Standardizing the Standards North Las Vegas NV

Posted by : Stephen J. Bigelow

Q: I've seen a lot of press talking about the new Ultra-DMA/100 standard, but now I'm seeing terms like Ultra-ATA and Ultra-DMA. Are these all the same things? If so, what's the difference between them?

A: With so many terms and acronyms in the PC industry, we sometimes get sloppy and use terms interchangeably when we probably shouldn't. Even I have done this from time to time, but maybe I can make amends here. Ultra-ATA refers to the latest implementation of the ATA-5 standard that provides for larger, faster hard drives and ATAPI devices (i.e. CD-ROM drives). Unfortunately, "the industry" also uses the terms Ultra-DMA or Ultra-DMA/100, which also relates to the drives, but refers more to the extended data-transfer rate supported by Ultra-ATA (specifically multiword DMA data transfers at up to 100Mbps). In practice, all three terms refer to the same class of hard drives and controllers.

Q: My monitor becomes really fuzzy about once a week. It started to happen when I got my new Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 video card and new Asus P/I-P55T2P4 motherboard. The monitor is a Viewsonic 6E. Do you have any solutions or suggestions?

A: This is a tough symptom to call because "really fuzzy" can be interpreted a lot of different ways. I doubt that it's your Viewsonic monitor because the problem didn't start until after you upgraded the video board. It sounds like you're suffering an intermittent condition that is probably related to the ...

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