I just added a new Ricoh 7060 CD-RW drive to my Dell Dimension system
(P2-400, 96 M RAM, Win98). To accommodate the drive, I had to make some
rearrangements to my existing EIDE devices and controllers. I have my
new CD-RW and old CD-ROM drives on my secondary EIDE channel as master
and slave respectively. I had to move my internal Zip100 drive to my
primary channel as a slave to the HDD (Maxtor Diamond Max 12.9 G) in
order to accommodate. To do so, I had to move my HDD to another bay so
it would be in closer proximity to the Zip drive or they could not share
the same cable. Dell always configures the jumpers on drives to be
'cable select' but I have changed my jumpers to be masters or slaves, as
appropriate.

Once all was installed, my system seems to recognize all the drives
(i.e. they are all listed accurately in my Device Driver dialogue under
System properties). Each seems to work OK etc.

That's the background. Now for the problem.

Since I have made these changes to my system, the whole system seems to
be slowed down noticeably. I notice a prolonged boot up compared to what
it was prior to the adjustments. Program load times are noticeably
longer (maybe 20-30%?). The real big mystery is that my hard drive
activity light seems to come on and stay on at times when there is no
audible indication of any drive activity. Of course, normally when the
HDD light comes on, you can HEAR the drive working. I realize the
absence of any sound does not absolutely mean that the HDD isn't
working, but that is almost the way it seems, sometimes for 10-20
seconds or more at a time. It's as if the drive light has come on, but
the drive has gone to sleep! When it "wakes up" activity resumes! I may
be just getting paranoid, but I certainly do not recall seeing this
mysterious activity before I made the changes listed above.

Is there some other setting that I have neglected on the primary IDE
(HDD and Zip?). Is there some change I need to make in the Setup? Can
anyone offer an explanation as to how I can get my system performance
back to normal?

Many thanks in advance

Michael

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Michael A. Wosnick,
Richmond Hill, Ontario
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