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**Fat Tone** · 8 January 2002, 05:02

Not sure about the numbers, but I found that a new install of XP was extremely fragmented extremely quickly. Defragging helped loads. Also, it seems to like RAM a lot more than older OSs,so I upped it to 512.

HTH

Tony.

**The PIT** · 8 January 2002, 05:23

Via chipsets aren't the best and can be darn awkward. You try Georges patches form viahardware.com. To be honest I wouldn't recommend using via ide drivers under xp or win2k. They tend to cause more problems than the inbuilt ones. Georges patches have fixed for ide performance for some users.

**rubank** · 8 January 2002, 06:15

PeTe,

if I was you I´d put the secondary HD as slave on the primary channel and the DVD as slave on the second. That might help.
You should also check in device manager that DMA in fact is enabled.

(I take for granted that you´re using the right cables and that you have the approriate mode set in BIOS).

rubank

**PeTe** · 8 January 2002, 06:31

PIT: Georges patches ? Couldnt find any patch that would talk about IDE/HD problems just some 4-way memory tweak and SB live! patch fixing corruption on files ( did you mean this page: http://www.viahardware.com/download/viatweak.shtm ).

Tony: Sure i try to defrag as often as possible, but dont know why, XP doesnt really do a good job defraging a big HD, just moves couple files around and compresses the hd. ( And running defrag is pain in the ass with the performance im getting now ).

I know that KT133/VIA sucks in IDE performance but this... AARGH.

Making me crazy when running game like RTCW ~60-70 fps and then HD starts to cry for help... 10 fps.

Rubank: Hmm.. putting the both HDs to the same channel would HELP ? Wouldnt that just make things worse when copying files from disk to the another ?

At this point im ready to try anything. Only thing that is making me pretty happy is when i tried running 3Dmark, got 7209 points with this system so while i have some issues with HDs some parts work OK. =)

PeTe

**Kosh Naranek** · 8 January 2002, 07:08

If you run with a HD+CD combo on each channel the CD wil slow down the HD !!

Have you tried disabling system restore on drives/partitions other than your boot drive ? ( This can be done on each drive individually in XP )

Are you using NTFS or FAT32 ?

**Fat Tone** · 8 January 2002, 07:14

Kosh - that depends on the mode the device will work in. You don't want to mix PIO & UDMA, but if they are both UDMA it should be ok

**Gurm** · 8 January 2002, 07:37

Actually, the CD-ROMs CAN slow down the hard drives, because whenever the channel is pinged, the cd-rom takes longer to respond, regardless of its maximum transfer rate.

As for George's patches, YES the 4-way memory interleaver can help (if your motherboard supports it) but we mostly mean the PCI Latency Patch (which began life as the SB Live! fix), now on version 0.19 - find out more at Via Hardware in their tweak area and in their forums.

Last but not least, many people suggest manually changing the driver for your VIA IDE controller to "Standard PCI IDE Controller" in device manager - that it REALLY ups your hard drive scores and transfer rates.

- Gurm

**PeTe** · 8 January 2002, 08:39

DOH, forgot to say that using NTFS. =)

Because of my previous setup, the change to 1:HD+HD and 2:CDRW+DVD took about 5 seconds. Havent run any tests yet, but lets see how it goes.

Yep, got that Latency patch allready installed.

PeTe

**rubank** · 8 January 2002, 08:41

PeTe,

having two HD:s on the same channel is always the preferred way to go (unless, of course, you have only 2 HD:s and nothing else).

Even if you can get the speed of your HD:s to increase some, that won´t make much difference to the slowdown in your gameplay, if it has to do with the HD working!

Running XP you could certainly use more RAM (give it another 256 mb stick), and you should be looking into your settings for swapfile and cache.

rubank

P.S. By the way, according to Sandra the drive index for a generic UDMA33 5400rpm 10Gb HD is 8000, so maybe you shouldn´t expect much more than you´ve got. D.S.

**Jammrock** · 8 January 2002, 08:55

Defragmenting works wonders in XP. I recommend Norton Utilities 2002, or the Speed Disk 2002 stand alone. It works wonders for your transfer speeds. Also make sure DMA mode is enabled on your controllers (in 2k/XP DMA is enabled at the controller level, not the disk level in device mangler).

Jammrock

**The PIT** · 8 January 2002, 11:34

Sorry I didn't spot that the cdrom drives were on the same channels as the hard disks. (Being at work you have to read quickly when you're supposed to be working) Yes this can well slow down things.
However some CD drives and DVD drives don't work well on the secondary channel but this maybe more to do with the 686b and if you description is 686a.
If you have problems with dropped frames and stuttering after placing the cd's on the secondary channel go into the bios and select the auto detect to none. Windoze will still detect the devices and this should cure any stuttering and dma selection. Well it did for me.

**xortam** · 8 January 2002, 12:29

Reading stuff like this makes me wonder if I'll ever try IDE. Too bad the manufacturers are turning away from commercial SCSI devices.

**rubank** · 8 January 2002, 15:10

OK xortam,

I get the message.
Every piece of SCSI equipment always works perfectly, and configuration has never been a problem to anyone.

Could you possibly persuade the SCSI TA to write an OS?

rubank

**xortam** · 8 January 2002, 16:01

Well I don't get your message. What do you mean by "TA" and what does this have to do with developing OSes? Neither of these technologies is foolproof but IDE is decidedly less flexible than SCSI.

My comment refers to this ... I'm considering purchasing a new PC platform this year (second half). I've always used SCSI devices on my Mac and PCs at home. The performance/price of IDE solutions has come way up in the last few years and SCSI devices are becoming harder to find. I would consider using IDE in the new system (despite being unable to use my current collection of devices) but its inflexibility still concerns me. I enjoy being able to continue to use my SCSI devices among disparate systems as well as placing devices in an external box that can very easily be swapped between systems or turned off to save on heat, energy, and wear. I keep reading about IDE users having to make performance decisions and sacrifices as far as how they connect their devices and not being able to support enough devices. I won't need to make a decision on the new system for some time but these kind of threads aren't helping sell me on switching to IDE.

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Poor HD performance with WinXP ?

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