Re: unresponsiveness on linux desktop during file copy

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Satish Eerpini <eerpini@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I googled on "82801GBM/GHM slow" and found a lot to read.
>
> will read through that ,...
>
>> Is DMA for this drive enabled? It seems that some others didn't have
>> it enabled by default, or maybe at all. I didn't real the threads very
>> far.
>
> the udma5 mode seems to be enabled , though I can't really make any
> sense out of it:
>
> hdparm -i /dev/sda
>
> /dev/sda:
>
>  Model=TOSHIBA MK1234GSX                       , FwRev=AH001H  ,
> SerialNo=           372HFDVGS
>  Config={ Fixed }
>  RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
>  BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16?
>  CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=234441648
>  IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
>  PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
>  DMA modes:  sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
>  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
>  AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
>  Drive conforms to: Unspecified:  ATA/ATAPI-3,4,5,6,7
>
>  * signifies the current active mode
>
>> hdparm -d1 /dev/sda
>
> got the following error when I tried setting the mode as above, I
> think along with -d1 we need to give some "X" argument( or so reads
> the man page)..
>
>  hdparm -d1 /dev/sda
>
> /dev/sda:
>  setting using_dma to 1 (on)
>  HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
>  HDIO_GET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
>
>> Clearly, since you see the same thing in a console with X never having
>> been started says it's not a GUI issue.
>
> yes I suppose, but any idea how I figure out what exactly is causing
> the IOWAIT, .. and if there are any patches, let me know, I can test
> them .
>
> Cheers
> Satish

OK, the solution for this is probably beyond my expertise but this
looks identical to when I got a Compaq laptop and the ATI chipset's
DMA driver wasn't working right. hdparm said I was using udma but I
got error messages like you are when I tried to enable DMA.

Do you believe this was working better on an earlier kernel? If so you
might drop back and see if these commands work better. If so that
would suggest a regression of some type.

Hopefully someone here can direct you to the right person that supports this.

- Mark