Hard Drive DMA in Windows XP

[Yabba]

Specs: Shuttle AK31A motherboard with VIA KT266A (VT8366A Northbridge/VT8233 Southbridge) Chipset and Award BIOS v6.00PG; AMD XP1600+ processor; 256mb Crucial DDR ram; Seagate Barracuda IV ST340016A ATA 100 HDD (prmary master, no slave); Windows XP

Short of tampering with the registry, I have tried all tips and tricks I could find but have been unable to get the HDD to run in DMA mode. It is set to "DMA if available" in Device Manager but only runs in PIO mode. I have not installed anything from the motherboard CD as I believe the Shuttle drivers are older than the Windows XP default drivers. I replaced the (40 pin, 80 conductor) IDE cable with no change. I emailed my problem to Seagate support and they responded: "This is an indication that your are using outdated drivers. Please contact your motherboard manufacturer for the latest WHQL certified, digitally signed BUS Mastering and chipset drivers for your motherboard and operating system." Shuttle has not responded to my email on another matter (northbridge fan noise, which I'm not real worried about), so I haven't tried contacting them on this one. I groped a lot of forums and how-to's before building it and have continued to search posts, etc. since. I'm still not as savvy as I'd like to be, however, so will appreciate any help I can get in understanding how to try Seagate's suggestion.

[edrod13]

You might have to load VIA chipset 4-in-1 drivers.

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

Edrod13

[mike breck]

Hi Yabba,

Is UDMA enabled in the BIOS for all IDE devices.

Does the BIOS see the HD as PIO or UDMA?

[Yabba]

Thank you, edrod13 and mike breck, for replying.

I am aware of the viaarena site and forums. However, the large amount of info and downloads there, along with my limited experience, cause me to want to try very hard not to wind up doing the wrong thing and making matters worse. I'd appreciate any suggestions as to which VIA drivers might best address my DMA problems and why, or where I should look to try and decide this for myself. My Device Manager shows my primary IDE channel driver as Microsoft version 5.1.2600.0 of 7/1/2001. Viaarena identifies the 4in1, 436v.zip of 12/5/2001, as updating the VIA IDE Filter Driver from version 1.10 to 1.20. Although Seagate seemed to think "WHQL certified" and "digitally signed" are important terms and I didn't see them used regarding the v1.20 VIA IDE Filter Driver, is this what I need and the only thing I need? If so, how can I just get the v1.20 without the rest?

The BIOS does recognize the HDD as ATA 100. I also have a LiteOn 40125S CDRW which runs in DMA mode 2 but doesnt work right. I've thought this is because the HDD only runs in PIO.

[mike breck]

Have you tried:

Set the devices to "PIO mode"
Reboot
Then set the device to "Use DMA if available"
Reboot
See if DMA is enabled

or

Uninstalling the Via Bus Master PCI Ide Controller from Device Manager and letting XP redetect the drivers.

or

Safe Mode
Uninstall the Primary IDE Channel
Reboot
Let XP redetect the IDE channel and the devices on it.

or

Switching from the Microsoft VIA IDE drivers to the Microsoft Standard IDE drivers.

[Yabba]

Thanks for your continued support, mike breck.

I had already tried your first suggestion (resetting to PIO, then DMA, etc.) with no change: remains in PIO.

I had also already tried your second suggestion (uninstalling the Via Bus Master IDE Controller from Device Manager and letting XP redetect the drivers), but I have now tried it again and gotten same result as on previous attempts: all looks good > desktop comes back > freeze > system restore.

Upon trying your third suggestion (uninstalling Primary IDE Channel in Safe Mode and letting XP redetect the drivers), which is new to me, I get the same result as above: all looks good > desktop comes back > freeze > system restore.

I also have not heard of your fourth suggestion (Switching from the Microsoft VIA IDE drivers to the Microsoft Standard IDE drivers). I am willing to try it but would first like a little more guidance in how to do so.

[Toaster]

Hello folks,
Yabba, While I am no longer a moderator for this forum, I still would like to thank you for your proffessionalizem in your request for help and assistance.
You are kind, courteous and thank those who assist you. Thanks and welcome to the 'Mech!

[Yabba]

I appreciate your kind words, Toaster. I can also be persistent when necessary.

