High CPU usage on 2nd hard drive

big_gie

big_gie

1
Hi,

I have a Dell 4550 (Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, 512 Ram, 60 Gig HD...) and i connected my Western Digital 40Gig HD (W400BB) to it.

I've put the jumpers for both HD on "cable select". The first extremity of the IDE cable is on the 60HD, and the midle connection is for the 40HD.

Now, when I acess my 60HD, everything is fine.

But when I access the 40HD, the cpu rises to 100% usage... By accessing I mean putting a iso there, mouting this iso to a virtual cd drive and ripping/encoding some mp3 using Exact Audio Copy/Lame v3.93.1 or burning this iso with Alcohol 120%.

I can barely use my computer when doing a job like those one.

Is there something wrong? Or is it always like this using a 2nd hard drive? If not, how can I configure my computer so it my cpu does not rise to 100% usage?

tanx
 
Duracell

Duracell

1
What OS?
Is UDMA enabled for you 2nd HDD?


big_gie said:
Hi,
But when I access the 40HD, the cpu rises to 100% usage... By accessing I mean putting a iso there, mouting this iso to a virtual cd drive and ripping/encoding some mp3 using Exact Audio Copy/Lame v3.93.1 or burning this iso with Alcohol 120%.
Click to expand...
100 % CPU usage is normal during MP3 encoding;


Greetings from
Duracell
 
big_gie

big_gie

1
Duracell said:
What OS?
Click to expand...
Windows XP Home English

Duracell said:
Is UDMA enabled for you 2nd HDD?
Click to expand...
What is UDMA? :(

Duracell said:
100 % CPU usage is normal during MP3 encoding;
Click to expand...
Yeah I know :p The computer is slow to respond not when encoding, but when ripping from a virtual cd (with the iso on the 2nd HD).
Burning an iso situated on the 2nd HD with ALcohol indicates 100% of CPU usage, while the same iso, burned from the first HD, requires only 2% of cpu (shown by Alcohol). Alcohol can't go higher than 8x burning with an 2nd HD iso while it goes to 32x with a 1st HD's iso...

It seems that its really the access to the drive that makes the CPU goes high...

Tanx for the fast response
 
ipdave

ipdave

1
Cable select does not always work well. I would put the first drive on Master and the second as Slave since they are both on the same IDE hard drive channel.
 
big_gie

big_gie

1
I checked my bios, and UDMA seemed enable.

I changed the settings for master/slave instead of cable select.

Will see if it works...
 
B

bionic

1
Current Active Mode : MWDMA-2

Current Active Mode : MWDMA-2
This means the slave disk does not have udma enabled but multiword DMA.
If you take a look here You will see that this is the lowest available transfer mode.

Two things come to mind:

1: The WD400BB is not correctly configured at hardware level. This can be be fixed using wds udma management tool
http://support.wdc.com/download/
I think this probably is the solution since the disk is in mwdma and not pio-mode.

2: The disk is not configured for udma in windows.
To find out wether it is or not.
Go to controllpanel\system and find the Device Manager.
look for the ide ata\atapi-controllers. The one you are looking for is the primary ide channel.
Go to advanced and you should see unit0 and unit1 (i think, im translating ;))
What does unit 1 say? only pio-mode?

which os are you on? Its different on win98\me but same on xp.
:)
 
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big_gie

big_gie

1
bionic said:
BB is not correctly configured at hardware level. This can be be fixed using wds udma management tool
http://support.wdc.com/download/
I think this probably is the solution since the disk is in mwdma and not pio-mode.
Click to expand...
Do you mean the:
Ultra ATA Manager
dlgudma.zip
June, 2003
(158 KB)
file? ("This utility is used to enable or disable the Ultra ATA 33/66/100 capability on Western Digital EIDE drives that support this feature.")
I went back to my house so I wont be able to test this tonight, maybe tomorow. I think this sould work, since Sandra told it was something else than UDMA... I'll check your second option too:


bionic said:
2: The disk is not configured for udma in windows.
To find out wether it is or not.
Go to controllpanel\system and find the Device Manager.
look for the ide ata\atapi-controllers. The one you are looking for is the primary ide channel.
Go to advanced and you should see unit0 and unit1 (i think, im translating ;))
What does unit 1 say? only pio-mode?
Click to expand...
Since my litle sister log-on on the computer, I cannont VNC it from here (crappy switch-user...) Does anyone knows how to log off a user remotly?? from a telnet session for example.? tanx :)

bionic said:
which os are you on? Its different on win98\me but same on xp.
:)
Click to expand...
I'm using Windows XP Home English SP1 (Dell OEM)

Tnax for the really fast response!
 
