dma vs pio

  • Thread starter Thread starter philo
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philo

a friend of mine had been using an amd-1000 with a wd-80gig hd and it
was working ok.
he recently purchased a wd-200gig drive and did a clean install of XP...
then called me becasue the machine was running exceedingly slow...
and something was using 80% cpu resources.
upon checing it out...
in the control panel...
although the drive was set for "use dma if available"...
it was running in the pio mode.
even though the wd utility confirmed that it was set for dma-5
(and the diagnostic utility gave it a clean bill of health)
and the bios saw it as dma-5...the os saw it as pio
i then had the idea to put back the original 80gig drive and slave the
200 gig to it...
and the OS still saw the 200gig drive as pio.
finally we slaved an older 40 gig drive to the machine and it was
correctly seen as running in the dma mode.

does this look like the 200gig drive has some type of defect?
i can't think of anything else at this point.
 
See what happens after he installs XP service pack one or two (preferably
SP2 of course).
 
philo said:
sp2 *is* installed!
Click to expand...

Try this

From the WD web site:

"Note: If the drop-down box already shows DMA if Available but the current
transfer mode is PIO, you may need to toggle the setting. To do this, change
the selection from DMA if Available to PIO Only, and click OK. Then repeat
the steps above."


If this doesn't work, check around the WD support site and see if it's a
known issue and if there is a solution.
 
sp2 *is* installed!
Click to expand...

The is a "dropping down to PIO" Known issue with XP. You may have
encountered the same thing. In which case, SP2 prevents it from happening
but doesnt cure if its already happened with an earlier version of XP prior
to upgrading to SP2. Search MS KB for it.
 
Try this

From the WD web site:

"Note: If the drop-down box already shows DMA if Available but the current
transfer mode is PIO, you may need to toggle the setting. To do this,
change the selection from DMA if Available to PIO Only, and click OK. Then
repeat the steps above."
Click to expand...
we will give that a try...thanks!
 
Lordy said:
The is a "dropping down to PIO" Known issue with XP. You may have
encountered the same thing. In which case, SP2 prevents it from happening
but doesnt cure if its already happened with an earlier version of XP
prior
to upgrading to SP2. Search MS KB for it.
Click to expand...


will look around some more...
but his new XP installtion has sp2 slipstreamed
 
Martin G.1.0 said:
See what happens after he installs XP service pack one or two (preferably
SP2 of course).
Click to expand...

update :

my buddy has now done several more fresh installs.
seemsthe drive runs in the dma mode with XP and *no* service pack

applying either sp1 or sp2 reverts the drive to PIO
and yes, he has tried toggling the setting and deleting the controller
itself...

out of all the drives he's tried though...it;s only with the wd-200...
they have free 30 day support...so he might get it sorted out yet
who knows!
 
philo said:
update :

my buddy has now done several more fresh installs.
seemsthe drive runs in the dma mode with XP and *no* service pack

applying either sp1 or sp2 reverts the drive to PIO
and yes, he has tried toggling the setting and deleting the controller
itself...

out of all the drives he's tried though...it;s only with the wd-200...
they have free 30 day support...so he might get it sorted out yet
who knows!
Click to expand...

I think you said that the BIOS detects the drive correctly, but I would
still also check if there is an updated BIOS for that motherboard.
I'm sure the WD folks will sort it out for your friend.
 
update :

my buddy has now done several more fresh installs.
seemsthe drive runs in the dma mode with XP and *no* service pack

applying either sp1 or sp2 reverts the drive to PIO
and yes, he has tried toggling the setting and deleting the controller
itself...

out of all the drives he's tried though...it;s only with the wd-200...
they have free 30 day support...so he might get it sorted out yet
who knows!
Click to expand...


Philo<sigh>.All these years and you still forget the rules.If it's
working,don't update it!!!
It's MS remember<grin> ;-)



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Philo<sigh>.All these years and you still forget the rules.If it's
working,don't update it!!!
It's MS remember<grin> ;-)
Click to expand...


well, it's not my machine
and the guy who owns it needs sp2 for some of his software!
or so he says :)
 
I think you said that the BIOS detects the drive correctly, but I would
still also check if there is an updated BIOS for that motherboard.
I'm sure the WD folks will sort it out for your friend.
Click to expand...
yes, the bios does detect it as dma mode5
the guy was thinking of seeing if there is bios upgrade...
but i talked him out of it...as i think it would not be worth the risk
 
philo said:
yes, the bios does detect it as dma mode5
the guy was thinking of seeing if there is bios upgrade...
but i talked him out of it...as i think it would not be worth the risk
Click to expand...

If there is an upgrade, check what the upgraded BIOS fixes, and see if his
problem is listed.
What motherboard is he using?
Of course I still think the best place for an answer is WD.
 
If there is an upgrade, check what the upgraded BIOS fixes, and see if his
problem is listed.
What motherboard is he using?
Of course I still think the best place for an answer is WD.
Click to expand...


yes
as long as he has free support...he's going to go with it...
especially because the problem occurs *only* with that one drive.
he will be calling them back on monday
thanks
 
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