[Alfie]

Is the drive jumpered to CS(cable select)?
Are you still using an 80 wire udma ribbon?
Is the blue end in motherboard and the black end in hard drive
As you're using XP,no drivers are needed,so leave the Via 4in1 alone!

[mike breck]

Hi again Yabba,

Is the VIA IDE Bus Master Miniport actually installed?

In Device Manager>Hard disk controllers, check if the "VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller" is listed or not.

[Yabba]

Thanks, Alfie and mike breck.

I just checked again for the umpteenth time and the HDD is jumpered as master. It is an 80 wire ribbon with the blue end in the motherboard and the black end in the drive. Installing VIA 4in1's has been suggested several times but I have continued to resist. I've read of several XP users having trouble with them and I agree that XP should handle things if all is right.

I have sometimes seen an extra startup screen which shows the HDD being recognized by the BIOS as ATA 100, but I haven't seen that screen on the last several starts. I just looked at the BIOS settings again, however, and verified that On Chip IDE Channels 10 and 11, IDE Prefetch Mode, and IDE HDD Block Mode are all Enabled and that all Primary Master and Slave settings (both PIO and UDMA) are set to Auto. PNP OS Installed is set to No. Hopefully these are all correct.

Hardware Manager says the VIA Bus Master IDE Controller is working properly and with no conflicts.

[glc]

Have you tried rejumpering the hard drive to CABLE SELECT?

[Alfie]

UDMA is enabled when a 80 wire ribbon is used and the drive is jumpered to CS,it's a hardware thing,Via 4in1 has nothing to do with it.
Change the jumper to CS(cable select)

[Yabba]

Thanks, glc and Alfie.

I changed the hard drive jumper from Master to Cable Select, but the most noticeable difference seems to be that startup has been slowed significantly. Startup now pauses (with a message, "Floppy disks fail (40)," which I don't believe was there with the jumper set to Master; certainly there was no pause before) and I must now choose either "press F1 to continue" or "press DEL to enter Setup." Pressing F1 results in Startup completing, but it still seems noticeably slower -- even after the point of pressing F1.

The first thing I did after changing the jumper and doing a cold boot was to check the Primary IDE Channel Advanced Settings in Device Manager. It was still set to DMA if Available and still running in PIO Mode. I therefore tried resetting to PIO Only > restarting > then setting to DMA if Available > then restarting again, as in mike breck's first suggestion above. This again had no effect as the Primary IDE Channel is still stuck in PIO.

[mike breck]

Yes Alfie,

Setting the hardware up properly is obviously important, but not much good if you aren't using bus mastering drivers to convey the hardware's potential to the OS. So the drivers also must play a part.

Yabba appears to have the Via drivers installed - or both the MS and Via drivers installed.

XP can switch off DMA and revert to PIO mode for a device if it finds something it doesn't like e.g. chipsets that are known to cause data corruption, DMA errors (six strikes and DMA is out).

However, some mobo manufacturers can override this by implementing certain methods in the ACPI BIOS.

As one of the factors that can cause DMA errors is incorrect cabling; so Yabba, I think Alfie and glc are correct to suggest CS.

Also I think you should benchtest your HD and see exactly what the transfer rate is. For all we know, it might already be running at ATA100, but XP doesn't report it as such.

Try SiSoft Sandra and run the HD benchtest. That will show you how the drive performs in comparison to other UDMA modes.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/

HTH

[glc]

If you are getting a floppy 40 error, you very likely knocked the floppy cable loose when you were in there playing with the hard drive jumpers. This will also cause a boot delay while the bios times out looking for the floppy it thinks should be there.

[Yabba]

Thanks, Mike Breck and glc.

I HAD knocked the floppy connector loose! So now I've learned what a Floppy 40 error is and that I must more closely watch what I'm doing.

