32bit transfer mode ?

[Ezduzit]

Hi:

My Asus mb has a Primary & Secondary IDE setting in the BIOS for '32bit transfer mode' ... it's disabled by default. I can find little info on this setting. The mb manual offers no description, Google was no help and a Search here only mentions it once (a suggestion to prevent write errors was to disable it).

What exactly is '32bit transfer mode'? What benefits/drawbacks are there in enabling it?

Custom
XPPro/Sp1
P4 2.8Ghz / 800FSB (HT disabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe mb / Intel 875P
2 x 512MB Corsair XMS DDR400 / PC3200
1 x 80Gb Maxtor 7200rpm (Lian Lee MR-27 bay)
1 x 60Gb Maxtor 7200rpm ( " )
2 x 40Gb Maxtor 7200rpm ( " )
Asus Radeon 9600SE / 128mb DDR
LiteOn 52x24x52 CDRW
LiteOn LDW-411S 4x DVDRW
Audigy 5.1 Platinum
Altec-Lansing ACS45
300w PowerMan PSU
CyberPower 650SL UPS
Stock fans

[Ezduzit]

Never mind.

Googled my way to this:

32-Bit Transfer Mode

Enabling this setting allows for 32-bit data transfers between the processor and the PCI bus. Actual transfers to the disk are always done 16 bits at a time, but enabling this option will cause a small performance improvement on the transfer from the bus to the processor.

If your disk supports this, enable it for a performance increase. Disable it if you encounter any difficulty or if your disk doesn't support it.

... didn't help that I was searching for '32bit' instead of '32-bit'.