I'm having problems with my Pioneer drive. Every so often it comes out of DMA mode for no apparent reason which causes massive problems(100% core 1 usage). I have to reset the drive to DMA mode everytime I need to us it for something.
My laptop becomes completely unusable, DVD videos become unwatchable and dragging files from DVD-R's can take an age (100MB file takes 10mins to copy to the HDD).
Quote:...it comes out of DMA mode for no apparent reason...
Following is from Microsoft web site.
Quote:Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more than six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.
In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.
Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).
If the mini-IDE driver for the device does not support stepping down transfer modes, or if the device is running UDMA mode 0, Windows XP will step down to PIO mode after encountering six or more CRC errors. In this case, a system reboot should restore the original DMA mode settings.
All CRC and timeout errors are logged in the system event log. These types of errors could be caused by improper mounting or improper cabling (for example, 40-pin instead of 80-pin cable). Or such errors could indicate imminent hardware failure, for example, in a hard drive or chipset.
So you can check your system log to see what type of errors your system is having. Basically your drive is having hard time reading/writing. As my understanding, those error could be caused by unclean lens or damaged media. So cleaning your drive?s lens might help. Also check the media before putting in your drive. Dusting the drive with compressed (canned) air might help too. Other than that, there is not much you can do. You need to look for a new drive.