The SiSoftware Sandra Standard Drives Information Test gave me Performance Tip 1821, "label (name) drive," but I didn't find it really explained anywhere. The Sandra File System Benchmark test gave my HDD a Drive Index of 2724 KB/s, which I guess would be ATA 33, and generated the following report (trimmed and reformatted somewhat to shorten):

SMP Test: No; TotalTestThreads: 1; SMT Test: No; Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance: No; Processor Affinity: No; Windows Disk Cache Used: No; Use Overlapped I/O: Yes; Command Queue Depth: 8; command(s) Test File Size: 255MB; File Server Optimised: No

Benchmark Breakdown
Buffered Read : 3063 kB/s
Sequential Read : 2838 kB/s
Random Read : 2090 kB/s
Buffered Write : 3885 kB/s
Sequential Write : 3674 kB/s
Random Write : 3147 kB/s
Average Access Time : 8 ms (estimated)

Drive Class: Fixed; Total Space: 37.3GB; Free Space: 34.6GB, 93%

Performance Tips
Notice 5008 : To change benchmarks, click Options.
Notice 5004 : Synthetic benchmark. May not tally with 'real-life' performance.
Notice 5006 : Only compare the results with ones obtained using the same version!
Tip 5202 : Use cache on to measure Windows performance.
Warning 5206 : Low Disk index. Check DMA bus-mastering is enabled.

[Yabba]

Can anyone help me understand these Event Log errors from when I attempted to uninstall the Primary IDE Channel in Safe Mode and let XP redetect the drivers, as suggested by mike breck? #10 occurred first and, it seems, may be the most important.

System Errors (trimmed and reformatted to shorten):

#1)EventSource: DCOM; EventID: 10005; Time: 9:18:27AM; User: NTAUTHORITY\SYSTEM;
Description: DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the server: {1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF} For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

#2)same as #1 except: Time: 9:15:59 AM; User: \Administrator;
...service netman...server: {BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}

#3)EventSource: ServiceControlManager; EventID: 7026; Time: 9:11:50AM; User: N/A;
Description: The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load: AmdK7; BANTExt; Fips; giveio; IPSec; MRxSmb; NetBIOS; NetBT; RasAcd; Rdbss; Tcpip For more info, see Help and Support at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

#4)EventSource: ServiceControlManager; EventID: 7001; Time: 9:11:50AM; User: N/A;
Description: The IPSEC Services service depends on the IPSEC driver service which failed to start because of the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

#5)same as #4 except: The Messenger Service depends on the NetBIOS Interface service...

#6)same as #4 except: The DNS Client service depends on the TCP/IP Protocol Driver service...

#7)same as #4 except: The DHCP Client service depends on the NetBios over Tcpip service...

#8)same as #1 except: Time: 9:10:53AM; ...service Event System....server: {1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF}

Application Errors (trimmed and reformatted to shorten):

#9)Event Source: VSS; Event ID: 8193; Time: 9:10:11 AM; User: N/A;
Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 57 52 54 57 52 54 49 43 WRTWRTIC
0008: 32 31 30 37 00 00 00 00 2107....
0010: 57 52 54 57 52 54 49 43 WRTWRTIC
0018: 32 30 37 32 00 00 00 00 2072....

#10)Event Source: Event System; Event Category: (50) [[NOTE: Event Category = "None" for all 9 of the other errors]] Event ID: 4609; Time: 9:10:11AM; User: N/A;
Description: The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043C from line 44 of d:\nt\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

[glc]

Nothing in that event log that looks to me like it has anything to do with IDE busmastering. I think I'd try to RMA the motherboard at this point in time unless Shuttle or Seagate can come up with any more suggestions.

[Yabba]

Thanks for looking it over and giving me your reaction, glc -- that's what I asked for. Your suggestion is of course not what I wanted to hear but it seems no one else has any better ones to offer so I think you are probably right. Shuttle just sent me a new Northbridge fan last week so I will email them again and see what they say.

[Yabba]

I'm sorry if anyone (besides me) is getting tired of this one, but in thinking more about it, I have two new questions about easier things I would rather do -- if they might work -- than change a motherboard, even if it was a free replacement.

First, is it possible to boot from the secondary IDE channel and run a CDRW on the primary, or am I likely to damage something if I try that?

Second, the manufacturer says the HighPoint Rocket 133SB Controller Card has bootable disk support. Could this be a way to allow my HDD to use its ATA 100 capability?

[glc]

1. Yes, you can boot from any IDE device that's seen by the bios.

2. Any addon IDE controller card these days is bootable. I'd go with a Promise instead of a Highpoint though, their Ultra 100 is solid. If you install one, you will have to install the drivers in Windows BEFORE you put the card in or you will get a bluescreen with "inaccessible boot device" when you try to use it.

