Win2K disk optimization.....

[Dr Mordrid]

If you're having a problem in Win2K with playback or capture then try entering this from a command line;

diskperf -n

and reboot the system.

Diskperf controls disk performance counters. These counters and other features in Win2K are by default ON while in NT4 they were OFF. Unfortunately this seems to interrupt the smooth flow of disk operations. Turning the counters off fixes the problem.

This can affect SCSI, Fasttrak or any other disk interface under Win2K.

To turn Diskperf back on enter this command;

diskperf -yd

and rebooting the system.

The whole article on Diskperf with the complete command set is here;

http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q253/2/51.ASP

Also handy is this program for turning off background tasks in Win2K. It has no MSCONFIG program for doing this so....

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 04 April 2001).]

[SteveC]

Cool! Thanks Doc!

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Technoid]

What would we ever do without your knowledge?

Thanks!

[wkulecz]

Hate to sound like a disbeliever, but what is your evidence that this "optimization" does anything useful?

I tried it on my dual CPU system where I can't output DV from a 1394 drive. Absolutely no effect. Which is what I expected after reading about it in the MSDN docs.

I can capture DV to the 1394 drive and play back with media player from the 1394 drive just fine. I can copy the file from the 1394 drive to a "slower" IDE drive and output it to the camcorder just fine. Its only reading the 1394 drive and writing to the DV camcorder that doesn't work :-(

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

It helps in cases where disk performance is marginal for some reason. If your problem is elsewhere then of course it won't help.

Now....is that 1394 drive on the same card as your cam? If so...then IMHO that's the problem. Theoretically you may be able to share a DV card, but I'm not convinced.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Yes the 1394 drive is on the same 1394 card as the DV cam. I've tried both seperate ports and dasiy chaining the DVcam from the connectors on the 1394 drive.

Works on only one of four sysems tested so it is possible and should always work according to the 1394 specs. I've not been able to track down what's "different" except the working system is an Athelon 700, the three problem systems are PIII's.

In fact the camcorder in theory could talk to the hard drive without a computer at all but I don't think this is implimented in any camcorders or drives yet.

Your system would have to be marginial indeed for turning off the diskperf counters to make a noticable difference. It was worth a shot as a possibility of the performance monitoring being buggy on 1394 drives, unfortunately made no difference at all.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

The Diskperf trick is indeed not as effective as limiting VCACHE in Win9x, but it's one more tool in the box.

Interesting that the PIII's can't handle the IEEE-1394 drive for exporting and the Athlon can. Question: what chipsets are on the PIII systems? Perhaps it's releted to the 440BX being a pre-1394 chip?

Have to do some hunting....

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Two of the PIII systems are BX chipsets ASUS P2B and P2BD. The third is a Dell Inspiron notebook with PIII-700 and god knows what chipset, but probably something from Intel, its definitely post 1394 and came with W2K pre-installed. I'm particularly distressed that the 1394 drive won't output with the laptop -- if the laptop was the one that worked I could be happy as the other three systems have plenty of hard drive space.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

Just for the helluvit, is that laptop a Sony?

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Sorry I use the term laptop and notebook interchangably. Is a Dell Inspirion. My colleauge does have a Sony laptop running w2k with an 1394 port. I'll have to get her to let me borrow it for a test.

--wally.