K7S5A Pro BIOS settings

"Cuzman" <cuzNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@supanet.com> wrote in message news:bvji57

 > " Is there a tutorial somewhere about how to optimize this board's BIOS
 > settings? I was surprised to see PCE IDE Busmaster turned off in the BIOS
 > even when I chose optimum settings. "
 >
 >
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://tinyurl.com/h0pr</font" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/h0pr</font</a>>

Thanks - that's quite a "FAQ." The best part is that I appeared to have
made the proper choices about many things just by dumb luck! I also
printed out all the great pinout diagrams to paste on the inside of the
case.

Also, there was a direct answer to my busmaster question:

PCI IDE Busmaster

When using DOS, enabling this setting under certain conditions can
improve IDE performance by allowing the hard drive to use
DMA transfers instead of the default PIO transfers which is
signifigantly slower. However, modern operating systems such
as Windows 95 and above include their own set of bus mastering
drivers which can do DMA transfers so this feature's benefits become
null.

If they had indicated Enable PCI *DOS* Busmaster I would figured it out on
my own!

One thing that puzzles me is:

Offboard PCI IDE Card (PCI/PnP Setup)

Tells the BIOS that the motherboard should use the PCI IDE
controller in the specified PCI slot.

Does setting this mean that you have disabled the on-board IDE controller?
I have a Promise 133 card in the machine which appears to run fine without
changing this setting.

Thanks again,

Eric<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

 >
 >Also, there was a direct answer to my busmaster question:
 >
 > PCI IDE Busmaster
 >
 > When using DOS, enabling this setting under certain conditions can
 > improve IDE performance by allowing the hard drive to use
 > DMA transfers instead of the default PIO transfers which is
 > signifigantly slower. However, modern operating systems such
 > as Windows 95 and above include their own set of bus mastering
 > drivers which can do DMA transfers so this feature's benefits become
 > null.
 >

i'm using the Honey-X bios ... I found enabling this made a very
noticable increase in HD speed. Running Win98SE.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

"JeB" <no.TakeThisOut@spam.org> wrote in message
news:cfnq10debj8mlrcni1vukjkcp4caltd4h6@4ax.com...
  > >
  > >Also, there was a direct answer to my busmaster question:
  > >
  > > PCI IDE Busmaster
  > >
  > > When using DOS, enabling this setting under certain conditions can
  > > improve IDE performance by allowing the hard drive to use
  > > DMA transfers instead of the default PIO transfers which is
  > > signifigantly slower. However, modern operating systems such
  > > as Windows 95 and above include their own set of bus mastering
  > > drivers which can do DMA transfers so this feature's benefits become
  > > null.
  > >
 >
 > i'm using the Honey-X bios ... I found enabling this made a very
 > noticable increase in HD speed. Running Win98SE.

So much for the documentation. I wonder if that's a feature of the Honey-X
that's not present in the stock BIOS. What sort of testing program or
metric did you use to determine the speed increase?

Eric
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

  >> i'm using the Honey-X bios ... I found enabling this made a very
  >> noticable increase in HD speed. Running Win98SE.
 >
 >So much for the documentation. I wonder if that's a feature of the Honey-X
 >that's not present in the stock BIOS. What sort of testing program or
 >metric did you use to determine the speed increase?
 >

AFTER noticing the obviously quicker boot times I regretted not benching
with HDTach before and after flash but wasn't willing to flash back to
the old bios to do the testing. If you can see a difference it's not a
small increase.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

"JeB" <no DeleteThis @spam.org> wrote in message
news:u2ct10d2qmvg0if0a2guavcpu76ha6vh38@4ax.com...
   > >> i'm using the Honey-X bios ... I found enabling this made a very
   > >> noticable increase in HD speed. Running Win98SE.
  > >
  > >So much for the documentation. I wonder if that's a feature of the
Honey-X
  > >that's not present in the stock BIOS. What sort of testing program or
  > >metric did you use to determine the speed increase?
  > >
 >
 > AFTER noticing the obviously quicker boot times I regretted not benching
 > with HDTach before and after flash but wasn't willing to flash back to
 > the old bios to do the testing. If you can see a difference it's not a
 > small increase.

