So you bought a new hard drive?

If you bought a new hard drive to match your new motherboard, or if you bought a new motherboard to match that fancy new UDMA133 hard drive you've had for a while ... are you getting the most out of it?

I was wondering that today as I was trying to resolve an issue that I've had for a couple of days after replacing my motherboard. Here's the scoop: I had just replaced my motherboard and Windows XP recognized all of the new components on the mobo. After a quick reboot so that XP was started fresh with all of the new drivers, I noticed that my mouse cursor was laggy and if I was watching a video or something, it was pausing for a split second every two seconds or so. Initially I thought it was a conflict between cards in the system (I only have a network card and video card) so I moved the network card to a new PCI slot. No change.

I was reading somewhere that it might be due to conflicting priorities between my anti-virus software and my network card. It was recommended to reinstall the anti-virus so that it could insert itself freshly into the system. No change.

So I decided to run the full system test from the guys over at PC PitStop to see if anything turned up. Oddly enough, my hard drive performance was terrible! Uncached speed was 3 mb/s!

So I started to look into the problem on the Microsoft website and found out that on the advanced tab of the Primary IDE controller, even though it was trying to use DMA if possible, it was running in PIO Only. Incredibly, I wasn't using any of the new controller specs at all and was relying on transfer speeds that may date back 12 years. Based on the suggestion of others on the net, I tried to change the setting. That didn't work, XP had flagged the controller as being able to run only in PIO mode. It's a possibility that 6 or more CRC errors were found while running in DMA mode, and Windows started to downgrade the UDMA Mode(s).

So, the suggestion was to remove the controller and let Windows reinstall the driver. I did that and after two reboots I was back up and running. I checked the properties again and I was running in UDMA Mode 2. The mouse was smooth on the screen too, and my system was A LOT faster to boot. But, now my question was: How do I get my IDE transfer speed up from 33 MB/s to 133 MB/s???

The search took me to pcguide.com which pointed to the culprit: 40-wire IDE cables that I've been using for 10 years. They are only capable of 33 mb/s! To achieve higher speeds, engineers added a grounding wire between each wire so that the signals could be more reliable with less interference. These cables were optional in UDMA modes 0, 1 and 2, which is why I've been stuck at mode 2. So, I bought some new cables and an eager to try them out.

I would suggest that if you are running a computer built in the last 5 years that you seriously look into whether or not you are running with 80 wire IDE cables. If not, check to see what your hardware is capable of and check to see if your IDE Controllers are running at their max. I bet that they aren't and you could use a $10 upgrade to 80-wire IDE cables! How many times have you been sitting there waiting for your hard drives to catch up? Well, not anymore!

Time to pull apart the box and get up to speed (so to say).

NHL 2005-06 ... It's already getting old

You know what? I'm a fan of implementing rules to make a game better. So far, each NHL game is much more dynamic than the game that we saw two years ago. Now, even a two goal lead doesn't mean much anymore. Games are higher scoring, penalties are up, and there are more power plays. The shootout gives fans an ending to every game and there's not as much icing of the puck anymore (when you ice the puck, you can't change lines, so you don't get a break anyway).

Does this mean that the games are better though? In my opinion no. Sure, the league is "cracking" down on all of the hooking, interference and holding. But for the last couple of weeks I have seen more penalties called when there was no infraction than I've seen legit calls! The players are crashing the net and effectively blocking out the goalies, or taking them out of the play for rebounders. As soon as any defender touches the jersey of an opponent above the waist it's called as a hook, and I even saw the other night a Leaf defender dive to swat at a puck near the blue line and the ref called a penalty on the closest standing Islander. It's crazy.

Now, this begs the question: Are the refs at fault for calling bad calls because they've got a quota to meet, or has the league actually changed the rules so that if a guy loses his balance around you, YOU get a penalty? I just wonder when the fans are going to start to get annoyed at all of the crease violations that result in goals or injuries to their goalies. I wonder how many games are going to be decided by bad calls? When will the fans wake up and see not a better game, but a game that is decided by what the referee is imagining?

I hope it's soon, I'm getting tired of watching the crap on the ice.