Re: More Slowdown

[Craig Shelley <craig@microtron.org.uk>]

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On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 09:06 +0000, John Gilmore wrote:
> Oh, BTW. "The slowdown" as I called it is still there. I guess I spoke to 
> soon. The specific symptom is that the effected process locks for a time, 
> usually just a second or two, but sometimes a minute or two and and at least 
> once for many many minutes. I think that the crash (soft lockup) that I 
> reported earlier is related as well. And it sounds like the comment that 
> rvalles had about lockups with mmaped files, except that it doesn't lock up 
> permanently. Just for a second or three usually.
> 

Hi,

I am sorry to say that I am having the same slowdown issue with Reiser4
and kernel 2.6.14.2. It seems that my problem is not related to the I/O
scheduler algorithm as I have tried both cfq and anticipatory.

The I/O activity seems to come in long bursts lasting up to 15 seconds,
and is unpredictable. The system almost grinds to a halt while the burst
of I/O is taking place, which can be quite annoying while typing.
There are no warnings in dmesg/syslog and the filesystem is clean.

Sometimes the burst of I/O activity occurs in a different form, with
short bursts every second, lasting about 10 seconds. Approx 30% duty
cycle. When a burst occurs in this form, it tends not to lock processes
as much.

The general sound of the drive when a burst is in progress is that of
heavy head movement, as if the drive is repeatedly seeking between two
or three locations.

Also, a thing which I noticed a while back, and may not be related in
any way to Reiser4.. When I re-size the columns in Evolution Mail, I get
continuous hard disk activity during the re-size. This hard disk
activity stops either when I release the mouse or hold it still with the
button down. Just wondering if anyone else gets the same thing.

Regards,
-- 
Craig Shelley
EMail: craig@microtron.org.uk
Jabber: shell@jabber.earth.li

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