If I get a chance I will benchmark using HDTach in the before and after
mode. I'm looking to optimize this machine to produce fast hard disk write
times of large video files so I expect to do a lot of analysis of data
throughput.

Eric<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

   >> >> i'm using the Honey-X bios ... I found enabling this made a very
   >> >> noticable increase in HD speed. Running Win98SE.
   >> >
   >> >So much for the documentation. I wonder if that's a feature of the
 >Honey-X
   >> >that's not present in the stock BIOS. What sort of testing program or
   >> >metric did you use to determine the speed increase?
   >> >
  >>
  >> AFTER noticing the obviously quicker boot times I regretted not benching
  >> with HDTach before and after flash but wasn't willing to flash back to
  >> the old bios to do the testing. If you can see a difference it's not a
  >> small increase.
 >
 >If I get a chance I will benchmark using HDTach in the before and after
 >mode. I'm looking to optimize this machine to produce fast hard disk write
 >times of large video files so I expect to do a lot of analysis of data
 >throughput.
 >

My drive is a 60G WD 7200 rpm ... as I recall thruput after the bios
upgrade was 50M/sec outer track to 25M/sec inner.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

 >
 >My drive is a 60G WD 7200 rpm ... as I recall thruput after the bios
 >upgrade was 50M/sec outer track to 25M/sec inner.

ok ... figured i could at least post accurate info for after:

Max 49.6M/sec, Min 25.6 M/sec, Avg 40.5 M/sec<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

  >>My drive is a 60G WD 7200 rpm ... as I recall thruput after the bios
  >>upgrade was 50M/sec outer track to 25M/sec inner.
 >
 >ok ... figured i could at least post accurate info for after:
 >
 >Max 49.6M/sec, Min 25.6 M/sec, Avg 40.5 M/sec

and problems I'd had burning from HD > CD at high speed (48x) went away.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

"JeB" <no.RemoveThis@spam.org> wrote in message
news:8ir020hbprd81aamloq7q3o0cmrhdoetph@4ax.com...
  > >
  > >My drive is a 60G WD 7200 rpm ... as I recall thruput after the bios
  > >upgrade was 50M/sec outer track to 25M/sec inner.
 >
 > ok ... figured i could at least post accurate info for after:
 >
 > Max 49.6M/sec, Min 25.6 M/sec, Avg 40.5 M/sec

My numbers are from Sandra. When I loaded my ancient copy of HDTach it said
it didn't work on NT but I could get a copy that woudl for $49.

Anyway, Sandra's output seems to match your conclusions:

Without IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 22.2
With IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 33.4

Now to figure out why my WD 160GB drive is half as fast as yours. What
speed's your CPU? Memory? Do you have Sandra? I'd be curious as to how
the numbers stack up.

I am going to move things around on the IDE chain - was getting really odd
messages when I put a Maxtor 30GB and a LiteOn 411 DVD rewriter on the same
cable. Nero saw no DVD drive, S.M.A.R.T said the Maxtor was failing,
another program could see the DVD burner but insisted it was empty. It's
pretty impressive how much wrong info can be generated by two dueling IDE
drives. I hope SATA really puts and end to the CS MA SL BS.

 >and problems I'd had burning from HD > CD at high speed (48x) went away.

I should have realized that I had some sort of IDE issues when this machine
with a 2400 CPU would only burn at 1X while its non-pro cousin with a 1700
CPU could almost burn at 4X (you get to watch the buffer dip down to single
digits about 50 times during a burn!)


Eric<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

 >Anyway, Sandra's output seems to match your conclusions:
 >
 >Without IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 22.2
 >With IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 33.4
 >

Ok ... so we both know IDE busmaster adds serious performance.

