Re: direct memory access
From: WinGuy (no_spam_at_nomail.bot)
Date: 07/26/04
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Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 04:01:13 GMT
"Wesley Vogel" <123WVogel955@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:FA_Mc.186738$Oq2.71340@attbi_s52...
> Well, you can call me and my machine "Old Timer", we answer to the same
> name.
<vbg> And, does your machine have a "shared" ISA/PCI slots setup? That used
to drive people nuts, when they only had 3 ISA and 2 PCI slots and no
onboard graphics or sound! Oh, the slots filled up very fast! (For the
curious, "shared" in this context meant that either a PCI or a ISA slot
could be used, but not both, meaning either one ISA or one PCI slot ALWAYS
could not be used -- but all the other PCI and ISA slots did not suffer from
the same limitation as they were not "shared".)
> If you don't see the Advanced tab, either your hardware doesn't support
DMA
> or the DMA settings are incorrect in the BIOS.
I assumed that the install of a device would, in XP, automatically enable
DMA if it was possible to do so (that's just an assumption on my part) but
that in some rare cases it might also be necessary to assure that DMA
settings are (if user configurable at all) set properly in BIOS. I've seen
BIOS configuration settings on some OEM computers that have almost no user
configurable settings whatsoever! Laptops are often a good example of that.
> Also... [[With some IDE drivers/Busmastering drivers, DMA cannot be
enabled
> through the device manager, but only through the driver settings. An
> example of this is the Intel Application Accelerator.]]
>
> Also...[[For repeated DMA errors. Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a
> device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations.
If
> more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and
use
> only PIO mode on that device.
> In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option
> for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall
the
> device.]]
>
> DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP
> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx
>
> There are DMA settings in my BIOS.
>
> And my IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
> Primary IDE Channel & Secondary IDE Channel
> have the advanced tab and DMA settings.
>
> PnP Devices
> PNP0201 EISA DMA Controller
>
> --
> Hope this helps. Let us know.
> Wes
Which brings up an interesting but off-topic observation that a driver can
over-ride user intended settings. For example, no email server (or any
server that writes data locally) should have HDD cache enabled, because of
nasty things that could happen when power goes away during a write process
that has not yet been committed from the cache to the HDD, a situation
otherwise correctable by a UPS) but I've run across some drivers that, when
the HDD Disk Properties is set to disable cache, insists on turning it back
on at the next boot! Generally, these are the same computers that will blue
screen on the first reboot right after installing an XP upgrade or after
applying the very 1st SP to 2000, with an unreadable HDD resulting!
The "fix" is to prevent this, by having a copy of the current drivers
reported used by the HDD devices BEFORE doing the upgrade and to restore
them all (using Explorer) BEFORE doing the first reboot after upgrading to
XP or the very first ever SP to 2000 (to have replaced ALL such upgrade
installed drivers with the backup ones before that 1st reboot) and that will
prevent the blue screen and subsequent loss of the entire HDD content.
However, since one can not know in advance if this is going to happen or not
(and the "newer" HDD drivers are indeed preferable, if they will work) the
only insurance is to have an image of the original boot drive before ever
doing an XP upgrade and before doing the first ever SP to 2000. :( Newer
computers do not seem to suffer from this phenomenon, and I suspect it's
actually a BIOS problem. I did see a 1.2gHz eMachine exhibit that blue
screen with that upgrade problem, though, and that was the fix for it!
- Next message: Rich Barry: "Re: Trojan and other problems."
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