DVR-108 not going into UDMA 4

[djjangelo]

I have a DVR-108 (f/w 1.14) that I can not get into UDMA 4 mode, it merely stays in "Multi Word DMA 2". I have it connected with an 80 conductor IDE cable as the secondary master along with another hard drive as the secondary slave. The hard drive shows up as UDMA 4 so it seems the cable is OK. I even tried disconnecting the hard drive and removing/reinstalling the DVR-108, but no luck... it still remains: Multi Word DMA 2.

[djjangelo]

Nobody else have this problem?
... I wonder if my drive bad

[TBoneit]

This may be a silly question(s) but is it causing a problem?
Does it support UDMA 4?
Does it matter?
Is it burning properly? IE 15Minute 4X burns etc.? If So did you check the burn for errors?
Did you check with the maker?

If it is burning at the proper speed and good quality is it worth fixing something that isn't broken, Working IOW ?

Good Luck

[djjangelo]

Yeah, the DVR-108 does support UDMA 4 and I think I'll need it to be in that mode when I attempt burns at 16X. So far I've only burned 4X on my 4X media and everything works good. (15 minute burns, good end results)

[TBoneit]

Sounds like it could be worse, at least you are getting good burns, and the proper burn time. This gives you time to figure out what is wrong without going crazy.

Q's:
You did check the bios settings for proper drive detect? You did check IDE controller settings in bios? You are using a 80 wire 40 pin that is within length spec's? shouldn't be over 18 inches long. Cable select set on the drive. Did you try connecting it as second drive on primary IDE so windows will find it as a new device. If Win2K or XP did you see if the controller properties are set properly. Different place than Win9x.

Good Luck

[hyper]

I have had a similar problem with my plextor 708. I had to go into the device manager and unistall the ide channel that the burner is connected to. Then reboot the system and xp will find new hardware and should solve your problem. I have had to do this on three different occasions with success.

[djjangelo]

OK I tried unistalling my secondary IDE channel and then rebooted... but still no luck. The hard drive slave is recognized as Ultra DMA Mode 4 but the DVR-108 master is still only Multi-Word DMA Mode 2.

[BogieV]

I would suggest you use some utility (Aida 32, etc. ) that will tell you precisely if your drive supports what you want to see.
I havent seen till now optical drive showing more than 'Ultra DMA mode 2' but I might be wrong.
The HDDs should be 'Ultra DMA mode 5'
Recently I also had similar problem but my drive was stuck to 'PIO mode 4' which is BAD! I had to uninstal the secondary channel and just like hyper on restart the drive was restored successfully and showed "DMA 2 mode".

[VamPYR]

i had this problem when my optical device (dvd-rom,dvd-writer) not responding while reading some dvd/cd, the system will reset my drive to PIO mode, even i change it back to DMA in device manager but it didn't work.
i find a solution will work for me is to run 'DVD Region+CSS Free' and choose the drive which is currently set to PIO in the 'Setting' menu, after that right click 'DVD Region+CSS Free' taskbar icon & select 'Enable DMA', the system need to be restart after this.

Hope this will help a bit.

My System:
Abit IC7-Max3 (intel i875)
P4 3.00GHz (800FBS)
1GB DDR400
Pioneer DVR-106D
Pioneer DVR-107D
Pioneer DVR-108 (just got it today !)
Asus dvd-rom 616
6 SATA
4-Channel IDE-RAID (Highpoint Rocket Raid 404)
4 SATA HDD
4 IDE HDD (RAID)
2 USB HDD

[RottenFoxBreath]

ive got a DFI Ultra Infinity mobo,with 2 hard drives,and 2 writers,1 cd and one dvd.
pioneer 108,ultra DMA mode 4,same with my cd writer,my hard drives both show up as ultra DMA mode 6(master and slave),and of the few 16speed burns ive managed as tests,theyve come out no probs at all,apart from playback skips(shit media)-thats why i used them to test.
roughly 4 minutes for a burn,not going to do it again till i can get some quality 16speed media though.
i wasnt a fan of the 3 x16speed dvd+rs i got -philips branded,silver ones.

dont quote me ,but isnt the average speed something like 130meg per second or something for UDMA mode4,max speed.

[kosekjm]

Hi there,

I have the 108, upgraded to FW 1.14, as well and mine went into UDMA4 mode with no problems. No changes needed, it was automatically detected by windows just fine.

A couple of questions for you:
1. What type of motherboard do you have?
2. Have you updated any MB drivers? I believe via based boards used to need a driver to enable the correct type of dma mode for drives.

I'm running XP SP 2 and I changed out a pioneer 106 with the 108. My pc recognized the new drive automatically and changed the DMA with no problems.

kosekjm

[djjangelo]

Thanks for the input everyone, I appreciate your help.

Yeah, I do have a Via based motherboard and no I haven't loaded any updated drivers for it. Right now I'm actually just using the standard drivers that auto loaded with Win XP Pro SP2.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the hard drive on that IDE channel also be stuck in a lower DMA mode if my chipset drivers were no good? The hard drive always shows up as UDMA 4 compared to the DVR-108 which is always in Multi Word DMA 2, no matter if they're installed alone or not. I've never really had a problem with devices falling back or getting stuck into PIO mode.

[kosekjm]

Hi there,

The only experience that I had with a via board was an old athlon 700 machine that I built in 2000 or so. On that board, whenever I changed a drive (added a HD, CD-R, etc) the drive would not be at the right mode. I had to re-update the drivers whenever I changed anything on the ide bus. Not sure if that still happens (or might just have been the board that I had). That, and other oddities, was part of the reason I left the via based boards. I would think that the XP drivers should be capable enough though.

Have you tried moving the drive to the connector for the HD (Even temporarily)? Maybe something like a bad ribbon connector. Also, just asking not meaning to insult, have the drive's jumper settings been set correctly? Mine are set for cable select (as per dell's wishes) and haven't had any dma/pio errors.

Wish I had some other ideas.