DMA on Hard drive [SOLVED]

[LatterDaySaint]

When I boot up & press F2 ,so I can see what is loading ,I can see a message saying "your DMA is turned off on your HardDrive Which will slow down fsck ,I think that was how fsck was spelt or something like that ,I hope someone out there knows what I mean ,As for some reason as welll Mandrake wont pick up my swap ,and I have tried reinstalling Mandrake !0.1 and reformatt partitions and swap,, I also had to mount the swap to progress through install ,but when installation is done and I look in HardDrake it says I have no Swap,could there be any suggestions out there or any one with similar experience? I would like to know where and how to turn on my DMA on HardDrive if its possible,as it seems it could improve performance as well.

[chris z]

DMA (Direct Memory Access) or UDMA (Ultra........) can be set one of 2 ways. i'd try option 1 first.

 

1.

if your board supports it, it would tell you in the BIOS. so, go into your BIOS & look around in the options for (U)DMA settings. not sure where to tell you to look exactly. probably under "performance" or something similar, but different BIOS's differ in their layouts.

 

2.

use HDPARM while booted into Linux. there's too much to explain to go into detail about HDPARM, here. try looking at This Link for a pretty good tutorial. or, open a terminal as root & type.......

 

man hdparm

 

....... to read the man page for it.

 

here's a quick how to, to see what your drive supports from a command line.........

 

open a terminal as root & type the following........

 

hdparm -i /dev/hdX

 

where X is your hard drive letter. more than likely it will be hda. you can also use........

 

hdparm -I /dev/hdX

 

for a bit more info than the -i switch will give you. in the output, look for a line referencing DMA. it will show your current settting, & the settings that your drive will support. here the output of mine, for an example...........

 

[root@default chris]# hdparm -i /dev/hda

 

/dev/hda:

 

Model=ST3160021A, FwRev=3.06, SerialNo=3JS0E6JP

Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }

RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4

BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

CurCHS=65535/1/63, CurSects=4128705, LBA=yes, LBAsects=268435455

IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}

PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4

DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2

UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5

AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled

Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2:

 

* signifies the current active mode

 

note the red lines for my DMA info. yours will look similar.

 

Chris

Edited December 6, 2004 by chris z

[AussieJohn]

If you have not been into the bios before then when you restart your computer, keep pressing the Delete key up and down until the Bios opens up for you.

Usually in the very first part of the Bios it lists the time settings and then beneath that it lists the Drives, HDDs and CDROMS . Use the Up/Down arrow keys till you get to the first Hard drive and click the Enter key, it will then have a number of choices in the UDMA part. Select LBA.

While you are in the Bios, look for the section that mentions plug and play. If it is shown as enabled then reset it to disabled. This is best for Linux because it allows Linux to read and set the hardware aspects instead of the Mainboard bios itself (I think my explanation is or nearly correct so please don't jump on me anyone. The action itself is what is important here)

When you press the F10 key you will get the choice to save changes and reboot. If there is not already a y there then change it to y and press Enter. Your machine will now reboot normally.

 

Hope this helps. John.

[LatterDaySaint]

Thanks for your support Chris ,Ill definatly look into it ,I thought it was to do with the bios. the other thing about the swap I cant work out yet ,I wrote that it was in HardDrake that It said I have no swap ,but it was actually under memory in Information in KDE,also in other places says the same,Very unusual 4 this to happen,No Worries Mate.

[AussieJohn]

If you have not been into the bios before then when you restart your computer, keep pressing the Delete key up and down until the Bios opens up for you.

Usually in the very first part of the Bios it lists the time settings and then beneath that it lists the Drives, HDDs and CDROMS . Use the Up/Down arrow keys till you get to the first Hard drive and click the Enter key, it will then have a number of choices in the UDMA part. Select LBA.

While you are in the Bios, look for the section that mentions plug and play. If it is shown as enabled then reset it to disabled. This is best for Linux because it allows Linux to read and set the hardware aspects instead of the Mainboard bios itself (I think my explanation is or nearly correct so please don't jump on me anyone. The action itself is what is important here)

When you press the F10 key you will get the choice to save changes and reboot. If there is not already a y there then change it to y and press Enter. Your machine will now reboot normally.

 

Hope this helps. John.

 

Have I got that fairly right Chris z ???

[AussieJohn]

Reference your Swap space query. When you looked in KDE Control Centre -----> Information, do you not have a large rectangle on the right side titled Swap Space ???

Also when you go to /etc/fstab, is there no entry there titled swap space ???

 

Open MCC and go to Mount Points then Partitions, in there can you see any partition shown in Lime Green colour ??? If so then to make certain it is mounted, click on it and if it says Unmount then it means it is already mounted. If it doesn't then from the menu shown which should include the option Mount then click on that option and then Done. You will get a popup window asking if it should save the changes to fstab, click yes.

 

I hope this helps you. John.

Edited December 6, 2004 by AussieJohn

[LatterDaySaint]

Thanks AussieJohn that did the trick with my swap,I was able to mount swap ,as it was unmounted,obviously its not mounting swap on boot up but that does not matter as I can now do it with acouple of clicks,in regards to the DMA in bios ill have to have another look,but I think your on the right track,Thanks

[Sarissi]

Some motherboards have a Load Optimized Defaults option in Bios. This sets both DMA and 32 bit access. Others have a specific option for 32 bit access (ASRock by Asus is one of these). Gigabyte is one of the former.

 

Not all mobos have an option to turn off Plug and Play. My Gigabyte is one these, and Linux works just fine with it on.

 

If your mobo has the Load Optimized Defaults option: After you load these, GO back to the first bios screen with the time and date, and the drive setting, and reset your hdds to LBA! Loading any defaults sets this to Auto (usually the one Linux hates).

 

IFF you installed Linux and these were set to Auto (ignore the one for the CD/DVD drive), you may have to repartition and reinstall your OS(es).

[LatterDaySaint]

I just want to finish up now by saying I sorted out all my problems with DMA & swap issues,it turns out it was all to do with untidy partitioning of all my linux systems I set up as an enthusastic inquisitive novice linux user. I set up 3 different linux distros with windows XP on 2 HDs,as I had no success changing my bios around ect,that I thought I better wipe my harddisks of everything except windows XP and started again by installing Mandrake 1st,and now its all normal again,for now anyway,as I also want to install kanotix,and either Connectiva10 again or ubuntu ,I want to knock these choices down to just 2 distros with Mandrake at No 1, Adios