Microsoft KB Archive/308541

= Description of Ultra DMA =

Article ID: 308541

Article Last Modified on 8/9/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
 * Microsoft Windows XP Professional

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This article was previously published under Q308541



If this article does not describe your hardware-related issue, please see the following Microsoft Web site to view more articles about hardware:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/w98?sid=460



SUMMARY
This article describes Ultra DMA (Direct Memory Access).



MORE INFORMATION
Ultra DMA (also known as Ultra DMA/33 or ATA/33) is an extension of the ATA hard disk interface that theoretically allows burst data transfer rates of 33.3 megabytes (MB) per second. This is double the ATA-2/ATA-3 standard of 16.6 MB per second. Using Ultra DMA can result in a 40 percent increase in performance over the ATA-2/ATA-3 standard. The performance improvement is a result of the improved data rate of the drive itself.

System Requirements

 * A motherboard that has a chip set that supports Ultra DMA.
 * An Ultra DMA-compliant hard disk and controller.
 * An Ultra DMA device driver.
 * An Ultra DMA-compliant Basic Input/Output System (BIOS).

Using Ultra DMA
To use an Ultra DMA device, verify that your computer supports Ultra DMA, and then follow the manufacturer's instruction to install the Ultra DMA-based device.

To determine if your computer supports Ultra DMA-based devices, refer to the documentation included with your device, or contact the manufacturer of the Ultra DMA device.

Additional query words: HWSYSDMA udma

Keywords: kbfaq kbhardware kbinfo KB308541

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