yeah... WELCOME TO SYSOPT!

[BipolarBill]

Have you looked in "Integrated Peripherals" in BIOS?

I would cut my losses and get a cheap Promise Ultra100 card.

[Eirik]

Well, my harddrive only supports UDMA4, and the mobo only supports UDMA2. As for the slave by its own, that was just temporary (forgot to switch the jumper back after trying the DVD on the same channel).

I've sifted through all the different stand-alone drivers, but I can't find one for my IDE controller under Windows XP, so I'm running the native driver.

I did find one new setting in bios that I hadn't noticed before, "Host Bus Fast Data Ready", which I set to enabled, but that didn't help. It has no further explanation in the manual either.

Oh well, I guess I'll go with BpB's suggestion and get one of those Promise cards. It's pretty cheap even in Sweden. ;)

Thanks for the help guys!

[causticVapor]

The onboard controllers on the P3BF are only UDMA33. CD drives should be able to go into that mode without problems, provided they are UDMA33, but HDDs will be limited to UDMA33 operation.

Like BPB said, a cheap promise card does the trick. Sometimes it has problems with CD drives, and PIO mode doesn't really deliver that noticeable drop in CD performance since CD drives are so slow anyway; they simply gobble up a few CPU cycles. For HDDs, though, there is a significant performance advantage of UDMA66 (DMA4) over UDMA33 (DMA3), so that justifies the promise card purchase.

[Eirik]

The problem is really the DVD-ROM. Can't really watch movies with a DVD in PIO mode, so if the Promise card can get my DVD to run in DMA mode, I'm happy :)