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A couple days ago Windows XP decided my CD-RW drive was no longer capable of DMA mode and bumped it down to PIO mode! I have no idea how this happened, it was working perectly fine in DMA mode 2 or whatever and now it's slow as molasses in PIO mode. I don't remember installing system critical software that would do this and I haven't touched the hardware cables or anything in months. I have the IDE channel set to "DMA if available" in Device Manager but it's stuck in PIO mode. All my other drives are still in DMA mode. I tried updating my BIOS, installing the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers, checked the bios (DMA set to auto for all devices) and I'm out of ideas. Any idea how to force Windows to use DMA?
System Specs:
AMD 1.2GHz
MSI KT7 Turbo motherboard
512MB ram
Maxtor 40GB Hard drive (Primary Master)
Western Digital 60GB hard drive (Primary Slave)
LG GCE-8160B CD-RW (Secondary Master)
Pioneer 6x Slot DVD (Secondary Slave)
Windows XP Pro
tough issue, heres what i would try:
1. try a differnt cable.
2. try only 1 CDROM device connected at a time to see if they get DMA seperatly(on the secondary port only).
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If you know it can do DMA, you should go into bios and set it to enabled (rather than auto-detect). Sometimes it's not detected correctly. Besides, this should speed up your computer's bootup time a little, since it won't have to auto-detect for it)
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you cannot force DMA.. I had the same problem but with my Harddisk (UATA100). I have 2 OS installed XP Pro (C:) and Win98SE (D:) and funny thing was that WinXP was seeing my hdd only PIO and Win98SE DMA5.
The solution I found was the one I tried to skip (at least to let it the last).... REINSTAL WINXP. is the best solution.
Another thing you can try is to re-install your newer VIA drivers (first do an uninstall). For this see your www home page manufacturer.
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See this link for info on how to restore DMA without reinstalling the whole OS.
http://www.overclockers.com/tips839/
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I have XP, and no matter what I do I cannot turn back on DMA. I even tried uninstalling, then unplugging the ide cable, then restarting, then plugging back in the cable, reboot again, and it finds new hardware, but is still in PIO mode.
Someone please help!
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Scroll to the bottom of the following website and follow the instructions; it fixed my problem with a few simple clicks of my mouse. :)
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/storage/IDE-DMA.asp
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I tried everything you said, and my quantum fireball as40.0 with windows xp always stay on pio mode and nothing seem to work. I reinstalled windows 2000 and it's set on dma (at least it says dma), but with xp no way to repair this buf. When I boot it's written dma-5 OK. so I don't understand why windows XP keep damn PIO sucky mode. I think I'll try to get money back for this hd and get one from another company. even tryed all the via chipset ide tweak and none worked. Mini port ide driver did not boot, IDE filter do nothing and the 4in1 does nothing too. I also tryed to play in the registry with no result. If anybody find a way, it would be great and save time to many people.
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Neither myself nor any of my friends have had problems with pio/dma with our harddrives in XP. The only thing I can think of is that we all have Maxtors. I've liked them for over 10 years now and have never had one break. I still have a 212MB one.
They're coming down in price now too. You can probably find a 60GB 7200RPM Maxtor for under $100.
Good Luck.
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I'm back and it's only been 5 minutes.
Coincidentally I just found a solution that might work for a lot of people, maybe not though if you're trying to fix your main HD that the OS is running on.
The way I just got XP to reestablish DMA on my DVD-ROM was not only uninstalling the DVD-ROM, but also uninstalling the Secondary IDE Channel in Device Manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
I'm not sure if Windows allows you to uninstall the channel which is running the OS.
Hope this helps.
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I had the same problem with my dvd drive. The advice to remove the ide channel and drive is what worked for me. Quick, easy, and painless.
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hey guys i've been pulling my hair out trying figure this out to. I think I have narrowed it down to 1 of 3 patches. I'm not sure but with the downgrading by XP I definatly see even before i use my cd-rom.I got a Afreey 10XDVD, Elements CD-ROM (Really an Aopen but they think we can't tell the diff. it was just repackaged and relabeld or they made by the same people), and a Plextor 40X12X40X and they all have problems when sharing an e-ide bus (or cable), I think they just need to leave errors by medea be left to the hardware vendors not the OS guys. I don't want this downgrading I'd rather gett a visable error. I tryed all the uninstall stuff but as soon as open my drive bay(open not read or runn anything from it)it reverts back to pio mode? I think these guys need to gett together and constitutes a read error because I gave top dollar for this 56X cd-rom thats pio,dma-1,and dma-2 complient for me to gett 16X speeds? Letts all band together and do what alot of people did when it first came out, dust off the old (x systems and boy cott, LOL , Ya right we payed way to much DANG $$ for this to be happening?
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Noo...I see there are others who are having the same problem as me. I've had the same problem and tried every solution listed on this page and still no fix. I'm about to lose it over here and buy a whole new system cause this makes no sense.
Specs:
Abit KT7A-RAID
Athlon 1 GHZ
512MB PC133 SDRAM
Quantum 20GB Fireball AS (Runs in PIO Mode)
on the primary ide channel by itself)
Quantum 40GB Fireball AS (Runs in DMA-5 on the third ide channel by itself)
DVD Drive & CDRW on Secondary IDE Channel running in DMA mode on both.I've tried switching cables, channels, everything. The 20gb always stays PIO and everything else goes DMA. This is quite annoying because my 20gb ran in DMA fine for the past 15 months.
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I had the same problem, uninstalled secondary ide adapter, problem fixed. Both DVD and CD-R drives in DMA-2
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Found this solution elsewhere, worked after I tried all the usual stuff. My problem was the primary HD (IDE 0, device 0) was stuck in PIO while the slave drive on that channel worked in DMA5. The BIOS detected both drives at DMA5. But WinXP was stuck at PIO for my primary drive, and ran so slowly.
In Win XP:
Go to the Device Manager, expand IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
You will see the Primary IDE, the Secondary IDE, and the VIA Bus Master IDE Controller.
Dbl-click the Primary IDE and click Reinstall Driver. Don't go auto, use Display a List.
Select the Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller. Apparantly, it's OK to do this on your primary boot drive, even if you don't backup :).
Reboot, the problem is solved.Why does it happen? Windows doesn't seem to care whether HD "errors" are caused by an actual DMA communication problem (which is what the "feature" is there to protect against) or whether there's some other problem that caused the bad CRC. Such a problem is copying a corrupt file onto the HD in question. I know that's what happened for me, and it's probably the initial cause of the problem for you.
MSI 6368 with VIA 686B southbridge
Maxtor Ultra/100 15GB
Win XP Pro
IBM Deskstap 60GXP (as the slave drive)
Bios 3.7, VIA drivers 4.38, WinXP with all updates.Ryan
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