# Slow downs/freeze

## DarkGod

Hullo,

I just installed gentoo(look great so far:) and Im experiencing a very annoying problem:

Sometimes, usualy when I do disk access it seems, everything freezes for a few seconds.

It is quite annoying as you migth guess  :Sad: 

I'm using the gentoo-sources sources and reiserfs. Is there a special option in the kernel config or somesuch ?

I activated the preemptive patch too, that cant be it .. can it ?

Thanks

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## shakti

Same Problem here, while copying large files i get 100% cpu use and very slow (1.5mb/s) data thruw put. I guess there must be a way to tweak hd access....

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## TheWart

Have you guys done the hdparm tweaks?  Here is a quick overview

hdparm -t -T /dev/XXX will give you some quick benchmarks

hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 /dev/hda

the 'c' turns on 32bit access, and the 'd' turns on DMA, the 'k' tells it to keep these settings (you need to put this command in the startup file)

Also, you can enable ATA 33/66/100 depending on your drive.

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## shakti

thank you very much......

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## FINITE

What start up file would that be? Thanx  :Very Happy: 

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## TheWart

No problem, I think the hdparm stuff should be put on the Gentoo FAQ/install guide.  Anyway, IIRC, the startup file is start.local, and it is in /etc/rc.local I think.

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## AutoBot

 *TheWart wrote:*   

> No problem, I think the hdparm stuff should be put on the Gentoo FAQ/install guide.  Anyway, IIRC, the startup file is start.local, and it is in /etc/rc.local I think.

 

Naa not really as hdparm is general linux knowledge and not specifically related to gentoo, well on second thought it wouldn't hurt for it to be there  :Smile: 

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## FINITE

I ran the benchmark command in xterm before messing with the 32bit access and the dma stuff and this is what I got:

Timing buffer cache reads:128mb in .50sec=258.16mb/sec

Timing buffered disk reads: 64mb in 9.80sec= 6.53 mb/sec

Ran the same thing after exe the command to enable 32bit access and dma in xterm and these are the results:

Timing bufferd cache reads: 128 mb in .52 seconds=244.22 mb.sec

Timing buffered disk reads: 64mb in 2.02 seconds= 31.71 mb/sec

Deffinate improvment in the bufferd disk reads area but the cache reads went up a little bit. Is thee a place where I can find detailed information on this hdparm stuff? Is there an hdpam man page? Thanx  :Very Happy: 

PS:And how do I know if ata100 is enabled or not? If its not then how do I enable it?

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## EhobaX

Hi,

I've got gentoo installed how I want, but when I access my CD-Rom for games i get the serious slow-down.

It's like WineX will work fine for about 5 seconds.  Then it gets choppy.  It's a 40-48x CD drive.  Is there some hardparm technique that I can use for this?

Thanks in advance.

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