Re: Unacceptable HDD performance
Aryan Ameri wrote:
Hi there:
I am running a ThinkPad A31 (1 year old) notebook with 256 MB of RAM,
and a 1.8 Ghz Pentium-M processor. While this is by no means a cutting
edge system, it is still nevertheless an acceptable system.
However the system is really under-performing, and it is completely
apparent to me that the bottleneck is the HDD. Put it this way, it
seems my internet connection is faster than my hard disk because
whenever I start downloading 600 KBps or more, the hard disk light
just remains on (which means it is under heavy load) and at that point
my system becomes useless until I stop one of the connections and
downgrade my speed. Also, I can't seem to burn CDs with more than 3x
speed, because again the bottleneck seems to be the HDD.
I have heard now and again, that notebook HDDs are slow, but this
particular model was a high-end model last year, and I made sure that
it uses the best HDD available in the market. I can't believe that it
is THIS slow.
Before complaining to IBM about a faulty HDD, I just want to ask if
there is anything I can do to boost HDDs performance; via software. I
have never run any other OS on this machine (I run sid) so I want to
make sure that this under-performance isn't related to the OS.
Precisely, I am asking to see if there are any softwares, or tricks,
which can boost the performance of the hard disk.
Cheers
I had exactly this problem until I changed my kernel (2.4.23) to add the
module for my IDE VIA chipset:
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_VIA82CXXX=y
That changed the world. Find out what IDE chipset you are using and add
it to your kernel and the symptom is as you describe:
he loads a little bit and then the light goes on and everything freezes.
That problem goes after you do as I said.
Hugo.
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