OK, this is a long story, so please bear with me as I really need some advice/help. I recently purchased a used Dell Dimension L700CXE from a seller on eBay. My plan was to find an inexpensive, but better than a Pentium II, system to give to my sister and her family who need a new system but cannot afford, nor need, a very powerful system right now. The purchase itself was an ordeal, but I will spare you those details. The system has a Celeron 700 processor, and uses the CA810E motherboard. It appears that the system originally shipped with a Maxtor 20 GB HD, but currently has a Western Digital 13.6 GB EIDE (model WD136BA) HD installed.
When I received the system, it had what I was told was a fresh install of Win2000. However, very soon after I went online, I was bombarded with spyware. Obviously it was not a fresh install. As a result of the spyware issue, I ran into trouble while installing the Win2000 updates. I feared that my only option was to wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall the OS. Since I was not sent any installation CD’s (as seems to be the norm with systems purchased via eBay), I was forced to revert back to Win98. I happened to have an unused copy of this OS that I had purchased for an old system that was no longer in service.
Not being comfortable with breaking down the Win2000 NTFS partitions on the hard drive to install Win98 using FAT32, I chose to take the system to a local shop. They found the drivers for the hardware online (or let Windows detect and install native drivers) and everything seemed to be OK. I was able to go online and update Windows completely (though this time Win98). I decided to go to PC Pitstop.com and run an exam to see if there were any apparent problems that I should know about. Most of the issues were minor – settings and the like – but one jumped out as being peculiar. The report said that the hard drive had unusually slow access speeds (5 MB/s). One of the suggested solutions was to make sure DMA is enabled on all drives.
After verifying that DMA mode was not enabled on my drive, I found it odd that this option was not enabled by default, which made me wonder why. I did a little research, but got into issues that were over my head. From what I could gather, the DMA mode has to be supported by the motherboard and that the correct EIDE controller drivers must be installed. I physically checked the motherboard and found a chip labeled 82801AA, which is listed in the device manager as the Intel 82801AA Bus Master IDE Controller, so I assume that the proper controller drivers are indeed installed.
I went ahead and checked the DMA box on the hard drive properties window, and Windows warned me that “Changing this setting may have undesirable effects. Contact your hardware vendor to ensure that the setting is supported.” I clicked OK, restarted, and it SEEMS to work fine in DMA mode, but I don’t want to run into trouble down the road. I reran the PCPitstop scan and this time had access speeds of 22MB/s - a little more normal. How do I find out for sure that DMA is supported by my hardware? Does the cable have anything to do with it?
One thing to note is that it appears that generic drivers were used for the hard drive. It is listed in the Device Manager as “GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47.” Could this be why DMA was not turned on by default?
On a similar note, should I enable DMA mode on the CD-ROM drive as well?
I like to consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about computers, but this stuff is beyond my realm. Can someone PLEASE offer me some insight on this issue? All I want is a simple, smooth running system with no expected problems that I can give to someone with limited computer knowledge.
