Performance problems when compiling and copying large files

]Trix[ · Apprentice Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 184

Hello!
When I am compiling some program inside of gnome desktop enviroment I get perfomance problems. The mouse pointer if I move it around the screen just stops at some point for a second or two like it would happen in windows if the system is under a big usage. When watching movies the movie just stops playing when compiler starts writing to disk. I must tell you that this is a new problem which appeared after reinstalling gentoo with rc4. In rc2 I had no problems with that. I even used the same cflags. And when copying files the movie i am watching is stopping (again i never had this problems under rc2)
I have Athlon-XP 2100+. 768MB Ram. And WD800 hd.
My CFLAGS are: -march=athlon-xp -03 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -fprefetch-loop-arrays -m3dnow -mmmx -msse -mfpmath=sse,387 -ffast-math
I use kernel-2.4.20-ck6 (with vanilla kernel i had the same problem)
hdparm is set as default with -d1. I tried several options for tweaking the hd but still no progress. What seems to be the problem? Any ideas?
PS.: hdparm -i output for dev/hda is:
/dev/hda:
Model=WDC WD800JB-00CRA1, FwRev=17.07W17, SerialNo=WD-WMA8E3103262
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
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
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version: 1 2 3 4 5
Thank you in advance for your help.

ebrostig · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 10:50 pm Post subject:

I'm surprised when you say this used to work.
I would say it is normal as a compile is the most stressing job you can put on the CPU/OS and pairing that with maybe the next worst task, playing a movie with sound smoothly.

I don't see that this is more ab-normal than normal.

Erik
_________________
'Yes, Firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

leonov · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 10:59 pm Post subject: DMA on?

Are you sure you have DMA enabled?
(We can only see what your drive is capable of from your posting, not what it is doing...)

Run 'hdparm' without any arguments:

]Trix[ · Apprentice Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 184

Here is the output of /dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 9729/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0

leonov · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2003 12:49 am Post subject:

Well, that all looks good.

I can only suggest that you try 'nice'ing your compiliations:

eg:
nice emerge world

So that they run with a lower priority than your interactive apps...

]Trix[ · Apprentice Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 184

Thanks for this tip!