SATA Registering as Ultra DMA Mode 5

Question

Hi,

I'm hoping there is an easy answer to this. I have a dimension 5150, with the 0wg261 motherboard, intel 945G chipset, BIOS version A02, and 160gb sata150 seagate HD. To the best of my knowledge, I have installed all pertinent drivers, and I am using the onboard SATA controller - However in the device manager, my primary IDE properties are showing as Ultra DMA mode 5 -- Which as I understand it is the equivilent to ata-100, far below SATA150 1.5Gbs speed. I understand the onboard SATA supports SATA150, but I don't think I'm there. I also think I've set all nessessary BIOS settings correctly..

Any thoughts??

EMT64 · Answer

Your HD is working as SATA-150. There is no problem.   The chipset 945G handles the S-ATA controller as P-ATA/100 because the AHCI (hot plugging) and RAID (mirror) are disabled and your HD doesn't support NCQ (native command queue).

NemesisDB · Answer

safe to assume that the board does not support AHCI? I've never seen a way to turn it on on my e510

PepperOne · Answer

I noticed that the BIOS version you have is A02 and the latest is A06. Try updating the BIOS.

epayrie · Answer

Thanks everybody. So, if I understand correctly, regardless of what my device manager says, I am running at SATA150 speed? If not, can you recommend a method to achieve the speed I need? I don't think it makes much difference, but I am running XP Pro SP2

shesagordie · Answer

epayrie wrote:   'Thanks everybody. So, if I understand correctly, regardless of what my device manager says, I am running at SATA150 speed? If not, can you recommend a method to achieve the speed I need? I don't think it makes much difference, but I am running XP Pro SP2'   If the SATA 150 is 7200 rpm, this will limit the drive to a practical maximum speed, in the 60-65 MBps range. Bev.           Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

NemesisDB · Answer

of course with those new vista-ready drives that will come out soon that have the large flash cache/stick built into them -- i wonder how much that will change. not saying flash media can saturate 1.5 yet, but I bet it will soon.

shesagordie · Answer

Guess we will have to wait and see what happens, but the RPM's of the drive, I think will always be the factor.

Bev.

Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

NemesisDB · Answer

yeah, you're probably right. Seems most of the 'readydrive' talk right now is aimed at letting laptop drives idle more and saving power. That and allowing more instant hibernation/standby. Looks like seagate and samsung both have notebook protypes out with 128mb flash integrated.

Storage, Drives & Media

SATA Registering as Ultra DMA Mode 5

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