HD access sluggish in 2.6.0

HD access sluggish in 2.6.0

[Yun Zhou]

I'm using a system with 1HD (DC WD600BB-00CAA1 60 GB) using kernel 2.6.0. 
Whenever the system uses the disk extensively (copying a file, untarring, 
etc.), it grinds to a near halt, with the CPU usage at about 100%, even for a 
simple copying operation.

This problem is not present when using 2.4.22, nor any of the 2.4 series 
kernels that I've tried. Does anyone know what is causing this?

Thanks in advance!

Re: HD access sluggish in 2.6.0

[bert hubert]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 07:57:05PM -0600, Yun Zhou wrote:
> I'm using a system with 1HD (DC WD600BB-00CAA1 60 GB) using kernel 2.6.0. 
> Whenever the system uses the disk extensively (copying a file, untarring, 
> etc.), it grinds to a near halt, with the CPU usage at about 100%, even for a 
> simple copying operation.

Please show the output of hdparm /dev/hda:
/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 geometry     = 65535/16/63, sectors = 117210240, start = 0

You will probably see using_dma = 0 there. This in turn probably means you
did not compile in the right IDE driver. Try hdparm -d1 /dev/hda, and/or
recompile your kernel.

> This problem is not present when using 2.4.22, nor any of the 2.4 series 
> kernels that I've tried. Does anyone know what is causing this?

You did not specify any details of your kernel compile so it is hard to
tell.


-- 
http://www.PowerDNS.com      Open source, database driven DNS Software 
http://lartc.org           Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO

Re: HD access sluggish in 2.6.0

[William Lee Irwin III]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 07:57:05PM -0600, Yun Zhou wrote:
> I'm using a system with 1HD (DC WD600BB-00CAA1 60 GB) using kernel 2.6.0. 
> Whenever the system uses the disk extensively (copying a file, untarring, 
> etc.), it grinds to a near halt, with the CPU usage at about 100%, even for a 
> simple copying operation.
> This problem is not present when using 2.4.22, nor any of the 2.4 series 
> kernels that I've tried. Does anyone know what is causing this?
> Thanks in advance!

This is typical of IDE disks where the driver is pessimistically using
PIO. A dmesg and .config would help, plus maybe readprofile(1) results
(you'll have to boot with profile=1 on the kernel command-line.) just
in case it's actually something else.


-- wli