Starting with SP3, the DMACheck utility lets you view the Direct Memory Access (DMA) usage on your computer. For each IDE/ATAPI channel detected, it lists:
- Current DMA Usage. There are 3 possible values:
DMA In Use indicates that DMA transfers are being used on this channel.
DMA Not In Use indicates 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 is none or you have
insufficient registry permissions.
- DMA Detection Status indicates wether the ATAPI driver will attempt to detect DMA support. This is indicated by radio buttons. To change the detection status, click the preferred setting and it is saved when you exit DMACheck.
The utility is on the SP3 CD in the Support\Utils folder.
See How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services. The file name is
DMAchcki.exe (x86) or DMAchcka.exe (Alpha).
