Some good news. I chose the easy option first, running the VB script to reset the registry values. It appears to have had a MAJOR impact on the disk behavior. Before, prior to running the script, you barely hear the disk drive mechanical activity -- very quiet, nothing like under OS X, where it really "rattles". Well now under XP you can also really hear it, and the speeds of various programs have jumped. I am running a defragment with a utility program under XP as I type here (another computer) and it is really running well.
I am going to do alot more testing, and get a utility which can actually do a disk I/O benchmark.
But at least, straight out of the chute, GOOD NEWS for the MPers. It does appear to work, or at least help some, at first approximation.
Cheers -- more to follow --- Bob
FOLLOW ON TEST: I did a test using a large game load, as a comparative test between my iMac and the MP both running XP under BootCamp. The MP took about twice as long as the iMac did, to load the same game. So it still says there are major issues with I/O on the MP with the present BootCamp drivers.
Also, checking the mode settings of the IDEs, they are all stuck in PIO mode, and for whatever reason, and not getting into DMA mode, as is the case with the iMac where the two channels are running in DMA MODE 5.
As a follow-on, I again installed the BootCamp drivers, then ran the "dmareset" VB script, and find now that ONE of the primary IDE channels is in ULTRA DMA MODE 4. So, the beat goes on.
