[gentoo-user] Performance problem at writing big files and Multitasking

["Daniel Pielmeier" <daniel.pielmeier@googlemail.com>]

Hi all,

i have bought components to assemble a new PC by myself.
This are the main components.

Mainboard:	ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 (Intel(r) 945P)
CPU:		Core 2 Duo E6600 (2400 MHz)
RAM:		Transcend DIMM 2x1 GB DDR2-667 (1024 MB)
Harddisk:	Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JD (200 GB) [Sata]
DVD:		Samsung SH-S183A (18 / 8 / 8 fach) [Sata]
Graphics:	Giga-Byte GeForce 7300 LE 128MB GV-NX73L128D (128 MB)
Network:	Gigabit (10/100/1000 MBit/s)

I have managed to get all the stuff i want to work with gentoo.

On one hand my new machine is very fast. Here is an example from genlop

> genlop -i openoffice
>  * app-office/openoffice
>
>
>    Total builds: 1
>    Global build time: 3 hours, 1 minute and 47 seconds.
>
>    Info about currently installed ebuild:
>
>    * app-office/openoffice-2.0.4
>    Install date: Tue Jan 30 04:34:33 2007
>    USE="branding cairo cups dbus firefox ldap sound pam -binfilter
>    -eds -gnome -gstreamer -gtk -kde -odk -webdav -debug"
>    CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

On the other i recently recognized when i doing some video editing i.e.
demultiplex the movie with projectx which shows the speed of writing
video and audio to the disk. It writes about 200MB with about 25MB/s
then it halts for about 2-3 seconds and starts again writing data to the
disk, after another 200MB it halts again and starts over again and so
on. I also recognize the same behavior when i multiplex the video and
audio together with mplex. What could cause this problems

Also when some one of this tasks is running and i want to do some
multitasking, the system reacts very slow on executing other programs.
For example if i try to open just an editor by the start menu. The menu
seems to be frozen and did not react at once also it took very long for
the editor to load.

I thought of wrong settings in cflags, or a wrong kernel config maybe
the sata-controller or other things which may cause this problems.

Thanks in advance for your help

Daniel Pielmeier



Here are a few things which might give some information over my system:

> kernel config

#
# Processor type and features
#
CONFIG_SMP=y
CONFIG_X86_PC=y
CONFIG_MPENTIUM4=y
CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG=y
CONFIG_X86_XADD=y
CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=7
CONFIG_RWSEM_XCHGADD_ALGORITHM=y
CONFIG_GENERIC_CALIBRATE_DELAY=y
CONFIG_X86_WP_WORKS_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_INVLPG=y
CONFIG_X86_BSWAP=y
CONFIG_X86_POPAD_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG64=y
CONFIG_X86_GOOD_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_USERCOPY=y
CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
CONFIG_HPET_TIMER=y
CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y
CONFIG_NR_CPUS=8
CONFIG_SCHED_MC=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT_BKL=y
CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_IO_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE_NONFATAL=m
CONFIG_X86_MCE_P4THERMAL=y
CONFIG_VM86=y
CONFIG_X86_CPUID=y

#
# ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
#
CONFIG_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y


CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI=m

#
# IDE chipset support/bugfixes
#
CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y

#
# SCSI device support
#
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_SCSI_PROC_FS=y

#
# SCSI support type (disk, tape, CD-ROM)
#
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=m
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SG=m

#
# SCSI low-level drivers
#
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI=y
CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_INTEL_COMBINED=y
CONFIG_SCSI_PPA=m
CONFIG_SCSI_IMM=m
CONFIG_SCSI_IZIP_EPP16=y
CONFIG_SCSI_IZIP_SLOW_CTR=y


> cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6600  @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2393.448
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm
constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips        : 4790.29

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6600  @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2393.448
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm
constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips        : 4787.10


> cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal:      2076148 kB
MemFree:       1318744 kB
Buffers:         50364 kB
Cached:         456004 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         424360 kB
Inactive:       261932 kB
HighTotal:     1179328 kB
HighFree:       523868 kB
LowTotal:       896820 kB
LowFree:        794876 kB
SwapTotal:     2048276 kB
SwapFree:      2048276 kB
Dirty:               8 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
AnonPages:      179728 kB
Mapped:          91680 kB
Slab:            39120 kB
PageTables:       1892 kB
NFS_Unstable:        0 kB
Bounce:              0 kB
CommitLimit:   3086348 kB
Committed_AS:   516408 kB
VmallocTotal:   114680 kB
VmallocUsed:     81816 kB
VmallocChunk:    25072 kB


> lspci -v

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller
Hub (rev 81)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 2770
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root
Port (rev 81) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=0
        Memory behind bridge: fc000000-febfffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d0000000-00000000dff00000
        Capabilities: [88] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [90] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit-
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [a0] Express Root Port (Slot+) IRQ 0

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High
Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 0888
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at fbdf8000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [70] Express Unknown type IRQ 0

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000cff00000-00000000cff00000
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+) IRQ 0
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit-
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [90] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2

00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI
Express Port 5 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000cfe00000-00000000cfe00000
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+) IRQ 0
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit-
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [90] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2

00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI
Express Port 6 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff
        Memory behind bridge: fbf00000-fbffffff
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+) IRQ 0
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit-
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [90] #0d [0000]
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI
#1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27c8
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20
        I/O ports at c880 [size=32]

