Can ATA100 run on pc66 motherboard at 100mbps?

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winglesslight

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Feb 10, 2001
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Hi,
I have Dell Dimension XPS D300 (P II)
on Intel's 440LX chipset on PC66 motherboard.
If I get ATA100 hard disk with ATA100 Controller Adapter, will the hard disk run at 100MBPS on my motherboard and chipset?

Thanks

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by winglesslight on 03/09/01 09:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Your controller must be an ATA100 contoller. You might want to note that the difference between ATA66 and ATA100 is not very big anyway.

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>
 
as the matter of fact, there is none at all, hehehe

"akuna mutata" braza... :wink:
 
Hmm, to answer - yes an no.

Yes, your config will work, but I doubt your going to see 100MBs transfer rates.

I seem to recall that a single disc will only sustain around 30-35MBs (a head limitation) so unless you have multiple devices on 1 channel - I'd expect to see less than 30MBs sustained transfers.

For a single disc on a single channel, take 66 or 100 I doubt your system will notice the difference.

Pete.

-Your Comany Names Could Be Here-
e-mail for application details.
 
To help with all those bad or incomplete responses-NO, it will run at UDMA33, that is the limit of the on-chip controller. But it will still work at UDMA 33. PC66 refers to the memory speed, not the hard drive controller. And even UDMA 100 drives do not operate much faster than 33MB/s, except in cache burst, so you won't be loosing much.
And IDE can only operate one device per channel at a time (for two devices it switches back and forth).

Suicide is painless...........
 
Are you saying that ATA100 controller Adapter won't much improve HD speed? I've read many reviews on cnet.com that says it's like getting new pc because os and appz loads in seconds which used to take minutes
 
I'm sorry, I missed the "with controller" part on your original message. With the controller, you can get ata100 speed, but only in burst from the cache on the drive, which is why so many of these come with a large 2MB cache RAM. But the full time tranfer rate of most of theses drives is between 31 and 34 MBs. So the DRIVE will improve your performance substantially, even on your existing controller, but the ATA100 interface only offers marginal gains with the newer drive-it is the access time improvement of the drive that helps the most, and the fact that most older drives ran at 16MBs while the newer ones are at up to 38. So your 33MB/s onboard controller is adequate.
The only exception where you may see substantial gains by adding the interface with the drive is in programs like benchmarks, that make significant use of the drive cache by accessing small files from the drive repeatedly (some games are probably like this too). Byut for the majority of aplications, the drive itself is the key, reguardless of the controller.

Suicide is painless...........
 
I think also the ATA controllers handle DMA transfers much better than that old southbridge on that LX chipset beyond just giving you ATA66/100 capability. I don't have anything to back that up, it's just my opinion.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 
But it is ATA33, correct? I seem to remember my wife's old computer had used the early UDMA driver. I have never had a performance issue with any ATA33 or higher Intel controller.

Suicide is painless...........
 
yes the LX southbridge is capable of UDMA 33 transfers and it certainly works. I was just stating an observed opinion that I think the newer ATA 66/100 controllers connected to the PCI bus handle DMA transfers better (which is the only job of that controller unlike the southbridge chip) juxtaposed to the older southbridges (even compared to those found on the BX) that go through the ISA bus along with any other overhead created.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 
Since I got the second hard disk and connected it as slave drive, this happened frequently. When I change an application or a program from one to another or change directories in windows explorer, I hear some spinning sound starting from pc box and my screen freezes for 5-30seconds. I have very strongly suspected this as hard disk issue. I guess it's the switching back and forth of 2 drive in one channel.
If I get ATA100 controller adapter and connect each HD as master drive, will this improve the freezing delay significantly?
Thank you for your reply.
 
no not on the atypical northbridge/southbridge architecture.. it's still 16bit addressing. Even though I believe some of the newer chipsets can group two together to make is appear as a 32bit access.. it's still 16bit addressing.

But that's still doesn't take away from the fact the LX does work, and it doesn't prove anything I've said, which as I said what I've experienced is opinion.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 
I bought promise ultra 100 controller PCI card and moved my primary partition hard disk to the controller and left slave drive on the on-board IDE controller. It didn't work. I tried every way I can think of. The only way making it work is primary partition hard disk to promise primary IDE channel as master drive and logical partition hard disk to promise secondary IDE channel as slave drive.
So if I have primary partition hard disk connected to promise card, I can't use on-board IDE controller?
Do you mean the IDE cable by hard disk channel?
Regardless of how to connect there should be only 1 master drive? For example, I shouldn't set logical partition hard disk as master drive on anther IDE controller?
Thank you very much for your help.
 
I think that some BIOS will recognise a add on card as a SCSI controller, while others an add-on IDE controller. This being the case, you have to set your bios to boot from that controller (SCSI or add-in card) in order to boot from your add-in card while keeping your onboard card active.
As far as the Master/slave issue, every channel gets one. Some drives have to be set to "single" if a slave is not present on that channel. Also, make sure you load the drivers for your add-in controller in Windows, as I have seen the second channel not working without them.

Suicide is painless...........
 
Hi, does channel mean the IDE cable? The number of IDE cable = the number of channel?
I just want to make sure that I know right because of my strange case. I have promise Ultra 100 controller card and it has 2 IDE port so you can connect 4 Hard disks. I connected primary partition disk as master to one IDE port and logical partition disk as master to another IDE port but it doesn't see 2ndary HD.
I set 2ndary HD as slave still connected to the separate IDE cable and port then it sees 2ndary HD.
 
Some drives have 3 settings-master, slave, or single. Especialy true of Western Digital. If you have only one drive on that CABLE, set it as single. If it is the master and you have a second drive on that cable, set it as master.

Suicide is painless...........
 
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