DMA & the Slave

[rico1]

Hi Guys,

Hi have a Plextor 760A as my E:\ dirive & device mgr reports this drive as ultra dma 4; acting as a slave drive F: is a NEC 3500A & device mgr reports it at ultra dma 2.

If i swapped the drives NEC master & Plextor slave, would the dma stay the same 4master, 2 slave?

If I replaced the NEC with a newer drive could both master & slave, achieve dma4?

Are burners now greater than dma4?

Thanks
Rico

[budz]

If the PLEXTOR 760A is UDMA 4 & the NEC is UDMA 2 it'll stay in those UDMA modes regardless if it's in the master or slave position. Changing them around won't make a difference w/regard to UDMA modes. Most newer dvd burners have to use 80 wire ide cables. If not some drives will not work correctly.

[redwudz]

Like budz said, make sure you are using 80 conductor ATA/IDE cables. Optical IDE drives only go to DMA 4. Some are DMA 2. Most DVD ROMs are also DMA 2. Hard drives are DMA 4 - 6.

[rico1]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for responding! Both drives use the thin 80 wire ide cable. The switch the drives around was to see if master/slave had any bearing on DMA numbers. I can have master/slave both at DMA4, but I would need to replace the NEC.

Take Care
Rico

[Krispy Kritter]

Regardless of DMA2 or 4, you shouldn't see any performance difference.

[rico1]

Hi,

Krispy Kritter wrote:

Regardless of DMA2 or 4, you shouldn't see any performance difference.

I notice a huge diff. when burning 2 - 4 with 4 very fast & 2 very slow. So I'm not sure what you mean by performance diff?

Take Care
Rico

[[_chef_]]

UDMA2 is enough for burning at full speed (16x dvd). So the bottleneck is your system/setup.

[rico1]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the education!!!!

I attempted to burn a movie to using my NEC3500A, slave, F drive. The movie was going to take approx. 30min, using Tayio Yuden DVD-R 8x disc. The drive burned just 2 gb then finalized the disc. Little less than half burned. I noticed several times during the burn, the process would appear to stop (numbers not moving) then re-start.

I re-did the movie, but this time (same TY blank media, fresh from the spool) I burned using Plextor760A, this time the burn completed 4+gb in 8min. Normal for this drive.

So

So the bottleneck is your system/setup.

Do Or can I have a bottleneck for one drive and not the other, or is the NEC defective?

Two events occured to the NEC may or my not help determine if the drive is defective.

1. CompUSA installed the drive & box which contained the drive had the 80 wire ribbon cable with nec written on it still in the box. CompUSA used the 40 wire to install. I now know how easy it is to install, so never again, for CompUSA. I put the correct cable on it!

2. During a firmware update, an error occured & the drive tray would not open, dev mgr listed as a totally diff. drive. Re-flash the firmware it went to PIO, re-flash & now dma2.

Thanks
Rico

[[_chef_]]

Can you give more exact info about the firmware update?

Is the NEC connected as Secondary Slave drive? Sometimes optical drives won't work correctly when set up that way.

[Robert Simandl]

Are your hard drive and DVD-RW drive hooked up to the *same* IDE cable? If so, put your hard drive on the PRIMARY IDE cable and the DVD burner on the SECONDARY IDE cable.

[rico1]

Hi Guys,

Thanks!!!!

The NEC 3500A drive, is using firmware update 2.1A (most current) last update was 7/2005.

The HDD = primary ide cable

The Plextor 769A, firmware update 1.06 master, & NEC 3500A slave, share the secondary ide 80 wire cable.

Plextor = master
NEC = slave

Many Thanks!
Rico

[Krispy Kritter]

I suspect you are having issues with the NEC drive, it should be able to burn at the same speed in the same amount of time. The fact that it didn't even properly burn the disc, indicates there is an issue.

Try swapping the NEC and Plextor drives (make sure to change the jumpers). Then perform another test and see what happens. Also, even though dvd's are cheap, if you use an RW disc for testing, it will save you a buck or two.