 >Now to figure out why my WD 160GB drive is half as fast as yours. What
 >speed's your CPU? Memory? Do you have Sandra? I'd be curious as to how
 >the numbers stack up.
 >

I've got the AMD 2000, 512M of PC133 running 133/133. I don't have
Sandra ... how big of a download? At this point I've just got the WD on
one IDE port and a CD on the other. I'm soon to add a second HD and a
DVD toaster so we'll see if I experience similar complications of more
folks sharing the ports.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

"JeB" <no DeleteThis @spam.org> wrote in message

  > >Anyway, Sandra's output seems to match your conclusions:
  > >
  > >Without IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 22.2
  > >With IDE busmaster enabled in BIOS: 33.4
  > >
 >
 > Ok ... so we both know IDE busmaster adds serious performance.

Yes - but I am having serious issues with DVD burners. The Toshiba works
fine, the Liteon 411 can't see any disks and an older Panny 311 gives
bizzare ECC errors. I don't have the same problems with a NEC 1300 DVD
burner in a K7S5A non-pro but I also have the burner connected to an add-in
Promise 133 controller, not the onboard IDE controller on the motherboard.

  > >Now to figure out why my WD 160GB drive is half as fast as yours. What
  > >speed's your CPU? Memory? Do you have Sandra? I'd be curious as to how
  > >the numbers stack up.
  > >
 >
 > I've got the AMD 2000, 512M of PC133 running 133/133. I don't have
 > Sandra ... how big of a download?

More memory but slower CPU - that doesn't compute. It might be differences
in the way that Sandra and HD Tach compute drive speed. It's a 7MB DL, but
it's worth it, IMHO. Sandra gives incredible amounts of useful info, even
in the freeware version.

 > At this point I've just got the WD on
 > one IDE port and a CD on the other. I'm soon to add a second HD and a
 > DVD toaster so we'll see if I experience similar complications of more
 > folks sharing the ports.

That should be interesting. I have been using new, rounded ATA 133 cables.
I thought that might have been the problem so I switched them out for flat
80 conductor ribbons. No effect. I am about to go back and turn the IDE
Busmaster OFF in the BIOS to see if it has any effect on the drive's ability
to see the media. This was a Circuit City rebate model, and I am beginning
to have my doubts about. The problem is that I don't have to many other
machines fast enough to even run DVD burners except the K7S5A's and two
twitchy Gigabyte boards with built-in RAID.

Eric<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

   >> >Now to figure out why my WD 160GB drive is half as fast as yours. What
   >> >speed's your CPU? Memory? Do you have Sandra? I'd be curious as to how
   >> >the numbers stack up.
   >> >

It looks like they bench close by Sandra. My "drive index" is 31.5 (and
46M/sec sequential read.) I'd guess your 160G should be somewhat faster
than the 60G as I presume the 160G platters are denser.

HDTach does a sequential read from outer to inner and reports throughput
in graph form.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings 

"JeB" <no DeleteThis @spam.org> wrote in message
news:ji76209nefeu3u188ifghs1uk5dgsenlms@4ax.com...
 >
   > >> >Now to figure out why my WD 160GB drive is half as fast as yours.
What
   > >> >speed's your CPU? Memory? Do you have Sandra? I'd be curious as to
how
   > >> >the numbers stack up.
   > >> >
 >
 > It looks like they bench close by Sandra. My "drive index" is 31.5 (and
 > 46M/sec sequential read.) I'd guess your 160G should be somewhat faster
 > than the 60G as I presume the 160G platters are denser.

Seems reasonable. Sandra's numbers have pretty closely paralleled real
world results for me, which has not been true of some other benchmarks. The
BIOS IDE tweak was enough to make a difference in the length of time it
takes to rip and burn.

 > HDTach does a sequential read from outer to inner and reports throughput
 > in graph form.

I'd guess that Sandra does sample reads at various points on the disk and
averages them. That's usually good enough for me. HDTach is clearly more
thorough.

Eric<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: K7S5A Pro BIOS settings