manunkind
January 15, 2001, 08:20 pm
From the LangaList:
1) Faster Drives, For Free!
There's a good chance you can speed up your hard drives and your CDs,
CDRs and DVDs--- for free--- via Windows' almost-hidden DMA setting.
Doing so can make your drives as much as 15% faster, and reduce the
load on your CPU by as much as 40%. We first discussed DMA in this
space over a year ago, but despite this easy-to-obtain speed benefit,
some new systems still ship with the older, slower, non-DMA disk and
CD/CDR/DVD access enabled; and many readers who could manually enable
DMA access haven't done so.
Here's the scoop: DMA is "direct memory access" (sometimes also called
"bus mastering") is a way a part of your computer to bypass the CPU
and take a short cut through the system. This can significantly speed
operations.
In Windows, you can see your drives' current DMA settings by right-
clicking on My Computer, then Properties, then Device Manager. Next,
click on Disk Drives, then on your hard drive(s)--- you may see a
nonspecific name such as "Generic IDE Disk Type 01"--- then on
Properties, and then click on the Settings Tab. See if the DMA box is
checked.
Next, follow the same steps for the CDROM(s) listed in your Device
Manager.
Even if you have a system of reasonably recent vintage, there's an
excellent chance you'll see an *UN*checked DMA option in the dialog
box in one or both places. That's because non-DMA drive operations
avoid possible compatibility issues. By choosing slower, more-
conservative settings, system vendors can save themselves some support
calls.
Sorting out whether or not to use DMA on a specific system isn't hard,
but it takes a little explaining, so in order not to rush through the
topic, I've made it the focus of this week's column at WinMag.Com.
Because of the US national holiday Monday, the column will go live
Tuesday, January 16th.
With a full column's worth of space to deal with, we can treat the
subject right: I've already done the homework for you, and will show
you the relevant portions of the Microsoft KnowledgeBase, and bring
you to the DMA-specific portions of the web sites of some large drive
manufacturers. Then, we'll step through the process of enabling--- and
testing!--- DMA access on your system.
If done carefully and right, enabling DMA access can result in a huge
payoff on almost all systems. For example, if you have an older,
slower system, DMA's ability to let parts of your system bypass the
CPU may make things considerably faster.
But even the newest, fastest system can benefit. For example, on my
newest system, a 1.2GHz Athlon box with 256MB of RAM and an Ultra-ATA
hard drive, manually enabling DMA speeded my hard drive read
operations by almost 10MB/sec, and speeded writes by 13MB/sec.
And all for free!
Make a note to drop by the WinMag area tomorrow, Tuesday January 16th,
around midday, and check under the "Explorer" heading on http://www.winmag.com/columns/ . If you arrive early, you'll see the
previous column on "Time To Upgrade Your Search Engine". In that case,
just try again a little later. If you want to try a direct link, once
the column is posted, it should be at http://www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/2001/01.htm . (If you arrive
early, the link won't work.)
Hope to see you there tomorrow! Remember, faster hard drives and CDs
may be only a click away!
------------------
Moderator at Help from Techs Support Forums (http://www.helpfromtechs.com)
1) Faster Drives, For Free!
There's a good chance you can speed up your hard drives and your CDs,
CDRs and DVDs--- for free--- via Windows' almost-hidden DMA setting.
Doing so can make your drives as much as 15% faster, and reduce the
load on your CPU by as much as 40%. We first discussed DMA in this
space over a year ago, but despite this easy-to-obtain speed benefit,
some new systems still ship with the older, slower, non-DMA disk and
CD/CDR/DVD access enabled; and many readers who could manually enable
DMA access haven't done so.
Here's the scoop: DMA is "direct memory access" (sometimes also called
"bus mastering") is a way a part of your computer to bypass the CPU
and take a short cut through the system. This can significantly speed
operations.
In Windows, you can see your drives' current DMA settings by right-
clicking on My Computer, then Properties, then Device Manager. Next,
click on Disk Drives, then on your hard drive(s)--- you may see a
nonspecific name such as "Generic IDE Disk Type 01"--- then on
Properties, and then click on the Settings Tab. See if the DMA box is
checked.
Next, follow the same steps for the CDROM(s) listed in your Device
Manager.
Even if you have a system of reasonably recent vintage, there's an
excellent chance you'll see an *UN*checked DMA option in the dialog
box in one or both places. That's because non-DMA drive operations
avoid possible compatibility issues. By choosing slower, more-
conservative settings, system vendors can save themselves some support
calls.
Sorting out whether or not to use DMA on a specific system isn't hard,
but it takes a little explaining, so in order not to rush through the
topic, I've made it the focus of this week's column at WinMag.Com.
Because of the US national holiday Monday, the column will go live
Tuesday, January 16th.
With a full column's worth of space to deal with, we can treat the
subject right: I've already done the homework for you, and will show
you the relevant portions of the Microsoft KnowledgeBase, and bring
you to the DMA-specific portions of the web sites of some large drive
manufacturers. Then, we'll step through the process of enabling--- and
testing!--- DMA access on your system.
If done carefully and right, enabling DMA access can result in a huge
payoff on almost all systems. For example, if you have an older,
slower system, DMA's ability to let parts of your system bypass the
CPU may make things considerably faster.
But even the newest, fastest system can benefit. For example, on my
newest system, a 1.2GHz Athlon box with 256MB of RAM and an Ultra-ATA
hard drive, manually enabling DMA speeded my hard drive read
operations by almost 10MB/sec, and speeded writes by 13MB/sec.
And all for free!
Make a note to drop by the WinMag area tomorrow, Tuesday January 16th,
around midday, and check under the "Explorer" heading on http://www.winmag.com/columns/ . If you arrive early, you'll see the
previous column on "Time To Upgrade Your Search Engine". In that case,
just try again a little later. If you want to try a direct link, once
the column is posted, it should be at http://www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/2001/01.htm . (If you arrive
early, the link won't work.)
Hope to see you there tomorrow! Remember, faster hard drives and CDs
may be only a click away!
------------------
Moderator at Help from Techs Support Forums (http://www.helpfromtechs.com)