Ide=nodma is "loosing too many ticks"

[Mark]

I got the following problem after my FC3 install:

Losing too many ticks!
TSC cannot be used as a timesource.
Possible reasons for this are:
  You're running with Speedstep,
  You don't have DMA enabled for your hard disk (see hdparm),
  Incorrect TSC synchronization on an SMP system (see dmesg).
Falling back to a sane timesource now.


I have ide=nodma in the boot parameters, since I was not able to complete the install with that parameter.
If I try to take this parameter out of the grub.conf, I get the below and the machine does not boot:

hdc: cdrom_pc_intr: The drive appears confused (ireason 0x02)
ide-cd: cmd 0x1e timed out
hdc: lost interupt

I also tried "ide0=dma ide1=nodma" with the same problem (CDROMs are hdc and hdd on ide1)
Then I tried "ide=nodma ide0=dma". It boots, but I dont know if it fixes the original problem...


Should I leave "ide=nodma" in and live with the first warning? Is this just a warning that can be ignored or is there something that
could actually go wrong if I use this as a production server?

I am surprised about this whole "ide=nodma" thing anyway. It seems that the only way to get Fedora installed on any of my machines
is to use "ide=nodma"as boot params. Sometimes I even seem to need "allowcddma". My machines are by no means special, just standard
IDE controllers with a bunch of IDE HDs and IDE cdrom... What is the best practise for this case?


Thanks,

MARK