[Cialug] OT: DVD drive problem

[Tim Wilson]

On 9/11/07, Justin Richeson <jrnosee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Someone can tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read/heard/whatever
> something once upon a time that disks on the same drive chain either
> operated on DMA OR PIO but both drives on the chain had to do the same mode.


I heard something similar to that too, but I think it is only if the two
devices are active at the same time, i.e., copying a file between 2 hard
drives, or from a CD to a hard drive, etc.

If this is the case and your HD and DVD are on the same chain (assuming the
> manufacturer was stupid enough to do this and you're still using PATA drives
> in the laptop) the DVD operating in PIO could be slowing down your system,
> otherwise I wouldn't think a slow DVD would be causing the entire system to
> run sluggishly.


Actually, the hard drive is SATA, so the DVD drive is on the primary IDE
controller, with nothing as the slave.  So that shouldn't be the problem.

The article I posted yesterday had a couple of ideas including uninstalling
the drive and reinstalling.  Device manager now reports it as using a DMA
mode (I don't remember which one, I was just happy to see it say DMA).
However, the machine is still very sluggish when doing anything with the DVD
drive.  So more tests will be required tonight to see what's going on.


On 9/10/07, kristau <kristau at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/10/07, Josh More <morej at alliancetechnologies.net> wrote:
> > > Doing an audio CD isn't a good test, as a failing drive would produce
> > > exactly the same result as a corrupt codecs, regardless of what OS
> > > you're using.
> >
> > Agreed.  Either the tech is utterly stupid or blowing smoke.
> >
> > > Go ahead and run Knoppix on it, both Knoppix CD and Knoppix DVD.
> >
> > When you get to the Knoppix 'boot:' prompt, type 'testcd' and hit
> > enter.  If the drive is bad, the CD test will fail.  Of course, you
> > will need to do the same test on a "known good" drive with the same CD
> > first to make sure the disc is good. . .
> >
> > I've used that method twice to test failing optical drives.  Both
> > times Dell Warranty Support accepted that as a valid test, replacing
> > the faulty drives with no further questions.  But GeekSquad is a far
> > cry from Dell support, unfortunately.
> >
> > --
> > Tired programmer
> > Coding late into the night
> > The core dump follows
> >
> > My GNUPG public key is available at
> > http://www.kristau.net/public_key.asc
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
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-- 
Tim
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