cdrecord -version will tell you what the version is.
To see whether you are running with DMA use hdparm. hdparm --help will give you most of the options that hdparm can do for you.
To check speficially for DMA do this:
Code:
kim2p3lin:/home/kim # hdparm /dev/hdb
where /dev/hdb should be changed appropriately on your system, e.g., /dev/hda for your hdd, and /dev/hdb for your DVD-R drive
This will produce output similar to the following:
Code:
/dev/hdb:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 1024 (on)
geometry = 65535/16/63, sectors = 117231408, start = 0
kim2p3lin:/home/kim #
The setting you are looking for us
using_dma
If using_dma=0, then it is using PIO and data I/O is hogging the CPU. If using_dma=1, then DMA is enabled for that device. It should be enabled for both devices, but ideally in either case you want to put the DVD-R drive on its own controller.
To change the dma flag do this:
(again, replacing /dev/hda with whatever is appropriate)
Code:
host:#hdparm /dev/hda -d
From the hdparm man page:
Code:
-d Disable/enable the "using_dma" flag for this drive.
This option now works with most combinations of
drives and PCI interfaces which support DMA and
which are known to the IDE driver. It is also a
good idea to use the appropriate -X option in com_
bination with -d1 to ensure that the drive itself
is programmed for the correct DMA mode, although
most BIOSs should do this for you at boot time.
Using DMA nearly always gives the best performance,
with fast I/O throughput and low CPU usage. But
there are at least a few configurations of chipsets
and drives for which DMA does not make much of a
difference, or may even slow things down (on really
messed up hardware!). Your mileage may vary.
