in the device manager settings ive clicked on enable DMA but its not on, in the current transfer box it says "PIO mode" and i DMA isnt enabled, how come??
im using a LITEON LTD 163D with windows XP if this helps?

It depend on how XP sees your motherboard chipsets, also it will try to 'read' how and what your drive is capable or not and open up the option when found.

Do you have a VIA chipset ?

http://blackmaxpc.com/Guides/DMA.htm

Originally posted by MrMP
http://blackmaxpc.com/Guides/DMA.htm
Good link m8, thanks.

I bet Duffy is right that it's a Via chipset too. I have had this problem on my dual boot of W2K & XP, strange thing was that it only did this on XP too. :confused:

whats a VIA chipset ??

Its for an AMD chip

Lazza,
The reason why its a XP 'only' problem is because the earlier VIA 4-in-1 drivers does not install correctly under XP, you need to right-click on the installation file, choose to install under Windows 2000 compatibility mode before all 3 options will appear, I think they have fixed the problem now since.

HTH

VIA don't just make chipsets for AMD boards.

VIA manufacture chipsets for motherboards.

from www.microsoft.com/hwdev/devdes/idedma.htm

Enabling IDE DMA on Windows-based Systems
Many people are familiar with the gains to be had from using IDE hard drives and CD-ROM drives in DMA mode; a typical machine today will use 40% of the CPU doing hard drive transfers in PIO mode and use only 25% of the CPU doing hard drive transfers in DMA mode, on the same hardware.

If it is known that there is DMA-capable IDE hardware in the system, an easy way to make sure the machine is set up to use DMA is to add two lines to the Mshdc.inf file using the OPK tools available to OEMs. The Mshdc.inf file must be changed before the system is set up (really before the IDE devices are enumerated and installed). If the system is already set up, Mshdc.inf can be modified and all IDE devices manually removed from Device Manager, and then re-detected and enumerated and installed, which will set them up in DMA mode.

In the Mshdc.inf file, add to the [ESDI_AddReg] section the two bold-faced lines shown in the following example. The first 3 lines (not bold) should already appear in the file.

[ESDI_AddReg]
HKR,,DriverDesc,,"ESDI Port Driver"
HKR,,DevLoader,,*IOS
HKR,,PortDriver,,ESDI_506.pdr
HKR,,IDEDMADrive0,3,01
HKR,,IDEDMADrive1,3,01

To check that DMA has been set up correctly, go to Device Manager and view devices by type. Click Disk Drives, select the disk drive in question, click Properties, and then click the Settings tab. In the Options section, there should be a DMA check box, and it should be checked if DMA is being used.

Originally posted by celtic_druid
VIA don't just make chipsets for AMD boards.

VIA manufacture chipsets for motherboards.

My bad....... Sorry for any confusion

ive tryed look at the Mshdc.inf file and the [ESDI_AddReg] isnt there :(

What motherboard do you have ?

ive got 2 cdroms on one IDE port and ive just swaped them round ( master to slave ) and them tryed to select enable DMA and it worked ! strange? hopefully it will stay enabled , thanks for all he help guys :) and mods :):)

make it is enabled in ur bios first

I know how to fix this.
If WinXP gets to many read errors (over time) from a drive, it will throttle back DMA in an attempt to correct itself.
Go into device manager and remove the IDE channels.
Yes, remove them.
Then restart Windows.
Windows will detect new hardware, and reinstall the drivers to the optimal mode the drive can use.