Thursday, September 18, 2008

How to Check And Set DMA Mode

XP occasionally sets IDE hard drives and CD drives to the PIO transfer mode by default, which is slower than the standard DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode used by modern drives. To make sure your machine has not been slowed down, it makes sense to check your drive settings.

 

To check your drives, right-click My Computer’ and select Properties’, then ‘Hardware’ and then

Device Manager’. Expand ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’. Highlight Primary IDE channel’ and click

Properties’.

 

Go to the Advanced Settings’ tab, and ensure the transfer mode is set to ‘DMA if available’. Repeat these steps for the secondary IDE channel.


(thanks to Digit magazine for this tip)

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