If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
P4P800 linux and harddrive speed (DMA?)
I just bought the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe motherboard. I was told that I
needed linux kernel 2.4.21 for this motherboard, so I upgraded to it and that's what I'm using now. But I quickly noticed that my IDE harddrive access causing the system to pause temporarily every now and then when it accesses large files or has a lot of activity. It looks like it's not able to turn on DMA, so I'm getting really poor performance. Even running fsck takes a much longer time now (maybe 4-6 times as long). When I do "hdparm -d /dev/hda" (my primary harddrive), it shows: /dev/hda: using_dma = 0 (off) So I type "hdparm -d1 /dev/hda", and it says: /dev/hda: setting using_dma to 1 (on) HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted using_dma = 0 (off) When I type "hdparm -i /dev/hda", it shows: Model=MAXTOR 6L060J3, FwRev=A93.0500, SerialNo=663129813372 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw15uSec Fixed DTR10Mbs } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=32256, SectSize=21298, ECCbytes=4 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1819kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=-66060037, LBA=yes, LBAsects=117266688 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 udma6 So it looks like it recognizes that it has up to udma6. The BIOS also recognized it (I checked there in the BIOS settings that it detected it was UDMA-6). So why is linux unable to use DMA mode with my harddrives? Here's a snippet from my /var/log/messages about the IDE stuff: Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hda: MAXTOR 6L060J3, ATA DISK drive Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hdb: WDC WD800BB-00BSA0, ATA DISK drive Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hda: attached ide-disk driver. Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hda: host protected area = 1 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hda: 117266688 sectors (60041 MB) w/1819KiB Cache, CHS=7299/255/63 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hdb: attached ide-disk driver. Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hdb: host protected area = 1 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hdb: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: Partition check: Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: hdb: hdb1 Jul 12 20:59:48 moon kernel: ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide Any idea what's going on? I seem to have reached the limits of my knowledge in this area. I don't think I can deal with having a motherboard in this kind of condition. But I doubt it's the motherboard's fault. I think it's something I need to be setting in linux somewhere. But what?! How I noticed this problem in the first place was that I tried to play some mp3's to check out the P4P800's built-in sound chips. The sound was terrible. Every few seconds it would mess up by playing the wrong sound, or it would play garbage sound (not white noise) or pause in between sounds. Then I noticed it happened whenever I had disk access. So it looks like the disk access was interrupting the system long enough to cause the sound operations to be put on hold or even get corrupted (some of the notes were way off). I also noticed my mouse pointer would hang every now and then whenever I did something intensive with the disk. I mean it would hang for as much as 10 seconds! And I have a Pentium 4 2.6GHz, so it's definitely not a question of CPU speed. Any help would be appreciated. I'm baffled. By the way, thanks to Clemens Ladisch who first diagnosed this problem on this forum. I was inquiring about why my sound quality was so poor. He picked up on the fact that it was likely the DMA. I don't know what else it could be? Thanks, Steve |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
On my P4P800 with unpatched 2.4.21 kernel, DMA is enabled by default
after booting, and works. Please check that you've set the following kernel configuration options: * Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC) * Generic PCI bus-master DMA support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI) * Use PCI DMA by default when available (CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO) * Intel PIIXn chipsets support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX) The kernel has recognized the IDE controller if dmesg has some lines prefixed with "ICH5". You should be able to find the DMA settings in /proc/ide/piix. HTH Clemens Clemens!! You solved my problem. It was the fact that I didn't config the Intel PIIXn chipset support. That did it! I didn't know the ICH5 was considered an Intel PIIXn chipset. Live and learn. Confirmed. The Intel PIIXn IDE driver makes my kernel recognize my ICH5 hub (on an Abit IS7). I now have UDMA on the parallel drives, and my SATA channels are recognized too. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
linux 64bit OS again | Don McCarter | AMD x86-64 Processors | 17 | July 6th 04 01:18 PM |
defective harddrive data recovery | Alexander Linkenbach | General | 0 | October 26th 03 07:55 PM |
P4P800 Deluxe sound is pretty bad? | sthemage | Asus Motherboards | 1 | July 11th 03 08:15 AM |