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splakdatter n00b
Joined: 09 Jul 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Stroop, NL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:10 am Post subject: heavy disk access ==> jerky mouse |
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Load openoffice and the mouse gets all jerky. In fact, anytime the hard disk is accessed in any significant way, the system become unresponsive.
What gives? I thot Linux was a multi-tasking OS? |
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AutoBot l33t
Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:22 am Post subject: |
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There are a couple of things you can try, one is set your hd parameters using hdparm the other is renice x.
These work for me:
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renice -20 -p `ps -C X -o pid | tail -n 1`
hdparm -u 1 -c 1 -d 1 -m 32 -X 68 /dev/hda
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_________________ This message self destructed a long time ago. |
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delta407 Bodhisattva
Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 2876 Location: Chicago, IL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:25 am Post subject: |
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Actually, renicing X didn't seem to do much for me; it also dropped my glxgears framerate by about 4%. (Which is weird.)
Look into the thread entitled "my harddrive performance is sucking". _________________ I don't believe in witty sigs. |
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AutoBot l33t
Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:30 am Post subject: |
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That is weird. _________________ This message self destructed a long time ago. |
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neuron Advocate
Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 2371
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:46 am Post subject: |
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no it's not.. your setting another task higher than the program your running, which means the program will run slower.
instead of doing that dumb renice, nice emerge's or make's...
and hdparm will more than likely solve your problems, but be carefull when using it, it can screw your hd up.. |
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delta407 Bodhisattva
Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 2876 Location: Chicago, IL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:50 am Post subject: |
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I said it was weird because glxgears will talk to X which handles the actual drawing, and when X was given a higher priority the drawing speed decreased. And yes, renicing emerge is a better solution overall. (But that's off-topic...)
Anyway, please "emerge hdparm" and post the output of "hdparm -tT". This will indicate if your disk speed is a source of problems (which it likely is). _________________ I don't believe in witty sigs. |
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splakdatter n00b
Joined: 09 Jul 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Stroop, NL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:50 am Post subject: |
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Did all the hdparm stuff, set dma on, 32bit bullshit, etc.
Just seems that the kernel doesn't handle pre-emptive multi-tasking very well when IO is going wacko on the IDE bus. Gates has at least done that well. |
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delta407 Bodhisattva
Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 2876 Location: Chicago, IL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 2:54 am Post subject: |
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What's your disk throughput?
Also, what kernel are you using? _________________ I don't believe in witty sigs. |
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Robert Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 103 Location: Syracuse, NY
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 3:03 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | Did all the hdparm stuff, set dma on, 32bit bullshit, etc. |
Yeah, but how is the actual performance? I have had similar issues before, but always was able to resolve them. One time it was my IDE controller. I run a pretty vanilla kernel with only the low latency patch and I get no audio dropouts. Not even compiling, running X, Win4Lin etc..
Whats the output from 'hdparm -tT /dev/hda3' (where hda3 is your home partition) ?
Heres mine:
# bash-2.05a# hdparm -tT /dev/hda3
# /dev/hda3:
# Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.45 seconds =284.44 MB/sec
# Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.60 seconds = 40.00 MB/sec
--
Robert Brown |
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delta407 Bodhisattva
Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 2876 Location: Chicago, IL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 3:08 am Post subject: |
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And mine:
Code: | # hdparm -tT /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.70 seconds =183.12 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.59 seconds = 40.13 MB/sec |
Also, how much RAM do you have versus how much RAM are you using? Use "free" or "top" to give you answers. _________________ I don't believe in witty sigs. |
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splakdatter n00b
Joined: 09 Jul 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Stroop, NL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 3:09 am Post subject: |
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disk is: Code: | hda: MAXTOR 6L080J4, ATA DISK drive
hda: 156355584 sectors (80054 MB) w/1819KiB Cache, CHS=9732/255/63, UDMA(66) |
hdparm settings:
Code: | /dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
I/O support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
nowerr = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 9732/255/63, sectors = 156355584, start = 0
busstate = 1 (on)
acoustic = 0 (128=quiet ... 254=fast) |
hdparm -tT :
Code: | /dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.92 seconds =138.99 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.37 seconds = 26.98 MB/sec |
uname -a:
Code: | Linux mymachine.mydomain.com 2.4.19-gentoo-r5 #5 Sun Jun 16 09:23:30 CDT 2002 i686 AuthenticAMD |
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delta407 Bodhisattva
Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 2876 Location: Chicago, IL
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 3:12 am Post subject: |
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What filesystem? _________________ I don't believe in witty sigs. |
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trythil Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Jun 2002 Posts: 123 Location: RHIT, Terre Haute, IN, USA
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 3:48 am Post subject: |
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Well, that "at least Gates has done that right" comment was rather unnecessary. (Considering I've seen similar behavior on every Windows out there.)
Anyway...
What's your hardware configuration look like? Some UltraDMA IDE controllers seriously blow. Also, what's your X configuration like?
[edited out big blob here]
Can you give us a list of active processes (using either ps aux or top) when you're launching OpenOffice? |
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AutoBot l33t
Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 4:19 am Post subject: |
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Did you compile OO.org yourself and if so what were your flags during the compilation? _________________ This message self destructed a long time ago. |
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jtanner Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 121 Location: Atlanta, GA
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Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 4:38 am Post subject: |
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Also, did you compile the kernel with your specific chipset support?
When I set up my office machine for the first time, I had this problem. I did all the hdparm tricks, but it didn't seem to help much. What finally solved it was compiling the kernel to support dma and my specific chipset.
At home, I'm running scsi--a sure fix for ide slowness!
Jim |
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