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI
#2 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27c9
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
        I/O ports at cc00 [size=32]

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI
#3 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27ca
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
        I/O ports at d000 [size=32]

00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI
#4 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27cb
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        I/O ports at d080 [size=32]

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI
Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27cc
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20
        Memory at fbdff800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Debug port

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1) (prog-if
01 [Subtractive decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32
        Memory behind bridge: fbe00000-fbefffff
        Capabilities: [50] #0d [0000]

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC
Interface Bridge (rev 01)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27b8
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE
Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27df
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at ffa0 [size=16]

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH (ICH7 Family)
Serial ATA Storage Controller AHCI (rev 01) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27c1
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=8]
        I/O ports at d880 [size=4]
        I/O ports at d800 [size=8]
        I/O ports at d480 [size=4]
        I/O ports at d400 [size=16]
        Memory at fbdffc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit-
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [70] Power Management version 2

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller
(rev 01)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 27da
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 15
        I/O ports at 0400 [size=32]

01:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A
IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 8023
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21
        Memory at fbeff800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
        Memory at fbef8000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Unknown device 8168
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
        I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
        Memory at fbfff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at fbfc0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [48] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+
Queue=0/1 Enable-
        Capabilities: [60] Express Endpoint IRQ 0
        Capabilities: [84] Vendor Specific Information

05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 7300 LE
(rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 341f
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at febe0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [68] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+
Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint IRQ 0


> hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   13044 MB in  2.00 seconds = 6527.05 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  202 MB in  3.03 seconds =  66.74 MB/sec


> emerge --info

Portage 2.1.1-r2 (default-linux/x86/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.4-r4,
2.6.18-gentoo-r6 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.18-gentoo-r6 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6600
 @ 2.40GHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.6
Last Sync: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:50:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present]
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.31
dev-lang/python:     2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r6
dev-util/confcache:  [Not Present]
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.17-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config
/usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf
/etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/splash /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/media/system/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache confcache distlocks metadata-transfer
parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/
ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/"
LINGUAS="de"
MAKEOPTS="-j7"
PKGDIR="/media/system/portage/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times
--compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats
--timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local'
--exclude='/packages'"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/media/system/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/media/system/portage-billie /media/system/layman/sunrise"
SYNC="rsync://192.168.0.1/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 7zip X a52 aac aalib ace acpi alsa alsa_cards_hda-intel
alsa_pcm_plugins_adpcm alsa_pcm_plugins_alaw alsa_pcm_plugins_asym
alsa_pcm_plugins_copy alsa_pcm_plugins_dmix alsa_pcm_plugins_dshare
alsa_pcm_plugins_dsnoop alsa_pcm_plugins_empty alsa_pcm_plugins_extplug
alsa_pcm_plugins_file alsa_pcm_plugins_hooks alsa_pcm_plugins_iec958
alsa_pcm_plugins_ioplug alsa_pcm_plugins_ladspa alsa_pcm_plugins_lfloat
alsa_pcm_plugins_linear alsa_pcm_plugins_meter alsa_pcm_plugins_mulaw
alsa_pcm_plugins_multi alsa_pcm_plugins_null alsa_pcm_plugins_plug
alsa_pcm_plugins_rate alsa_pcm_plugins_route alsa_pcm_plugins_share
alsa_pcm_plugins_shm alsa_pcm_plugins_softvol amr ao arj audiofile avahi
bash-completion berkdb bidi bitmap-fonts bl bzip2 cairo caps cdda cddb
cdparanoia chardet cli cracklib crypt css cups curl daap dbus dga
directfb divx djvu dlloader dri dts dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread elibc_glibc
enca encode exif fame fbcon ffmpeg fftw flac fortran gdbm ggi gif glitz
gmedia gnutls gpm hal httpd iconv ieee1394 imagemagick imlib
input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse ipv6
isdnlog jack java jbig jpeg jpeg2k kernel_linux lame lcd_devices_bayrad
lcd_devices_cfontz lcd_devices_cfontz633 lcd_devices_glk
lcd_devices_hd44780 lcd_devices_lb216 lcd_devices_lcdm001
lcd_devices_mtxorb lcd_devices_ncurses lcd_devices_text lcms ldap lha
libcaca libg++ libnotify linguas_de live lzo mad matroska midi mjpeg
mmap mmx mmxext mng mod modplug mono motif mp3 mpeg mpi musepack
musicbrainz nas ncurses netjack network nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg
openal opengl oss pam pcre perl plugins png portaudio ppds pppd
pulseaudio python quicktime rar readline real realmedia reflection rle
rpm rtc rtsp sdl session shout sid skins slang sndfile speex spell spl
sse sse2 ssl startup-notification stream svg svga tcpd tga theora tiff
timidity truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode upnp usb
userland_GNU v4l v4l2 vcd video_cards_fbdev video_cards_nv
video_cards_nvidia video_cards_v4l video_cards_vesa video_cards_vga
vidix vlm vorbis vorbis-psy win32codecs wma wmf wmp wxwindows x264 xanim
xcomposite xml xorg xosd xpm xv xvid xvmc yv12 zip zlib"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL,
LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
-- 
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