Re: Can 3 burners be installed on P5LD2 Deluxe Mobo

"Jackpine" <no@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Iu54g.162267$117.12235@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If your motherboard has two IDE connectors then you can have up to
four IDE devices, including up to four DVD/CDs. If it has only one,
as some current boards do because of the trend towards SATA, you can
buy a PCI IDE card to increase the number of IDE connectors.

My mobo has one PRI_IDE connector, one PRI_EIDE connector, and one
SEC_EIDE connector. From what you say above, I will need to install
a PCI IDE card. What are the two EIDE connectors for?

It sounds like you have an older motherboard. EIDE stands for Enhanced IDE.
It supports ATA-2 and ATAPI. Use EIDE in preference to IDE. (Current
motherboards support Ultra-ATA, aka Ultra-DMA, which is an extention of
ATA-2 and ATA-3). Being ATAPI devices, I doubt your DVD/CDs would work on
40-pin IDE anyway (but if they do performance will be woeful). So from this
point on I'm forgetting your IDE connector even exists.

The two EIDE connectors (or ports) will handle two devices each, exactly as
I described earlier for IDE. Only faster.

Each IDE channel supports two devices, a master and a slave. If
possible use two masters so that the devices use separate channels,
whereas a
master/slave arrangement will involve competition for the channel
and that can be bad for DVD/CD burning.

With what I have now, I will install 2 burners, connected to the
single PRI_IDE connector that is on the board. It is not clear to me
from what you say above. Should they both be set to Master?

Connect one to EIDE1 (Primary EIDE) as the master and the other to EIDE2
(Secondary EDIE) as the master. That way they will use different channels
and not compete for bandwidth.

If I install a PCI IDE card and install a third burner, I will then
have two burners on one IDE channel, and one burner on a second IDE
channel. What will the master/slave settings be in that case?

The first device on EIDE1 will be the master and the second the slave. The
device on EIDE2 should be the master. BTW, what sort of hard disk do you
have? How is it connected?

I have purchased the following:

Lite-On 52x32x52x16x CDRW + DVD Combo Drive

Lite-On 16x Double Layer DVD+/-RW Drive

If a go the 3 burner route, I will purchase another Lite-ON DVD+/-RW
Drive.

Can you give me any guidance regarding my questions about which device
is Master and Slave for 2 burner installation (DVD and CD on one
cable), and for 3 burner installation (DVD and CD on one cable, and
another DVD on a second cable)?

Bandwidth for burning matters more than bandwidth for reading. IOW, if
you're reading a DVD at 16 times and that slows down a bit for some reason
it's not a disaster. If you're burning at maximum speed and there's
bandwidth contention then that can be bad, buffer under-run protection
notwithstanding.

Therefore I would put one DVD RW as the Primary master, the CD/DVD as
Primary slave, and the second DVD RW as the Secondary Master. By keeping
the burners on separate channels you could theoretically burn two disks at
once, or copy a disc from the DVD/CD on the Primary channel to the DVD RW on
the Secondary channel. You would NOT try to copy a disk from the Primary
slave to the Primary master as there would definitely be bandwidth
contention since they're sharing the same channel.

If you're using Ultra-ATA cables as I described earlier then you would need
to put the drives in a specific order in the front bays. Typically you
would put the Primary master in the top slot (black connector), the Primary
slave immediately underneath (grey connector), and the Secondary master
immediately underneath that (black connector). If you try other
arrangements you may not have enough slack in the ribbon cables to connect
the devices.

Remember to check in Device Manager that your EIDE controllers are using DMA
and not PIO as the transfer mode.



.

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