By necessity, your computer comes supplied to you with its manufacturers settings and this is set to generic. In other words, its unlikely to be exactly suited to your habits and requirements. So, as when you get in a car, you have to spend a bit of time fiddling with the seat adjustment, the rear view mirror and the heater controls. And in the course of a day, you’ll be constantly changing this, changing that, to match the car with your unique needs.

So, view your computer in the same way. When it arrives, it will not be set-up for you. And because a computer has to cater for all types that use it, from word processing hungry personal assistants, to high-flying businessmen and grannies, it can only offer a compromise and try to please as many people as it can.

So, tweaking is the order of the day. And you can do much to improve the performance of your computer.

Lets start by looking at DMA Mode. This stands for Direct Memory Access and it all concerns your hard disk, and writing and reading data.

Without getting bogged down in technical mumbo jumbo, a lot of computers are set to a basic mode which is known as PIO. Don’t worry, there isn’t a test later. But PIO stands for programmed input/output, this being the usual default setting of your programme following Windows installation. But, the key thing is that if you send, or retrieve data from the hard disk in PIO mode, then it makes the central processing unit (the computer’s brain) work harder. Now, okay, you might think, the CPU can handle that, who cares, but the problem is that nowadays, the CPU has to multitask. So whilst you are asking it to run Word, PowerPoint, trawl the internet and run an anti-virus software programme at the same time, you could cut it a break by giving it less work to do.

Therefore, by using DMA Mode, it’s reckoned that the CPU will have to work 15% less when writing and reading data to the hard disk, giving it a chance to make you a cup of tea whilst juggling six balls at the same time.

What being in DMA mode actually means is that the disk controller is allowed to speak to the computer’s memory without having to check with the CPU before. This is why the DMA is also know as bus mastering, because you are changing the settings of the computer’s bus and tweaking it to your needs.

But, as with all these techniques, please be comfortable with what you are attempting to do. If you are nervous, or fearful that your computer will crash for some reason, ask someone else to have a go for you.

Also, you will have to change the settings for each device that will be affected by the DMA changes. So, most computers have one hard disk and one CD drive. Bear in mind that not all devices will work in DMA mode, so be careful.

If you make the changes suggested, and something goes wrong, start your computer in safe mode and undo all the steps you did in the first place.

Right, lets have a go at enabling the DMA mode in the Windows XP operating system.

Click start, Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance and the System icon. Then click Hardware, Device Manager and by clicking on the + symbol next to IDE ATA/ATAPI controller, opening up the small menu. Look for Primary IDE Channel in the menu and double click. Look for Advanced Settings tab and click. You then see a box with two further boxes inside, Device 0 and Device 1. Check that for both devices, the Transfer Mode is set to DMA if available. Then click OK.

Do exactly the same with the Secondary IDE Channel.

And there you are, you will have either enabled DMA mode, or confirmed that DMA is actually enabled. Job done.

Discovering DMA Mode in Windows – Recap

• computers come with generic settings;
• operate in Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode;
• DMA mode means less work for processor;
• remember to change settings for all channels.