B

bionic

1
NP! m8:)
Yes i mean the Ultra ATA Manager (dlgudma.zip etc)
Strange though how the disk is configured to mwdma.
:)
 
L

LTR12101B

1
The mode for the other drive is low as well (UDMA-2) - If I'm not mistaken, that's Ultra/33, so either that machine doesn't support higher, or if it does, you don't have the required 80 wire cable.
 
big_gie

big_gie

1
Ok,
down to business.

I'm back to the concerned computer so I'm testing your ideas guys. Tanx for the fast reponse, patience and sorry for the delay!

In the BIOS Setup, the settings was:
Primary Drive 0....................Hard Drive
Primary Drive 1....................Off

and I changed it to:
Primary Drive 0....................Hard Drive
Primary Drive 1....................Auto (Not know disk)

and booted up.

When accessing the device manager under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers", in properties of the "Primary IDE Channel", "Advanced settings", "Current transfer rate" is Ultra DMA Mode 5.
Wouhou!!!! :)

I ripped a Iso from a cd to the second HD and CPU usage (told buy Alcohol) was ~10% (10% with opera and many others runnig...)

In the Second IDE channel (CD-RW master and DVD slave), it tells me "Ultra DMA Mode 2".
Is it possible to have mode 5 for CD-RW and DVD?

Tanx guys for everything :)
 
B

bionic

1
Not surprising that drive caused trouble then.
Glad you got it sorted m8 :)
To my knowledge CD-RW and DVD dont go any higher than that.
:)
 
C

cobo

1
I have a DIM4550-2.66Ghz-BIOS Version A05. It wasn't configured for the highest UDMA when I got it from Dell (it was at mode 2 - I forget if this was PIO or UDMA). To get it in UDMA Mode 5, I had to set the 'IDE Hard Drive Acoustic Mode' in the BIOS to 'Performance' (I think it was set to 'quiet' originally) and then select the UDMA mode in Device Manager.

'Hard Drive Acoustic Mode' help in BIOS:
"This field will set the hard drives' acoustic mode.
When set to Bypass, the system will not test or change the mode.
When set to Quiet, the drive will operate in it's quietest setting.
When set to Suggested, the drive will operate in the manufacturer's suggested acoustic level between Quiet and Performance modes.
When set to Performance, the drive will operate normally.
(Any setting other than Performance may cause a loss in performance.)"

To get to the UDMA setting in XP Home:
Start->Control Panel->Performance and Maintenance->System->Hardware (tab)->Device Manager (button)->IDE ATA/ATAPI Contollers->Primary IDE Channel->Advanced Settings (tab)
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode:Ultra DMA Mode 5
 
B

bionic

1
Acoustic Management Enabled : Yes

big_gie
Taking a second look at your master disk i see that you do have acoustic management enabled (its probably enabled on the second one too as it usually is by default)
If these settings are not available in your bios try ibm featuretool (as with my seagate disks) you can probably use this tool to totally disable the acustic management.
http://www.hgst.com/downloads/
look for Feature Tool (v1.80)
:)
 
big_gie

big_gie

1
bionic said:
big_gie
Taking a second look at your master disk i see that you do have acoustic management enabled (its probably enabled on the second one too as it usually is by default)
If these settings are not available in your bios try ibm featuretool (as with my seagate disks) you can probably use this tool to totally disable the acustic management.
http://www.hgst.com/downloads/
look for Feature Tool (v1.80)
:)
Click to expand...
Tanx!

I disabled acoustic (set it to "Perfomance")

Seems ok.

Tanx guys!
 
L

LTR12101B

1
For some drives, you can have acoustic management OFF, or PERFORMANCE - in performance it will probably tell you it's still enabled, but for some drives, performance is faster than OFF.

I've not seen any optical drives using anything higher than Ultra/33 (UDMA 2) - even allowing for 2 drives sharing, and raw mode transfer, that works out to 90x speed

PS. That link is 403 (forbidden) - this looks ok
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#Installation
 
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B

bionic

1
For some drives, you can have acoustic management OFF, or PERFORMANCE - in performance it will probably tell you it's still enabled, but for some drives, performance is faster than OFF
Click to expand...
Do you know it this applies to the barracuda 4 and 5s?
Soz about the link it was ok when i tested it.
:)

Edit: just checked and i get better performance with am disabled :)
 
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