Enable DMA in Dell Latitude

[Alison556]

Been trying to enable DMA in my Latitude E6400 - I've done the normal things like in Device Manager and making sure it's set to DMA if available, however, it's still burning in PIO.

I remember on my desktop having the same problem and I had to change settings in the BIOS, but for the life of me, I don't know what to do with the BIOS on the Latitude - it's nothing like the BIOS on my desktop.

This is what it looks like:

Is there something on here that I need to change? If so, where? Or is there some other way of ensuring that DMA is enabled?

 

[GraemeF]

Hi Alison, are you sure it's a Latitude E6400 ? I wasn't aware they had DDR3 memory (should be DDR2 in a 6400) unless it's a brand new one. Anyway, I suspect you're looking in the wrong area for the issue you described. Get the latest systemboard drivers from the Dell support website and re-install those first and see what happens. I'd also download the latest bios and firmware for the DVD drive whilst I was on the site.

Regards Graeme

 

[Alison556]

Yeah, it's definitely an E6400 = apologies if the picture is confusing - I just used one I found on t'internet to show what the BIOS looked like cos I couldn't get a decent enough photo of my own - so it's probably not totally right.

I've downloaded every driver I can find for it from Dell but it's still not enabling DMA.

As well as the fact it's not showing properly on the device manager, I know it's burning in PIO cos I use ConvertXtoDVD and the log is saying it's burning in PIO - and it's taking bloomin ages to burn a disc (and it's not always burning them properly).

I can convert 2 hours worth of programmes in about 20 minutes but it's taking nearly 40 to burn the disc!!!!!!

It's a pain cos the laptop converts much faster than my desktop but the desktop (which is set up properly) is burning much faster.

Somebody said to uninstall the IDE controller and then let Windows reinstall it, but I'm none too sure about doing this.

Its one of these problems that's totally bugging me but I don't know how to sort it.

 

[empip]

Have you found / tried this?

DMA reverts to PIO... http://winhlp.com/node/10

-0-

 

[GraemeF]

Alison, if it's not showing properly in device manager then I strongly suspect it's a driver issue. Can you advise which O/S your running WinXP/Win7 and tell me what device manager is saying.

Graeme

 

[Alison556]

Empip, yep thanks, seen that - I tried the Quick solution but it came up saying:

No resettable ATA channels with windows drivers found. Nothing changed.



GraemeF

I'm using Windows XP Professional


Device Manager:

Primary IDE Channel

Device 0

Device type : Auto detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current transfer mode : Not applicable

Device 1

Device type : Auto detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current transfer mode : Not applicable

Secondary IDE channel

Device 0

Device type : Auto detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current transfer mode : Not applicable

Device 1

Device type : Auto detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current transfer mode : Not applicable


Don't know if this image is any use either:

[/img]

 

[Monkeh]

You can't enable DMA on that because it's impossible for it to be disabled. SATA devices do not operate in PIO mode.

 

[Alison556]

So why is it taking so long to burn and showing that it's burning in PIO mode?

 

[Monkeh]

I would guess at whatever software you're using for burning being broken.