[gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[fire-eyes]

Hello,

I'm running gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad T43. In the past, disk access was 
fine under load (CPU or disk). These days, the disk becomes painfully 
slow under moderate to high CPU usage (such as compiling) or copying 
more than a few MB. GUI's become almost totally unresponsive and at 
times I have to down the system hard.

So it seems it's some sort of a change in kernels compared to the past. 
I have always run a vanilla kernel, manually configured and installed. 
Right now I am running 2.6.24.3.

The system uses an SATA disk drive.

Here is the boot line in grub.conf:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-stable root=/dev/sda4 rw hdc=noprobe 
acpi_sleep=s3_bios panic=5 elevator=cfq nmi_watchdog=0

/boot/vmlinuz-stable being a symlink to the kernel I consider "stable" 
within /boot/. I also have vmlinuz-last called by another grub entry if 
I need it.

Here is my kernel config: http://fire-eyes.org/t/config-2.6.24.3.txt 
(may disappear in the future)

I am looking for feedback into what may be causing this mess. It makes 
for a very frustrating time using this laptop.

Thank you!
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Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[Andrey Falko]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:38 PM, fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  I'm running gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad T43. In the past, disk access was
>  fine under load (CPU or disk). These days, the disk becomes painfully
>  slow under moderate to high CPU usage (such as compiling) or copying
>  more than a few MB. GUI's become almost totally unresponsive and at
>  times I have to down the system hard.
>
>  So it seems it's some sort of a change in kernels compared to the past.
>  I have always run a vanilla kernel, manually configured and installed.
>  Right now I am running 2.6.24.3.
>
>  The system uses an SATA disk drive.
>
>  Here is the boot line in grub.conf:
>  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-stable root=/dev/sda4 rw hdc=noprobe
>  acpi_sleep=s3_bios panic=5 elevator=cfq nmi_watchdog=0
>
>  /boot/vmlinuz-stable being a symlink to the kernel I consider "stable"
>  within /boot/. I also have vmlinuz-last called by another grub entry if
>  I need it.
>
>  Here is my kernel config: http://fire-eyes.org/t/config-2.6.24.3.txt
>  (may disappear in the future)
>
>  I am looking for feedback into what may be causing this mess. It makes
>  for a very frustrating time using this laptop.
>
What is the version of the kernel where you did not have issues?
2.6.24 and 23 have a new CPU scheduler (CFS), which "should" work
better than the old one. It is possible that the new scheduler does
not suit your needs.

Tell us the kernel version that work well for you, and we'll if it
might be a regression of CFS in 24 or a possible weakness of CFS.
>  Thank you!
>  --
>  gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[fire-eyes]

Andrey Falko wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:38 PM, fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>>  I'm running gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad T43. In the past, disk access was
>>  fine under load (CPU or disk). These days, the disk becomes painfully
>>  slow under moderate to high CPU usage (such as compiling) or copying
>>  more than a few MB. GUI's become almost totally unresponsive and at
>>  times I have to down the system hard.
>>
>>  So it seems it's some sort of a change in kernels compared to the past.
>>  I have always run a vanilla kernel, manually configured and installed.
>>  Right now I am running 2.6.24.3.
>>
>>  The system uses an SATA disk drive.
>>
>>  Here is the boot line in grub.conf:
>>  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-stable root=/dev/sda4 rw hdc=noprobe
>>  acpi_sleep=s3_bios panic=5 elevator=cfq nmi_watchdog=0
>>
>>  /boot/vmlinuz-stable being a symlink to the kernel I consider "stable"
>>  within /boot/. I also have vmlinuz-last called by another grub entry if
>>  I need it.
>>
>>  Here is my kernel config: http://fire-eyes.org/t/config-2.6.24.3.txt
>>  (may disappear in the future)
>>
>>  I am looking for feedback into what may be causing this mess. It makes
>>  for a very frustrating time using this laptop.
>>
> What is the version of the kernel where you did not have issues?
> 2.6.24 and 23 have a new CPU scheduler (CFS), which "should" work
> better than the old one. It is possible that the new scheduler does
> not suit your needs.

Thanks for the reply.

I do not recall, other than it was four or more months ago. Do you 
happen to know what version of the kernel that scheduler showed up in? 
Also, is that scheduler not irrelevant here as I was passing elevator=cfq?

By the way, I did a little experimentation. I changed my scheduler to 
deadline, and set preemption to desktop. Before the scheduler was cfq, 
and the preemption to low-latency desktop.

Things already feel snappier gui-wise, but I have yet to push the 
disk/cpu to see what will happen. I believe it is at least the start of 
improvements, however.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[Thomas Kahle]

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Hash: SHA1

Hi,

I had problems with CFS too. Similar to the one's you describe. Under
heavy disk/cpu-load (like emerge and updatedb in parallel) the system
was unresponsive. I changed the scheduler back to anticipatory and the
problem was gone.
Interestingly i also have a thinkpad, X30 in my case.

best
Thomas

fire-eyes wrote:
| Andrey Falko wrote:
|> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:38 PM, fire-eyes <sgtphou@fire-eyes.org> wrote:
|>> Hello,
|>>
|>>  I'm running gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad T43. In the past, disk access was
|>>  fine under load (CPU or disk). These days, the disk becomes painfully
|>>  slow under moderate to high CPU usage (such as compiling) or copying
|>>  more than a few MB. GUI's become almost totally unresponsive and at
|>>  times I have to down the system hard.
|>>
|>>  So it seems it's some sort of a change in kernels compared to the past.
|>>  I have always run a vanilla kernel, manually configured and installed.
|>>  Right now I am running 2.6.24.3.
|>>
|>>  The system uses an SATA disk drive.
|>>
|>>  Here is the boot line in grub.conf:
|>>  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-stable root=/dev/sda4 rw hdc=noprobe
|>>  acpi_sleep=s3_bios panic=5 elevator=cfq nmi_watchdog=0
|>>
|>>  /boot/vmlinuz-stable being a symlink to the kernel I consider "stable"
|>>  within /boot/. I also have vmlinuz-last called by another grub entry if
|>>  I need it.
|>>
|>>  Here is my kernel config: http://fire-eyes.org/t/config-2.6.24.3.txt
|>>  (may disappear in the future)
|>>
|>>  I am looking for feedback into what may be causing this mess. It makes
|>>  for a very frustrating time using this laptop.
|>>
|> What is the version of the kernel where you did not have issues?
|> 2.6.24 and 23 have a new CPU scheduler (CFS), which "should" work
|> better than the old one. It is possible that the new scheduler does
|> not suit your needs.
|
| Thanks for the reply.
|
| I do not recall, other than it was four or more months ago. Do you
| happen to know what version of the kernel that scheduler showed up in?
| Also, is that scheduler not irrelevant here as I was passing elevator=cfq?
|
| By the way, I did a little experimentation. I changed my scheduler to
| deadline, and set preemption to desktop. Before the scheduler was cfq,
| and the preemption to low-latency desktop.
|
| Things already feel snappier gui-wise, but I have yet to push the
| disk/cpu to see what will happen. I believe it is at least the start of
| improvements, however.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[fire-eyes]

Thomas Kahle wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I had problems with CFS too. Similar to the one's you describe. Under
> heavy disk/cpu-load (like emerge and updatedb in parallel) the system
> was unresponsive. I changed the scheduler back to anticipatory and the
> problem was gone.
> Interestingly i also have a thinkpad, X30 in my case.

Curious. I will try antic.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop: Thinkpad T43: Disks Very Slow Under Load, Were Fast in the Past

[Mark David Dumlao]

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maybe your partitions are near full?
-- 
thing.

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