Ok, so with some quick tips from the nice peoples here in the list, I was almost instantly able to track down the culprit to my hard draive whackiness. It's my ATI IDE controller:
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI In the kernel, I found: Device Drivers ---> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support ---> <*> ATI IXP chipset IDE support I built this into my kernel, and now I get: hdparm -tT /dev/hda /dev/hda: Timing cached reads: 2860 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1429.91 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 174 MB in 3.02 seconds = 57.54 MB/sec That looks a HECK of a lot better! I tried turning on DMA, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Thanks to all for your help! Igor V. Rafienko wrote: > on Feb 16, 2006, 09:58, Jeff wrote: > >> Gentoo Linux AMD64 - running pretty sweet - except, I've noticed that >> even under minimal loads, my system seems to have mini-lockups >> frequently. > > > > That has *never* happened to me. Last lockup was due to running tvtime > and bzflag at the same time (some xorg driver crap). > > >> I did a large emerge last night using the gnome-terminal, and it >> rendered my Gnome desktop almost completely frozen. > > > > That vaguely suggests DMA issues. > > >> hdparm -tT /dev/hda >> >> /dev/hda: >> Timing cached reads: 2992 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1495.91 MB/sec >> Timing buffered disk reads: 4 MB in 3.69 seconds = 1.08 MB/sec > > > > This is unacceptably low. A relatively recent hdd should perform at > least in the 30-40MBps range. Did you turn DMA on? (hdparm -d1 /dev/hda) > > > > > > ivr -- Han Solo: Well Princess, it looks like you managed to keep me here a while longer. Princess Leia: I had nothing to do with it. General Rieekan thinks it's dangerous for anyone to leave the system until they've activated the energy shield. Han Solo: That's a good story. I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight. Princess Leia: I don't know where you get you delusions, laser brain! Chewbacca laughs Han Solo: Laugh it up, fuzzball! -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list