"Johan A.van Zanten" writes:
- I've talked to a few friends who work with modern "PCish" hardware more
- than i, and i'm almost certain it's the cables which are garden-variety
- 40-pin, not the fancier 80-wire types meant for the newer, faster DMA
- drives.  I'll try some betetr cables.

	Won't help, as the onboard IDE Controoller isn't able to
do more than PIO/ATA4.  

	The reason you see the "degrade" is the driver tries
what the drives claim they can do, but the controller chip
fails..(or thats what I think happens..)

	In any event, "it's normal".

	Oh, and becareful with any drive requiring more than
LBA32 addressing.. The controller chip doesn't seem to be able
to handle that either..

--
Eric Schnoebelen		eric@cirr.com		http://www.cirr.com
    Glossary:  compu-dinosaur: N, A computer guru stuck in time. (is
    happy with a TeleVideo terminal and a modem).  Most probably the
	      guy you learned everything you know from.