The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Ultra DMA Mode for W3V DVD drive

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by shutterbug, May 25, 2005.

  1. shutterbug

    shutterbug Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    28
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    The other day I noticed while using Nero to burn a DVD-R, my computer was extremely sluggish while performing other tasks. This had not been a problem on my less powerful desktop, so I decided to investigate.

    Turns out that in Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers > Secondary IDE Channel > Properties > Advanced Settings the Transfer mode was set to "PIO Only" as opposed to "DMA if available". The difference between the two is that PIO requires much more CPU utilization when transferring data--thus slowing down the computer when doing other things.

    I don't know if this was set as the factory default, as Windows will automatically set this to PIO once you reach a total of 6 time out errors or CRCs (cyclical redundancy check). I don't recall receiving that many (if at all), so I'd suggest you check to see which transfer mode you're on. Maybe this was just a peculiarity of my machine...

    The end result is that watching/burning DVDs won't tax the CPU as hard, leading to all the obvious benefits.
     
    shutterbug, May 25, 2005
    #1
  2. sygyzy

    sygyzy Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    70
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    So ... did you switch it to UDMA?

    Peace!
    Sygyzy
     
    sygyzy, May 25, 2005
    #2
  3. shutterbug

    shutterbug Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    28
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    <blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sygyzy
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015
    shutterbug, May 25, 2005
    #3
  4. sygyzy

    sygyzy Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    70
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Perhaps this might explain the stuttering DVD playback?!?!?!

    Peace!
    Sygyzy
     
    sygyzy, May 25, 2005
    #4
  5. Underpantman

    Underpantman Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    356
    Messages:
    2,073
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    I recall another w3v user a few weeks ago complaining about similar issues...ie 100% cpu while transfering files etc, I suggested that it was probably pio mode on the hdd, but they never responded...but my guess is that this was the case. I have also had issues with XP reverting drives (both cd and hdd) to pio mode and it seems to be a very common occurance...perhaps a bug in XP if you go by the number of posts a quick google pulls up on the issue.
    a
    :)

    ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM
     
    Underpantman, May 27, 2005
    #5