XP PIO Mode

[Captain Spaulding]

Hi,

Looked at an XP desktop today that was running really slow, did all the usual checks, AV, Processes etc... Nothing came up then I found an article about PIO mode. Not heard of this before but when I checked with the customer sure enough the Primary IDE Channel Properties showed:

Device 0
DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not applicable

Device 1
DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: PIO Mode

From what I've read that would explain the poor performance, I've left the machine running a hard drive test to check for bad sectors but assuming it comes back clean I would need to get the Channel back to Ultra DMA?

I've found various methods that claim to fix this:

Registry Change - http://techlogon.com/2011/03/28/how-to-fix-hard-drive-stuck-in-pio-mode/
MS Hotfix and registry change - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/en-us
A few articles recommend uninstalling the IDE Channel in device manager (although 1 person said the PC would not boot fully following this)
And another recommends checking the BIOS

Just wondering if anyone has come across this problem and what they did to fix it before I start trying some of the above.

Thanks.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

D7 fixes this. You might give Nick a PM to find out the specifics.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

D7 fixes this. You might give Nick a PM to find out the specifics.

Thanks! Why didn't I put my USB stick in to start with? I use D7 a lot but forgot this time:

PIO Mode check - If D7 suspects a device is in PIO mode that should be in DMA, clicking this item will apply a fix for the issue which requires a restart of Windows. Sometimes the alert is false, as D7 cannot differentiate between MWDMA2 and PIO mode, however applying the fix regardless has no adverse effects. See this option on the Repair tab for more details on the actual repair being performed.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

Often PIO mode is caused by damaged Hardware. I had a pc that would not get out of PIO mode. I tired replacing the HDD, replacing the IDE cable, and even putting in a HDD and doing a fresh install. The item at fault was the IDE controller on the motherboard. Long and short of it, do some HDD tests to make sure you really got it and it is not going to go back to PIO mode.

 

[DanB]

PIO mode

I have found this when a computer has had a hard shutdown. I simply uninstall the IDE device and reboot. When add new hardware come up it usually re-installs correctly.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

going into pio mode is very common and should be one of the first things you check when checking for slow performance. personally I do a just a quick read speed benchmark instead get an idea of what im working with and as an added perk I also catch dma/pio issues like that.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

Thanaks for the replies, I used D7 and it switched back to DMA fine, it's been OK since then so hopefully just a one off.