Cannot Get DMA to turn on!!! plz help asap

[brandon84]

well if you guys read my previous post before i narrowed down my problem i noticed my computer was running considerably slower then it should so i began to try to figure out my problem by going threw bios settings (it only would boot w/ safe mode so i went back and forth to see what it changed)
and narrowed it down to whenever i set my dma to auto rather then disable i would not boot. if i set the HD as the only boot device it would just hang there like there wasn't a hard drive, but when i turn dma to disable it evenutally boots so i went a read a lil and in my device manager it it says it's using pio whcih from pcpitstop.com loks to be considerably slower (uncached 3mb/s) which all other testers w/ the same hard drive are around 30mb, i have this haard drive set to 16 head " " whatever that means i'm not too sure. But if anyone would come up w/ come kind of ideas/tips or any sort of help it would be much appreciated. i really would like my hard drive to run like it used too, i am still boggled on what cause all this to start.


System Spec
Epox 8rda3+
120 Gig hatachi "not sure on spelling"
gainward 5700 ultra 128 MB
corsair xms memory pc3500
barton 2500+

if you need any more details on system specs i'll glady give them to ya

here are previous things answered...
Have you scanned your system for viruses, spyware, hijackers and trojans yet?
Yes, everynight

How full is the hard drive?
98 gigs free out of registered 115
Do you defrag your hard drive regularly?
Defrag with diskeeper 9 everynight
Do you delete temp files regularly?
yes the ones i know of in games and i do disk clean up
Do you empty the Recycle Bin regularly?
as soon as i put something in it
How fast is your hard drive? Is it a 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM hard drive?
7200

oh i also installed this computer information proggram recommended somewhere else on these threads then restarted my computer and started gettin error after error...not sure that prog is what did it here is the error code 1073741819

the prog that it rooted from was a system once lsass.exe or something like that, i wsa just wondering if the prog had something to do w/ it or what was the reason it came? it would give me like a minute before it shut down, i've done system restore to fix that though. just wonder more about it

[nikerw]

Are you using 80 wire connectors (ATA 100/133 compatible) cables between your hard drive and your MB?

[brandon84]

ya, i'm using the round cables that came with my epox mobo, here is some more info on my HD for those that can help





HD 120GB|HITC 7200R 8MB
(Serial#: G4C7PYWL)

That's what it says on new egg so it should let you know which one i have

and if i'm understanding this correctly my computer used too and should be running ALOT faster 3mb uncached don't mean too much to me cause i lack full knowledge but am in school, but when my cuzins is 28 and mine is 3 and pcpitstop says i should be 30...upsetting......takes so long to load anything.

[nikerw]

How do you have the jumper set on your hard drive? Is it on the master position or the Cable Select position, it should be on the Cable Select.

[brandon84]

well at first it was on Master ide 16 head and now i have it set to cable select and still notta, i downloaded a utitlity and am running some test now but keep the idea rollin in

[glc]

You have a virus. That's what the lsass shutdown is. By doing a restore, you only masked the problem.

Have you installed the latest NForce platform chipset drivers?

[brandon84]

weird i have a virus, i have mcaffe suite which i put on before connecting to the net but if that's what it is, how do i get ride of it if mcaffe isn't working? and is that why i can't boot w/ dma?

also i'm on a fresh format because i tried that hoping it would fix my computer being slow and it didn't.

yes i installed the latest nforce drivers

also would partition magic have anything to do w/ this? i had it some time ago when i had it partitioned to 4 hard drives, had some trouble formatting after i had that but i got it done. just wondering if that helps? i never installed it again since i formatted

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by brandon84 weird i have a virus, i have mcaffe suite which i put on before connecting to the net but if that's what it is, how do i get ride of it if mcaffe isn't working? and is that why i can't boot w/ dma?

As far as I know, McAfee isn't too good an anti-virus. Try putting AVG7 on it, get the latest definitions, do a full system scan and get AVG7 to get rid of the virus. I wouldn't have thought McAfee would be the reason for why you can't boot with DMA enabled.

Originally Posted by brandon84 whenever i set my dma to auto rather then disable i would not boot

DMA, Direct Memory Access is a technique for transferring data from main memory to a device without passing it through the CPU. When you boot the computer, the RAM starts the CPU and the CPU starts the hard drive. So I'm thinking that the reason why you cannot boot with DMA enabled would be because it wouldn't work. I'm thinking that by enabling DMA, you are basically asking the computer to boot the hard drive without going through the CPU first. Some computer science that I managed to figure out a while ago. Anyone please correct me immediately if I'm wrong.

