Help with HD performance

My hard drive burst speed/transfer rate is less than half what it should be and I cannot figure out why. My system basics are summarized below, along with a list of the things I have already checked/done, all to no avail.

MB: MSI K8T Neo
Athlon 64 3200
I gig RAM
HDs: (both the same, with the same problem): Maxtor SL040J2 (DiamondMax Plus D740X--40 gb, 7200, 2 mb cache...)
OS: Win XP Pro

--bios settings seem fine, boot up reports both at UDMA mode 6
--Windows hardware manager reports controller at "DMA if available" and using mode 5 (no matter what I do, I cannot get it to go to mode 6)
--have uninstalled/reinstalled the IDE controller several times, no help
--drives are installed with CS jumper settings
--acoustic management off
--write verify off
--spyware check done
--spybot check done
--Maxtor drive diagnostics (quick test) say all is well...

Any ideas??

JP

 

this is very common and probably not a 'problem.' However, i've seen that assigning drives Master and Slave as opposed to CS helps a little bit.

also, if the drive is sharing a ribbon (there is a slave device on the same ribbon), then you're going to loose speed as well.

Manufacturers may post theoretical speeds, but good luck getting close to them

 

Thanks for the reply. As with many people, I just want the maximum I can get. To be truthful, my main interest in pursuing this focuses on game loading times (i.e. Halflife 2). Otherwise, in more practical matters, it does not cause me great grief.

JP