How to enable/disable dma in win xp?

2003-01-29 16:54:48

I can't find how to enable dma from cd drives and hard disk in windows Xp and 2000.
Where is this option?

How to enable/disable dma in win xp?

Reply #1 – 2003-01-29 17:05:05

If the drive supports DMA, it is automatically enabled.

See http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/storag...age/IDE-DMA.asp

How to enable/disable dma in win xp?

Reply #2 – 2003-01-29 17:42:57

In XP it is supposed to be automatically enabled, but sometimes it gets "stuck" in PIO mode.  WinXP will throttle back the device bus speed if it encounters an error and does not always "put it back."

To change to mode open the device manager and click on "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and then right click on the controller channel that your drives are on and choose Properties.  Usually hard drives are on the Primary and removable media on Secondary.  Go to the tab labeled "Advanced Settings" and make sure you choose "DMA if available."

I had problems with XP keeping my hard drive in PIO mode, so if choosing "DMA if available" doesn't put your drive in DMA mode then you have to uninstall the channel your drive is on in the device manager and reboot. (Right click on the channel in the Hardware device manager and choose "uninstall...")  WinXP should reinstall the drive correctly when it reboots and should choose the fastest DMA mode.

That usually works for me, but worst case you may have to reinstall Windows if the drivers are corrupted.

How to enable/disable dma in win xp?

Reply #3 – 2003-02-01 14:23:45

Thanks 
There are some old cd-writers that don't works good if dma is activated and I haved trouble with some computers.