Ide (PATA) problem with kernel 2.6.9

["Matti-P.Sarén" <matti.saren@oulu.fi>]

Dear List,

I have Abit A8V motherboard. It has on-board VIAK8T800Pro chipset for IDE.

I have Debian AMD64 (kernel with 2.6.9-8, sarge) installed to SATA disk. 
It runs nicely except I had to install modules psmouse, nvidia to 
/etc/modules to get them loaded automatically during bootup.

I added a PATA disk (SAMSUNG SP1604N) to my system. I had to add 
ide-drive to /etc/modules to see this drive, but it transfer rates are 
quite slow. I've had Windows XP system installed to this disk and this 
motherboard earlier and it ran fast and smoothly.

With default settings:

kengu:/mnt/tmp1# hdparm -tT /dev/hda1
/dev/hda1:
 Timing cached reads:        2632 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1314.23 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   10 MB in  3.38 seconds =   2.95 MB/sec

kengu:/mnt/tmp1# hdparm /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 multcount    =  0 (off)
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 geometry     = 19457/255/63, sectors = 160041885696, start = 0

I tried to boost drive a bit with DMA-mode:

kengu:/mnt/tmp1# hdparm -c3 -m16 -d1 /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 ...
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 ...

Why the DMA mode is prohibited? Without it the transfer rate is only

 Timing buffered disk reads:   16 MB in  3.15 seconds =   5.07 MB/sec


My question: What could be done to make drive run faster?


I'll attach here lsmod-listing:

mp@kengu:~$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
nls_cp437               7168  1
ntfs                   91200  1
ipv6                  260128  8
af_packet              23244  2
snd_via82xx            28772  0
snd_ac97_codec         76288  1 snd_via82xx
snd_pcm                99852  1 snd_via82xx
snd_timer              24968  1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         11088  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
gameport                4864  1 snd_via82xx
snd_mpu401_uart         8064  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            26532  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          9036  1 snd_rawmidi
snd                    56872  7 
snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
budget                  7424  0
budget_core             9156  1 budget
dvb_core               88744  2 budget,budget_core
crc32                   4800  1 dvb_core
saa7146                20156  2 budget,budget_core
ttpci_eeprom            2816  1 budget_core
eth1394                21968  0
ehci_hcd               30724  0
uhci_hcd               31392  0
via82cxxx_audio        30088  0
uart401                12632  1 via82cxxx_audio
sound                  90952  2 via82cxxx_audio,uart401
soundcore              11104  3 snd,via82cxxx_audio,sound
ac97_codec             20312  1 via82cxxx_audio
via82cxxx              13744  1
sk98lin               154604  1
ohci1394               33604  0
ext3                  118160  1
jbd                    59504  1 ext3
mbcache                 9800  1 ext3
evdev                  10880  0
mousedev               12700  2
tsdev                   8832  0
nvidia               4053980  8
psmouse                21068  0
sr_mod                 17892  0
ide_disk               22208  4
ide_generic             1728  0
ide_cd                 42016  0
cdrom                  39528  2 sr_mod,ide_cd
reiserfs              222384  3
sd_mod                 17880  5
usb_storage            69120  0
ide_core              158112  5 
via82cxxx,ide_disk,ide_generic,ide_cd,usb_storage
sbp2                   25480  0
ieee1394              375320  3 eth1394,ohci1394,sbp2
sata_via                8260  4
sata_promise           11204  0
libata                 45448  2 sata_via,sata_promise
scsi_mod              130528  6 
sr_mod,sd_mod,usb_storage,sbp2,sata_promise,libata
unix                   29632  444

Thanks in advance!

/Matti