RE: Re.: Generic DMA

Christian Brunner (chb@muc.de)
Mon, 22 Sep 1997 17:54:50 +0200 (MET DST)


On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Vogelaar, Ronald wrote:

> > you seem to be another one that has a rather strange BIOS. (Did you
> > have a look for a DMA option in your BISO-Settings?).
>
> I don't have a DMA option in my BIOS-settings.

I feared that you would answer this. I'm astonished that the brand
computer vendors in particular have such silly BIOSes.

> > I wonder how the other OSes deal with this problem? Any hints?
>
> In OS/2 I can use the standard driver, nothing special here (PIO4)

PIO4 is not bus-mastering DMA. Although it has the same transfer speed, DMA
has the advantage of reducing the CPU load. I guess OS/2 doesn't support
it either.

> In WinNT I install a special busmasteringdriver provided by Dell
> (included as a .zip-file here for your reference)

Hmmm.... Got the source for that beast? .-) What you migth try is: Boot NT
an then do a restart and boot Linux. This might set the necessary
configuration. (only an idea)

> Windows95 also nothing special to be done.

As far as I know: You have to enable DMA under Win95 by clicking on a
DMA button somewhere hidden in the system confguration.

Ciao, Christian