Article ID: 191774
Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
This article was previously published under Q191774
SUMMARY
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 includes a utility called DMACheck (Dmacheck.exe) that lets you view the (Direct Memory Access) DMA usage on your computer.
MORE INFORMATION
The following information is listed for each IDE/ATAPI Channel detected:
Current DMA Usage
This value indicates whether DMA is currently being used for each channel. There are 3 possible values:
- DMA In Use indicates that DMA transfers are being used on this channel.
- DMA Not In Use indicates that DMA transfers are not being used on this channel and that the IDE/ATAPI driver is defaulting to Programmed I/O (PIO) transfer methods.
- No IDE/ATAPI Devices Detected indicates that the utility could not read the status of that channel from the registry, either because there was no IDE/ATAPI device present or because the current user has insufficient privileges to access the registry. These settings cannot be changed and are dependent on the DMA support provided by your hardware and the value of the DMA detection settings.
DMA Detection Status
This setting indicates whether the ATAPI driver will attempt to detect and use DMA support on a given channel.
If DMA detection is disabled on a channel, the ATAPI driver defaults to PIO transfers on that channel. If DMA detection is enabled on a channel, the ATAPI driver queries the hardware for DMA support and if it is detected uses DMA for data transfers.
If the hardware does not correctly support DMA transfers, PIO is used even if DMA detection is enabled.
When the utility initially starts, radio buttons indicate the current settings for each channel. To change the detection status, click the preferred setting and it is saved when you exit DMACheck.
How to Obtain DMACheck
You can obtain DMACheck from the following folders on the Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 compact disc:
- Support\Utils\i386
- Support\Utils\Alpha
For additional information about how to obtain the latest Service Pack, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
152734 How To Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack
The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Alpha: ![[GRAPHIC: Download]](/wiki/index.php?title=File:Download.gif){kind=small}
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For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services
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