Announcement

**EchoWars** · 3 April 2001, 09:44

dZeus-
Where did you get the idea that you can't run in DMA mode without the VIA drivers? MS supplies a version with the OS. Just gotta turn DMA on in Device Manager.

Ooops...just re-read Dzeus's message about not being able to enable DMA with default MS drivers. That ain't right, and I wouldn't be looking to the VIA drivers for a remedy. Start carefully picking apart what you got, but skip the VIA BM drivers.

[This message has been edited by EchoWars (edited 03 April 2001).]

**dZeus** · 3 April 2001, 11:01

EchoWars:

this is in Win2k.. you can't just 'force' UDMA.. you have to set it to 'DMA if available', and if it won't default to UDMA mode, it just doesn't work. I guess the default ms drivers just don't support the VIA 686B (?) southbridge that's on the KT7A.

I've installed the 4in1 4.29v for now, and ghosted the install... we'll see where it'll end up

**Indiana** · 3 April 2001, 15:07

Originally posted by SCompRacer:
Indiana, did you ever run ATTO bench? PC SCSI Version 1.63 is the file to DL.

Not until now...
But my RAID is formatted with NTFS, and so I can only test it in Win2k, since I can only read from this under 98SE (if anyone knows a free possibility for read/write mounting a NTFS partition under Win98, please tell me).

And under Win2k the RAID apparently is running at U-DMA66 - if you look at the performance cut at 55-58MB/s:

Is there a fix to enable U-DMA100 on the HighPoint in Win2k? Not that I'd really need it - the RAID is fast enough to capture full PAL resolution in Win2k (which it is mainly intended for)

**SCompRacer** · 3 April 2001, 15:35

Indiana, since your running RAID, the Highpoint drivers are the ones that matter. Are you using the latest RAID BIOS and drivers? Yours is the first bench I have seen with NTFS, so I have nothing to reference it against.

The ATA100 fix would not apply to the RAID controller, though many have claimed performance increases with RAID after applying it. I do have the ATA100 fix in as I did have hard drives on IDE 1 & 2 at one time.

I see your dual booting, is it from two partitions on the RAID drive? When I dual booted from two partitions, Win2000 disk bench was alot lower. My 1024 ATTO bench numbers from a second partition were like 48,000/64,000 with FAT32.

I was also told when you run NTFS it decreases drive performance due to the way the file system works, but I do not have the knowledge to take that as an absolute.

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ABIT KT7A, Two RAID 0's * 900MHz Athlon T'bird, 133/33 @ 7.5 for 1000 * 256MB Crucial 7E PC/133 RAM * Win2000SP1/Win98SE * The Rest

[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 03 April 2001).]

**EchoWars** · 3 April 2001, 20:17

Dzeus...

Running W2k and a ABIT KT7A myself (did I already mention that?) Point is, if DMA won't enable, then you need to look at yer hardware (what's on the same channel with what, check cables, etc...) A vanishingly small number of IDE devices are not DMA capable, so...

...just trying to help

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

**dZeus** · 4 April 2001, 03:12

OK, point understood

The drive is the only device on the channel, and the cable is a brand new UDMA/66 cable (80 pins), which came with the KT7A.

So Win2k's default VIA IDE drivers _should_ use UDMA on it when it would function properly?

The drive is a 30GB Maxtor one.

**Indiana** · 4 April 2001, 10:08

Originally posted by SCompRacer:
Indiana, since your running RAID, the Highpoint drivers are the ones that matter. Are you using the latest RAID BIOS and drivers?

Using the HighPoint1.03b drivers, the BIOS is not the latest, but the 1.03b one as well - but as AFAIK they only solved some SCSI-booting issues in the 1.10 BIOS.

The ATA100 fix would not apply to the RAID controller, though many have claimed performance increases with RAID after applying it. I do have the ATA100 fix in as I did have hard drives on IDE 1 & 2 at one time.

Maybe I should try it, wasn't this fix intended ONLY for the KT133A? I have the KT133. Do you have a link for the ATA100-fix?

I see your dual booting, is it from two partitions on the RAID drive? When I dual booted from two partitions, Win2000 disk bench was alot lower. My 1024 ATTO bench numbers from a second partition were like 48,000/64,000 with FAT32.

Nope, I'm booting off my older IBM U-DMA drive that's connected to the VIA IDE. Win98 is on this drive, Win2k on my good old SCSI. The RAID is used nearly only for storage and video-capturing.

I was also told when you run NTFS it decreases drive performance due to the way the file system works, but I do not have the knowledge to take that as an absolute.

Yes, this is true. I had the RAID formatted with FAT32 earlier and it was quite a bit faster than NTFS (Not-The-Fastest-System?). But since this drive is meant for video-capturing, I don't want to mess with the 2/4Gig filesize-limit.
Under Win98 the drive seems still faster, even under NTFS - but I can't write to it...

**EchoWars** · 4 April 2001, 10:58

dZeus-

Hafta ask, but is the blue end of the ATA66/100 IDE cable plugged into the motherboard? Those puppies ARE directional...

If you already checked this, then pls ignore.

Heard of a buddy having a similar problem when he set his Maxtor for cable select...insisted that he ALWAYS used CS with no problems. I told him to set the drive up as master just to humor me, and problems went away.

**SCompRacer** · 4 April 2001, 13:30

Indiana, here is the link but it was only available in English at the time.
http://support.microsoft.com/support...CH&SPR=WIN2000

**Technoid** · 4 April 2001, 13:42

Now i get somwhat cuirius;

Via 4 in 1 does not by default install the via driver BUT it does install AGP drivers and INF support files.

**RAB** · 4 April 2001, 15:33

dZeus,
The problem is not just with the KT7 chipset. Its the same with the older SS7 MVP3 chips as well. I have not been able to get UDMA33 out of my FIC VA503+ using any chipset drivers, either Microsoft or VIA. In fact the only way I can get my old Samsung 4 gig drive to work in Win2k is in PIO mode 4. And that's only by leaving out the VIA busmaster drivers altogether.

I hate to say it, but VIA is up to their old trick and providing poor support for older chipsets. I only wish that their website would admit that their drivers will not always work in Win2k. After using any VIA busmaster drivers after 4.24, all I get is a BSOD after rebooting. The only way out is to reformat and reload.

RAB

**Gurm** · 4 April 2001, 16:07

Maxtor... 'nuff said.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

**The Rock** · 4 April 2001, 19:41

Most VIA users (myself included) refuse to install the VIA IDE stuff and are waiting on MS to release SP2 for Win2k, which is supposed to fix and improve our situation tremendously. Sorry this isn't helpful.

Bart

**DentyCracker** · 8 April 2001, 19:39

I've had a usb scanner and several usb zip drives work without a problem. I have a POS (according to Gurm) Maxtor 20GB UATA66 HD and no RAID. To be perfectly honest I was wary of Abit because of said QC issues, but bought the mobo because at the tiime it was the only one with a completely BIOS based Vio and Multiplier and FSB setting. Like I said I lucked out. Oh I have installed the beta SP2 (dled off Asus' site)

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