[brandon84]

ya that helps alot man but why is my uncached speed like 3Mb/s? when it should be closer to 30mb and one of the things it said it could be on pcpitstop was dma wasn't on so i checked it out and my ide is running on PIO. WHAT IS THAT AND WHY IS IT SLOW? to sum it up

[Gizmo]

The only thing I can think of right at this moment would be to disable PIO in the BIOS and just let the hard drive run at it's manufactured speed. That's if there is an option to disable PIO in your BIOS, I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by brandon84 so i checked it out and my ide is running on PIO. WHAT IS THAT AND WHY IS IT SLOW?

PIO is short for Programmed Input/Output, this is a way of transferring data between two devices that uses the CPU as part of the data path. ATA uses PIO and defines the speed of the data transfer in terms of the PIO mode being used, as shown below: PIO Mode Data Transfer Rate (MBps) Standard
0 3.3 ATA
1 5.2 ATA
2 8.3 ATA
3 11.1 ATA-2
4 16.6 ATA-2

Hope this helps.

[brandon84]

ya there is not option to disable it in my bios or i woulda tried i do have the mode select your talking about and if i'm following you right the high number mode would be like 16MB/sec? i just checked my cuzins comp and his id is runnon on Ultra DMA mode 5, and from what i've read so far DMA is much faster, i don't understand why i have to disable DMA,i mean you'd think having it on auto would still allow the system to boot, it when it's booting w/ dma on AUTo (the only other option besides disable) my computer will show the IDE primary there when it's at that part of the boot up then it gets on to that damn verifiying dmi pool data, i hate that sceen...wait a few minutes then i get BOOT DISK FAILURE REPLACE SYT>.....you know the rest of that one.

[brandon84]

Here's part of the test results.....can you guys get anything from this???


Partition format NTFS
Cluster size 4 KB
Drive label No Label
Size 117792 MB
Free space 86772 MB (74%)
Junk files 873 MB (1%)
Data fragmentation 1%
File fragmentation 1%
Uncached speed 3 MB/s (8%) <<<===the avg tests w/ simialer computers is 36.5MB/s

[glc]

http://www.hitachigst.com/downloads/ftool_196.exe

Feature Tool (v1.96)

This is a DOS-bootable tool for changing various ATA features. The Feature Tool allows you to control some of the features of our Deskstar and Travelstar high performance ATA hard disk drives and supports 48-bit addressing, so it will work with the new large capacity drives. This version adds support for our latest drives.

The Feature Tool allows you to:
Enable or disable the read-ahead or write cache.
Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).
Change the predefined capacity of the drive. This option can be used in situations where there is a BIOS limitation and the drive is not recognized. See the Users Guide for specific details.
Switch the Ultra DMA mode
Change Advanced Power Mode - allows you to change between the lowest power consumption and the highest power consumption (maximum performance level).
Show Drive Temperature - shows the current drive temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Configure SATA interface - adjust maximum speed and enable/disable Spread Spectrum Clocking.

http://www.hitachigst.com/downloads/dft32_v401_b00.exe

Drive Fitness Test (v4.01)

This download creates a self-booting DOS diskette to run the DFT utility. The Drive Fitness Test (DFT) provides a quick, reliable method to test SCSI and IDE hard disk drives, including Serial-ATA IDE drives. The Drive Fitness Test analyze function performs read tests without overwriting customer data. (However, Drive Fitness Test is bundled with some restoration utilities that will overwrite data.)

Analyzes drive fitness
Three modes of operation:
-- High confidence level Quick test (unmatched in the drive industry)
-- Full media scan
-- Exerciser
Performs real-time analysis of you drive to quickly determine whether the drive has a problem.
Identifies system problems such as cables, temperature, etc.
Automatically logs significant drive parameters to track potential impacts to the operation of the drive.
Restores drive fitness
Note: these utilities will overwrite customer data and allow repair of bad sectors.
Erase Bootsector utility (use DFT Utility option: Erase Boot Sector)
Low-level format utility (use DFT Utility option: Erase Disk)
Utilities
Drive information
S.M.A.R.T. Operations for IDE hard disk drives

ya, i'm using the round cables that came with my epox mobo

That doesn't mean that you don't possibly have a bad cable on your hands........you MUST try a different cable as part of your troubleshooting.

[brandon84]

Ya i tried using other cables, same problem.......i did use that second prog you posted already and it showed no errors, gonna see what happens with this, i'm starting to conclude it's not my hard drive but something is effecting my hard drive beucase if the hd work it should boot w/ dma on auto and just auto decide the fact that i have to disable to get it to boot off my hd period, if i have it disabled my computer will do notta....this is giving me a headache

[brandon84]

Keep just tried that other prog, notice TRIED. it went to start pc-dos then poof internal error 0222...........whats that...is my computer fixable, *** is wrong w/ this toad


also just tried enabling DMA and putting windows disk in hoping it would load and just let me start over.

