PC slows to crawl when installing off CD/DVD

[nikez2k4]

I am having really big problems with my PC lately and I was wondering if someone here could help me.

I have an Abit AB9 motherboard with an E6400 dual core processor and 2GB RAM. I am running Windows XP MCE and am experiencing the following problem:

Everytime I try and install software off a CD/DVD my pc slows to a crawl and my mose becomes very sluggish. I have opened Task Manager and it is showing the 1st core at 100% usage and core 2 at 10% ish. The installating seems to take about 4 times as long as it should and I have no idea what the problem is.

Last time I had XP MCE on I had the same problem but managed to solve it by installing the Abit uguru utility. I looked in Device Manager and it installed something called "uguru Micro-Processor" under "System devices". This seemed to solve the problem.

However I have just reinstalled MCE and am having the same problem even after installing the uguru application. I have installed numerous versions - including the latest and still I am experiencing a very slow pc while installing off a CD/DVD.

Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong or some things I could try to solve this problem? Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,
MOZ

[dave87]

In device manager, go to the controller responsible for the channel the CD/DVD drive is on, and check that its not running in PIO Mode. That may be the source of the problem..

[Stephen B]

I'm no expert but as I had a lot of bother loading via ide with my Quad GT, my money is on the jmicron driver if you too are using an ide optical drive

can't you borrow/invest in a sata dvd drive to see if it makes any difference ?

IIRC, Buff swears by em

[nikez2k4]

I have checked all the IDE channels and they are all set to DMA if available.

I have a 160GB Samsung SATA hard drive by the way - the only IDE device installed is the Sony DVD drive (DRU-810A).

Looking at the activity lights the DVD is constantly flashing and the HDD light is on very low...like it is constantly accessing the HDD but very quickly or something...you can't hear any clicking like it is reading/writing something.

I have also checked the Processes tab in Task Manager and it seem strange...Even though core 1 of the CPU is at 100% the only thing that comes close in the Processes tab is System Idle Process at about 95%....

Doesn't seem to add up when you look at the CPU graph...

MOZ

[BUFF]

it does sound like JMicron/PIO troubles (either that or some Virus/malware?).
Have you loaded the JMicron driver?

& yes, £20 for a SATA DVD-R/RW to be free of the JMicron ...

[BUFF]

.

[Richh]

It shouldn't be necessary to spend any money to get this working.

Nikez: Nobody seems to have asked you which BIOS revision you're running at the moment, which is it?

If it's any earlier than 15, there is a known issue with parallel ATAPI optical drives and DMA mode. In this case, download and update to the 16 BIOS available via the AB9 download page at abit.com.tw.

Once you've flashed, clear the CMOS and when you're in the BIOS resetting it to how it should be, check the Integrated Peripherals/Onboard PCI Devices section of the BIOS, and see if the JMB363 controller has a mode selection available. If it does, set it as IDE.

Then download the JMicron driver from here, extract it and run the setup program. When the setup asks you whether you want to install in RAID or IDE mode, choose RAID.

Restart the PC and check the DVD/CD section of Device Manager. Your DRU-810A should now be categorised as an "SCSI Cdrom Device". Check it's right by utilising the drive - more software installation, playing a DVD, or, even better, burning one - while keeping an eye on your CPU utilisation.

[nikez2k4]

Wow....thanks guys. You seemed to have cracked it.

I installed the JMicron drivers and suddenly all is well with the world! I just installed FEAR in under 5 minutes which is nice! Seems to have sorted the problem!

So does anyone know why this mobo needs an extra driver installing just to get faster speeds through IDE?? Seems a bit stupid to me?

Thanks again for your help though - really appreciate it!

MOZ

[Stephen B]

Wow....thanks guys. You seemed to have cracked it.

I installed the JMicron drivers and suddenly all is well with the world! I just installed FEAR in under 5 minutes which is nice! Seems to have sorted the problem!

So does anyone know why this mobo needs an extra driver installing just to get faster speeds through IDE?? Seems a bit stupid to me?

Thanks again for your help though - really appreciate it!

MOZ

without wishing to sound rude, all the answers are in this very forum if you do a quick search, both Richh and Buff assited me with a similar problem, hence why I didn't go into more detail in my earlier post.

[nikez2k4]

To be fair I did do a search but I couldn't find an answer...I didn't really know what I was looking for an had no idea what to search for.

Sorry for asking the same question anyways.

Thanks again,
MOZ

[Richh]

So does anyone know why this mobo needs an extra driver installing just to get faster speeds through IDE??

It's not just this board. The same issue applies to the majority of 965 based designs.

Seems a bit stupid to me?

It's just a reflection of the physical design of the motherboard.

The reason why you need an additional driver is because the chipset that provides parallel ATA support on this board, the JMB363, is not natively supported by Windows. As such it's no different from many other add-in controllers- to get it to work properly, you need to install an additional driver. The only difference is that the chipset offers basic functionality under DOS and with the default XP "Standard IDE" driver - which you need to get the OS installed in the first place.

The thing you could argue that *is* stupid, is the reason why these boards need an add-in chipset to do parallel ATA in the first place. Intel decided to remove this from the ICH8x southbridges at a time when there were hardly any SATA optical drives available. In hindsight, and given the fact that many motherboard manufacturers have had issues integrating the JMB363 into their products, that seems a little premature.

[horrgakx]

I have the ABIT IX48-GT3 motherboard and this happens - I'll try the suggestion about the driver. Thanks

PS - Dave87 - Richard Dawkins - makes perfect sense, loved his God Delusion.

[horrgakx]

Ok, I've installed the driver fine, the PC restarted. It doesn't seem any quicker - almost as if the DVD drive is taking "stabs" at writing to the disc. It took 1h10m to write a DVD

I also tried looking for PIO mode but I couldn't find that anywhere in the Device Manager properties for either of the IDE optical drives I have installed.

[horrgakx]

Another update! (sorry!!).

I was writing a DVD as I typed the above message but about 15 seconds after hitting the post button, and 2 minutes into writing the DVD, the PC blue-screened.

I thought I'd try the JMicron RAID configure program (Start > Programs...) but I get a window popping up saying "JMB36X Device is not found".

Any ideas?

[pumpman]

Ok, I've installed the driver fine, the PC restarted. It doesn't seem any quicker - almost as if the DVD drive is taking "stabs" at writing to the disc. It took 1h10m to write a DVD

I also tried looking for PIO mode but I couldn't find that anywhere in the Device Manager properties for either of the IDE optical drives I have installed.

click on ide /ata controller in device manager thats where youll find wether your drive is in PIO mode or not