Older DVD-ROMs/CDRWs slow down PCs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter thechicane
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thechicane

Hi. I have an older Pioneer slot DVD-ROM drive and a CyberDrive CW038D
CD/CDRW drive added to a friend's system who doesn't want to buy any
other drives. A bit silly really as the mainboard is an Asus P5GD2
deluxe with a P4 3.4 CPU and 1gb RAM.

Both CD/CDRW drives run in UDMA 2 mode (as I plug them in with the same
cable). I just want to know if these would slow down the PC when it
gets into XP? Or does it only slow them down when they're being
accessed? If XP scans/uses all connected HDs and drives periodically,
it could slow the PC down permanently.

If the PC is slowed down only when they're being accessed *directly by
the user* then that's not too much of an issue.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hi. I have an older Pioneer slot DVD-ROM drive and a CyberDrive CW038D
CD/CDRW drive added to a friend's system who doesn't want to buy any
other drives. A bit silly really as the mainboard is an Asus P5GD2
deluxe with a P4 3.4 CPU and 1gb RAM.

Both CD/CDRW drives run in UDMA 2 mode (as I plug them in with the same
cable). I just want to know if these would slow down the PC when it
gets into XP? Or does it only slow them down when they're being
accessed? If XP scans/uses all connected HDs and drives periodically,
it could slow the PC down permanently.

If the PC is slowed down only when they're being accessed *directly by
the user* then that's not too much of an issue.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

What "slows down" a processor, is if a storage device will
only use polled (PIO) transfer. In a case like that, the
processor shuttles the data across the disk interface cable.
As long as a DMA mode is being used, the processor can go and
do some other good work, while the IDE controller transfers the
data from the disk into main memory on its own.

The other side of the coin, is the necessary data rate for
burning at high speed. Obviously, whatever DMA transfer rate
you use on a burner, has to be high enough to keep the buffer
full. If you cannot keep the buffer full, on some of the older
drives, you get a coaster. With drives that have some kind of
"burn-proof" feature, the only consequence might be a longer
time to burn a disk.

Using an 80 wire IDE cable, is an enabler to using the higher
DMA rates, if they are supported by a drive. I cannot think
of a good reason, to continue using the 40 wire cables (maybe
someone can help me with that...). The 80 wire cables have
better signal transmission, as every second wire is grounded.
The IDE driver software can frequently (but not always) detect
that an 80 wire cable is being used, and that allows the
driver to use higher DMA transfer rates, if the drive will
agree to it.

A good place to visit, for all your burning needs, is here.
They know all sorts of cool stuff.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul wrote:
<msg deleted for space>

Thanks for that. Good to see "DMA (if possible)" is on by default for
the Primary /Secondary IDE controllers under the "Device manager" in
XP, and PIO mode is only used if it must be.
 
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