[Yabba]

Thanks very much for the additional help, glc. So far you are batting 1000 on the idea of something strange going on with the motherboard.

Just to update again, I Switced the HDD to Secondary IDE channel > freeze at Welcome screen on first startup > restart > freeze at desktop > restart > Safe Mode > turned off and switched HDD back to Primary as I did not want to waste a Restore Point on something that doesn't seem to want to work anyway. I am now looking for a Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE Controller Card at a decent price from a reliable vendor. NewEgg doesn't list the Ultra100 TX2 any more and it seems they haven't even had any Ultra133 TX2's for quite some time.

[mike breck]

Download the Seagate diagnostic software from the Seagate Website and run it on the HD.

If the drive comes up clean, then I would tend to agree with glc about RMAing the mobo. It shouldn't be this difficult to get the HD running at ATA100.

HTH

[glc]

Mwave has the Promise Ultra100 TX2 white box for $23, and it's in stock.

[Alfie]

Have you tried a different ribbon on the drive and is the red line on the ribbon line up with pin 1 on motherboard and pin1 on drive?
Do what mike suggested and run diagnostic software on the drive.

[edge345]

Try this:
Info
http://www.via.com.tw/en/apollo/KT266.jsp

Drivers
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

[mike breck]

If the Seagate diagnostic software shows the HD is OK, then it might be worthwhile trying the Registry Hack and seeing if it makes a difference.

You might also consider backing up your data and doing a fresh install of Windows.

If it still doesn't work, then you've got to seriously consider that it's a mobo problem. However, the Promise Controller should circumvent the problem.

[Yabba]

Thanks again for the further support, mike breck,glc and Alfie, and thanks also to edge345.

I ran the full version of Seagate's Online Drive Self Test, which took about 25 min and completed without any errors. I also tried Seagate's Online File System Check but got the stop message, "Some files on the volume are open. This may effect the accuracy of the file system check and result in false errors. The file system contains errors that need to be repaired." I think the "errors" may relate to some unneeded programs running but, unfortunately, I don't know how to figure out for sure which ones they would be. I tried ending the largest one, Windows Explorer, but lost the Task Bar and had to restart. I would like to complete the File System Check before doing anything else if I can get some help in understanding how to tell when it's OK to say Yes when Windows XP Task Manager says, "Warning: Terminating a process can cause undesired results.... Are you sure you want to teminate the process?"

If I can get the File System Check to complete successfully, I will then definitely be ready to try adding a controller card next. However, I now see that the Promise Ultra100 TX2 does not say it supports Windows XP and that the Ultra133 TX2 does. So, unless someone knows absolutely positively that the Ultra100 TX2 works in XP, I'll probably go ahead and pay the extra $10 for the Ultra133 TX2.

I have tried a new (80 wire/40 pin) ATA 100 ribbon cable -- also red line to pin 1 at both ends -- with no change.

I'm not real sure what it all means, but I know the VIA KT266A Chipset has an "Enhanced Memory Controller With Performance Driven Design," which makes it different than the KT266. Regardless, I have so far tried to avoid getting involved with downloading VIA 4in1s or other VIA drivers as I understand many people have had
problems with them in Windows XP. If I keep being unable to find any other fix, and especially if someone can help me better see WHY they would likely solve my particular problem without causing me any new ones, I may give them a try in the future.

As for the Registry Hack, I don't really have a clue and would be afraid to try it without a LOT of help. I still haven't even figured out how to get started in learning to understand the Registry, let alone how to work with it. And, I'm sorry to say, I'm not much more excited about reinstalling Windows XP than I am about changing the motherboard. But if a PCI controller card doesn't give me a fix, and if one of these bigger jobs starts looking like the next-most-likely solution, I will dive in and try it -- and I'll probably head straight back to the 'Mech where I can continue to try and pick the brains of the experts as I go.

[Demosthenes]

Well, this is an interesting thread, and I was hoping for a better finish, as I seem to have the same problem on one of my machines.

Running XP as well, but on an Intel board, an i815 I think. Same symptoms: BIOS recognizes as DMA/33, but Windows runs it under PIO mode. I have tried just about everything, too. My guess is that it is XP avoiding some problem it thinks it has with drivers, chipset, or something. A case of XP being too intelligent for its own good. I would doubt that it is anything wrong with your hardware.

If I find anything that works, I will let you know.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes