i have downloaded a program that tells you all sorts of stuff about your system it caled SISOFTWARESANDY and it says i need to change some settings on my ata thingys but i tried to do it via device Manager but couldnt. it says 1.3100.SMART not enabled,consider able for saftey 2.3101.power management enabled,consider disableing on desktops 3.3103.accoustic management enabled,performance may be inpared. 4.3104.current mode not optimal,check settings. so how can i change these settings?? cheers
1. Smart is somewhat useless lol 2. Screw power management. 3. BLAH 4. Do this: To Check for DMA: (1) Control Panel, (2) System, (3) Goto the Hardware Tab, (4) Device Manager, (5) IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, (6) Right Click on Primary IDE Channel --> Properties, (7) Goto the Advanced Settings Tab, Make sure both drop down boxes say 'DMA if Available', Click OK, (8) Right Click on Seconady IDE Channel --> Properties, (9) Goto the Advanced Settings Tab, Make sure both drop down boxes say 'DMA if Available', Click OK, (10) Reboot.
Some additions to what Praetor allready said. SMART-feature is enabled either via BIOS (debends on BIOS software) or with hd manufacturers management tools (look out HD manufacturers support/download section). Acoustic management is done with management tools atleast. So, both feats are not doable via device manager. Shortly, what S.M.A.R.T stands for (rip off follows): S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. S.M.A.R.T. is an industry standard for monitoring and reporting fault conditions in a peripheral storage device, whether from damage or normal wear-and-tear. S.M.A.R.T. is intended to decrease the chance of data loss by giving adequate warning to these conditions, but it is no replacement for good disaster-recovery planning. Heavy emphahis on last sentence. Boils down to this: if disabled, you gain a little HD performance wise. You wont get early warnings about hd going fubar. Acoustic management, same applies, if disabled, you gain some performance boost HD read / write speed wise, HD being bit more noisier. Program example from IBM/Hitachi site: Feature Tool (v1.90) The Feature Tool allows you to control some of the features of our Deskstar and Travelstar high performance ATA hard disk drives and supports 48-bit addressing, so it will work with the new large capacity drives. This version adds support for our latest drives. The Feature Tool allows you to: Enable or disable the read-ahead or write cache. Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the: Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode). Change the predefined capacity of the drive. This option can be used in situations where there is a BIOS limitation and the drive is not recognized. See the Users Guide for specific details. Switch the Ultra DMA mode (replaces the IBMATASW utility) Change Advanced Power Mode - allows you to change between the lowest power consumption and the highest power consumption (maximum performance level). Show Drive Temperature - shows the current drive temperature in Celsius and Farenheit. Hope this brings some light considering what SisoftSandra suggested.