A while ago (January or so) I wrote about ide-scsi using so much cpu power when writing. It was suggested that DMA wasn't enabled on the CD-RW drive. What I didn't understand was that DMA needed to be enabled for the corresponding /dev/hdx device - I didn't know you could do that. Found that out thanks to a typo, and now all is fine. I can burn at any speed, and CPU usage remain low (althoug still higher than in windows). Now my question. dmesg shows me the following: VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA hda: ST340810A, ATA DISK drive hdc: HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8161B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive hdd: HL-DT-ST GCE-8481B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive so the kernel is a ware of the DVD and CD-RW drives' DMA capabilities. Why doesn't it enable it by default? Is there a bootparameter that will tell the kernel to switch it on? This would help with installations! (see my other post) Thanks Hans == Download ringtones, logos and picture messages at Ananzi Mobile Fun. http://www.ananzi.co.za/cgi-bin/goto.pl?mobile