Why am I not seeing UDMA/66?

[gbhall]

I have a second hard drive, an old IBM DPTA-372050 which I use for drive imaging

Problem (well not really a problem, more an irritation), is that this drive is only giving me 20Mb/sec so images are taking some three times longer than I expect to write.

The spec is IBM DPTA-372050
66.6 MB/sec (Ultra DMA/66)
33.3 MB/sec (Ultra DMA/33)
16.6 MB/sec (Mode 2 multi-word DMA)
16.6 MB/sec (Mode 4 PIO) 1.9 MB DRAM

I have a timing from HD tune showing min 12.8Mb/s max 22.2Mb/s average 19.2 Mb/s, burst rate 29.8Mb/s
According to Sisoft Sandra, my m/b will support PIO-4 and UDMA-4 but is currently only active for IDE in UDMA-2 (which must be my problem)

The OS is Win XP pro SP3, the drivers are MS defaults
disk.sys and partmgr.sys 5.1.2600.5512
and also Acronis snapman.sys and tdpm51.sys

The m/b is ASUS K8V-MX and it is apparently the latest bios - what is puzzling is the SATA channel is working at the expected rate where DH tune sees max rates of 56.9 Mb/sec, burst rate 97Mb/s

When I look in the bios, there is nothing to see about the SATA channel, but the IDE channel is at AUTO. If I try to set it manually, it only offers up to UDMA-2 Can I assume this m/b is already running optimally ?

 

[Archean]

Could it be a cable issue as well? (as far as I remember you need to have 80 wire/40 pin cable for it to work)

 

[gbhall]

Good call, Archean, I will check that out.

 

[Archean]

Ok, please do keep us update, Regards.

 

[DelJo63]

check BIOS for DMA and not PIO access

 

[tipstir]

HDDs are different back then. Ultra 33, 66, 100, 133 along with PATA 133. Some of older one only work in certain modes.

 

[gbhall]

I sourced an 80-wire IDE cable, and here is the result.

After I read this http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html I hoped that the bios would know from pin 34 being grounded that UDMA-4 was now allowed, and it did.

So with the bios now allowing a faster interface, and also being seen by Windows (maximum UDMA mode and current active mode UDMA-4 ) I got these reults from HD tune

Min 13.0MB/s Max 22.2MB/s Average 19.2MB/s pretty exactly as before.....
However maximum burst is now 56.9, much better than previous 29.8MB/s

Also a bit odd is the presence on IDE channel 2 of two optical devices. Sony DDU1612 and Sony CRX230E already connected by an 80-wire cable, but the bios does NOT allow UDMA-4 on that channel, only UDMA-2