Nice time machine 😊

I've ran into the same issue as you. Some hard drives and combinations of SATA drives and SATA to IDE adapters simply don't let you enable DMA. You could try the unofficial Service Pack 3, it has an option to enable DMA mode for IDE drives, but I doubt it will make a difference.

What SATA to IDE adapter do you use?

To notice the benefit of SSD, that computer is really a bit too slow. Even on a 1 GHz Pentium III, a fast platter drive feels no different. But with SSD prices coming down, I can see more and more people using SSD in retro machines.

I think Phil actually mentions in one of his videos that some IDE to SATA convertors are better with DMA mode then others:

https://youtu.be/Edmg43t28jg?t=11m50s

I don't have any personal experience.

Thanks 😊

The converter i used is a "house branded" one from Conrad.
https://www.conrad.nl/nl/sata-naar-ide-harde- … ter-974497.html

I will try the servicepack option and report back

I'm wondering what chip is on that converter. The main one that I use is this model:

I'm not sure what chip it is, but I have another model with a different chip and it doesn't work as well.

Servicepack tested...... no luck 😢

My IDE SATA adapter has a marvell chip on it
88SA8052-NNC2

Smid1980 wrote:

... Spoiler: a SSD does not give you the performance you might expect. Sure it is a bit snappier but no way near as big of a boost i expected ...

SSDs just blow spinners out of the water, specially on 4K and access time.

Nice... i guess DMA mode is working there...
But a bit faster cpu me thinks.... 😀

TELVM wrote:

SSDs just blow spinners out of the water, specially on 4K and access time. […]
Show full quote

Smid1980 wrote:

... Spoiler: a SSD does not give you the performance you might expect. Sure it is a bit snappier but no way near as big of a boost i expected ...

SSDs just blow spinners out of the water, specially on 4K and access time.

Is that Windows XP on a 440BX system?

I find modern SATA drives to work very well in faster Pentium III machines with SATA to IDE adapter. Here a 1.4 GHz system:

philscomputerlab wrote:

Is that Windows XP on a 440BX system?

Yep, Corsair F40 SATA2 SSD connected to a Promise PCI RAID controller card, Tekram P6BX-A 440BX board with a Tualatin 1400S running on modded slocket. Benchmarks were run on XP SP3.

Very nice. Never tried running XP to do some benchmarking on a Pentium III. It would allow me to use a lot more / better benchmarks like the one you're using.

The onboard IDE of 440BX/440LX should be limited to UDMA33. I suppose a separate PCI controller is a good idea when using an SSD, in which case you could as well use a SATA controller.

Could the OP's SSD be improperly aligned for use with a vintage OS, thus hurting performance?

Smid1980 wrote:

I installed the intel 440 drivers but this made no difference.

If I'm not mistaken, what you need is the Intel Application Accelerator, which is a separate download from the chipset drivers. You'll also need an 80-conductor IDE cable.

well the 440BX is ATA33 no 80pin cable needed, you need an ATA 100/133 controller ideally, for your system they should preform pretty much the same as your CPU wont keep up

Intel 440 chipsets only need drivers for Windows 95. Actually Windows 95B/C might not even need them...

I would buy another SATA / IDE adapter. Try one with a JMicron chip. These things are cheap on ebay. I have a couple of different types that work quite well with an OCZ Vertex 2 across all chipsets I've tried including 440BX.

A SATA PCI card is an option too but they tend to be troublesome as well.

The alignment challenge is easily solved by using a SATA/USB dongle on a modern PC to partition the drive. Handy for loading files onto it too.

id still advise getting an ATA100/133 controller card they arn't expensive

candle_86 wrote:

id still advise getting an ATA100/133 controller card they arn't expensive

Yeah. However the reason I bought the SATA/IDE adapters is because PCI SATA/IDE cards have caused me so much trouble over the years. I've used several Promise cards and also a Silicon Image board. You tend to just get more stability by using the onboard IDE. UDMA33 is certainly a bottleneck but it really doesn't matter that much in practice.

Well the one I got was a Maxtor ATA100 card with a promise controller, its been rock solid stable in my K6-3, also tested it with a modern system my now dead FX-6300 and it was again rock solid stable.

candle_86 wrote:

Well the one I got was a Maxtor ATA100 card with a promise controller, its been rock solid stable in my K6-3, also tested it with a modern system my now dead FX-6300 and it was again rock solid stable.

Sure. But some motherboards are less accommodating of PCI cards. Especially once you get a setup like PCI IDE, PCI audio and PCI NIC going and they are sharing resources with each other or with onboard hardware...

That Maxtor card is a Promise Ultra 100. Just go do some searching on conflicts, bsod, freeze and such on that one. It's not that this card is specifically troublesome. These problems are typical of most PCI IDE cards.