Here's the scoop: DMA is "direct memory access" (sometimes also called "bus mastering") is a way a part of your computer to bypass the CPU and take a short cut through the system. This can significantly speed operations.

In Windows, you can see your drives' current DMA settings by right-clicking on My Computer, then Properties, then Device Manager. Next, click on Disk Drives, then on your hard drive(s)--- you may see a nonspecific name such as "Generic IDE Disk Type 01"--- then on Properties, and then click on the Settings Tab. See if the DMA box is checked.

Next, follow the same steps for the CDROM(s) listed in your Device Manager.

Even if you have a system of reasonably recent vintage, there's an excellent chance you'll see an *UN*checked DMA option in the dialog box in one or both places. That's because non-DMA drive operations avoid possible compatibility issues. By choosing slower, more-conservative settings, system vendors can save themselves some support calls.

Sorting out whether or not to use DMA on a specific system isn't hard, but it takes a little explaining, so in order not to rush through the topic, I've made it the focus of this week's column at WinMag.Com. Because of the US national holiday Monday, the column will go live Tuesday, January 16th.

With a full column's worth of space to deal with, we can treat the subject right: I've already done the homework for you, and will show you the relevant portions of the Microsoft KnowledgeBase, and bring you to the DMA-specific portions of the web sites of some large drive manufacturers. Then, we'll step through the process of enabling--- and testing!--- DMA access on your system.

If done carefully and right, enabling DMA access can result in a huge payoff on almost all systems. For example, if you have an older, slower system, DMA's ability to let parts of your system bypass the CPU may make things considerably faster.

But even the newest, fastest system can benefit. For example, on my newest system, a 1.2GHz Athlon box with 256MB of RAM and an Ultra-ATA hard drive, manually enabling DMA speeded my hard drive read operations by almost 10MB/sec, and speeded writes by 13MB/sec.

And all for free!

For further information drop by the WinMag area http://www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/2001/02.htm.

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