PLZ someone figure this out it's so annoying



Setting this BIOS feature to Disabled forces the BIOS to disable DMA transfers for the IDE drive.

Setting this BIOS feature to 0 forces the BIOS to use DMA Mode 0 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 1 forces the BIOS to use DMA Mode 1 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 2 forces the BIOS to use DMA Mode 2 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 3 forces the BIOS to use UltraDMA 33 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 4 forces the BIOS to use UltraDMA 66 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 5 forces the BIOS to use UltraDMA 100 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to 6 forces the BIOS to use UltraDMA 133 for DMA transfers.

Setting this BIOS feature to Auto lets the BIOS auto-detect the IDE drive's maximum supported DMA mode at boot-up.

Normally, you should leave it as Auto and let the BIOS auto-detect the drive's DMA support. If the drive supports DMA transfers, the proper DMA transfer mode will be enabled for that drive, allowing it to burst data at anywhere from 33MB/s to 133MB/s (depending on the transfer mode supported).

You should only disable it for troubleshooting purposes. For example, certain IDE devices may not run properly using DMA transfers when the PCI bus is overclocked. Disabling DMA support will force the drive to use the slower PIO transfer mode. This may allow the drive to work properly with the higher PCI bus speed.


Fount that on another site..one ? why don't i have the choice of modes? and my pci bus speed wouldn't be high w/ factory defaults would it? someone plz help

[brandon84]

lol i can't even format/ reinstall windows it seems when i enable dma mode or set to auto i should say it won't boot anything, it says that configuration thing w/ the boot disk then it just goes black and i sit doing nothing but when i disable it i can't seem to get my computer to boot from the cd rom

[brandon84]

bump also here's my pitstop results to help you guys some more if you can help me PLEASE here

[glc]

I don't know. You have an issue with either Hitachi or Epox or both.

[brandon84]

ya i'm gonna call and raise hell

[glc]

I suggest you ask them for help nicely, you will get better results.

[brandon84]

ok i hooked up other HDs to my computer and they boot up fine so i decided to get a RMA number and send my Hard Drive back "still not sure if that's it but mostly sure" and for TEMP i hooked up my old 10 gig xbox hard drive lol, but i was trying to see what transfer mode it was running in and for some reason it's listed as a SCSI device and i don't have a primary and secondary ide controllers, so if i hooked it up w/ IDE cables why is it scsi....i coulda swore SCSI is a completely different style hard drive as far as hooking it up goes...any one know why my ol xbox HD is comin up as SCSI? is that was my old one was suppose to do, i'm lost cause i thought it was different but hey ya someone gimmie some 411 plz

[Cricket]

Take a look at the capacitors on that EPoX motherboard and see if any are bulging or leaking. I seen 4 EPoX motherboards with bulging capacitors last year and all of them had some kind of performance or stability issue. They were all over 2 years old and out of warranty already so the owners just opted to upgrade the computers instead (I used ASUS and INTEL motherboards this time).

Cricket

[glc]

I think it's showing as a scsi device because of old NForce drivers. You need the LATEST drivers from www.nvidia.com .

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_winxp_5.10

[brandon84]

was this on any particular epox MOBO? i looked man and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, i already replaced the board once...but if you could in more detail describe what i'm looking for (pic examples) or what board this happens on majority of the time..much apprechated, i'm enjoying the faster feeling of 16MB uncached though, ya i'm gonna test out w/ the new drivers beings NOTHING is upated, i JUST put this in since i'm shipping the other HD out tomorrow, Ps i'm don't think it's the mobo cause i've put other HD in over the last few days and they fired up fine runnign DMA




ALso my MObo is epox 8rda3+ Rev 3.x

[brandon84]

damn i figured it out i think, ok theres like 3 pins on the back of my HD that messed up well only 1 is bent but it seems the other 2 only stick out 1/2 way like they are recessed in for some reason, now does warranty cover this type of thing when i send it on RMA? i really don't want to try to straighten them myself and i might as well use the warranty i got right? well someone plz respond that would know this i mean w/ all the errors best off gettin brand new

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by brandon84 was this on any particular epox MOBO?

No, not a particular model, just motherboards made around 2000-2001. Of the bad EPoX motherboards I seen, two were Intel Socket 370 and two were AMD Socket 462.

Originally Posted by brandon84 i looked man and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, i already replaced the board once...but if you could in more detail describe what i'm looking for (pic examples) or what board this happens on majority of the time..much apprechated

BadCap.net describes the problem and has pictures.

Cricket

[brandon84]

thx man, no mine appear to be fine just hope they'll replace my HD