Christopher- I have been using the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 13.10 since its release and have had no issues whatsoever with this release as far as system stability and reliability is concerned. It seems that with mature Intel hardware support in the more recent kernel release and sticking with AMD64 arch I have an incredibly stable system and even power management features such as suspend and hibernate work flawlessly.
Thanks for the follow-up :) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1090715 Title: [Toshiba L840] Slow and sporadic hard drive write performance Status in The Linux Kernel: Expired Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: I have been troubleshooting an interesting bug on my Toshiba L840 laptop for a number of months now. This bug affects all versions of Ubuntu since (and including) 12.04 and other Linux distributions as well (so this is most likely an upstream bug). I have only ran the 32-bit version with PAE support because I choose application compatibility and efficient memory usage over what 64-bit Linux can provide. WORKAROUND: 64-bit ubuntu raring (13.04). Here is what I have experienced: Every kernel version I have tried is affected by this bug since 3.2 in Precise (kernel 3.3 - 3.7 is affected). What happens is my hard drive write performance is greatly reduced (and over time it becomes so slow it is unusable) once I run a newer version of Linux kernel. The stock kernel of Precise does not have this bug but it has too many other bugs that cause hard lockups on ivy bridge so I cannot use it. I am happy to report that the hard lockups seem to have disappeared on 13.04 (Linux kernel 3.7) and the most stable experience I have had so far is with kernel version 3.7.0-5 on Raring 32-bit. Even though I have found a relatively stable experience running Raring I am still haunted by this write performance issue. Once I boot I can get consistent write speeds at about 40MB/s (which is about half the speed of what my drive is able to write at) and read speed never really seems to be affected. Here is a test using dd to check write speed: owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output 51200+0 records in 51200+0 records out 419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.6863 s, 39.2 MB/s owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output 51200+0 records in 51200+0 records out 419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.4765 s, 40.0 MB/s owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output 51200+0 records in 51200+0 records out 419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.4648 s, 40.1 MB/s owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output 51200+0 records in 51200+0 records out 419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 11.2678 s, 37.2 MB/s Even though 40MB/s write speed is completely unacceptable I would actually be okay with it if it didn't drop any lower than this but eventually it does. I have experienced that over time eventually the write speed of the drive will drop to about 1-2MB/s and at that point the computer becomes unusable and has to be rebooted. Strangely enough I have finally noticed that the significant drop from 40MB/s to 1-2MB/s seems to be triggered by certain applications, for instance when I have a torrent downloading using various torrent downloader programs, I have experienced this bug more frequently. Even so, if I choose to not use the torrent downloading programs the bug will eventually crop back up (could be hours, could be several days...) but eventually it happens and I have to reboot. Here are some more troubleshooting steps I have tried in a failed attempt to isolate the issue: * I have ran memtest 86+ for over 24 hours on my laptop and it completed without error * I have scanned my hard drive using mhdd and no bad sectors * I have replaced my hard drive with a different size and different brand hard drive and same issue * I have attempted a clean install of Precise and then updating to the latest packages and then install the Quantal kernel from the stable repositories and reboot. Immediately this bug affects my computer * I have installed a clean install of 13.04 and bug still exists * I have tried installing Ubuntu (12.04 and 13.04 32-bit) on a flash drive to see if the bug crops up eventually on the flash drive and it does. Eventually the write speed even to the USB bus will drop to 1-2MB/s !!! * I have even tried installing other distributions as well (Fedora and Debian) and they both have the same issue. One more thing worth noting: The very first kernel release that I tried in 13.04 was 3.7.0-2 and even now if I reboot and choose that kernel I get better write performance at first (70-80MB/s) but eventually the write speed drops down to 1-2 MB/s just like the others. I have experienced many problems running Linux on this laptop but even so it is the fastest and best performing computer experience I have ever had. Now that the lockups are gone I feel so close to getting this computer working perfectly with Linux but I need help from someone with troubleshooting this issue further. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04 Package: linux-image 3.7.0.6.10 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.7.0-5.13-generic 3.7.0-rc8 Uname: Linux 3.7.0-5-generic i686 ApportVersion: 2.7-0ubuntu2 Architecture: i386 AudioDevicesInUse: USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /dev/snd/controlC0: acjohnson 2197 F.... pulseaudio Date: Sat Dec 15 07:13:04 2012 HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=9f7c92ad-121c-458f-8813-1cb8191180c2 InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-10 (5 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Alpha i386 (20121206) MachineType: TOSHIBA Satellite L840 MarkForUpload: True ProcEnviron: TERM=xterm PATH=(custom, no user) XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set> LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.7.0-5-generic root=UUID=4836d385-16fc-47c0-8720-c369e39d0775 ro quiet splash i915.i915_enable_rc6=7 vt.handoff=7 RelatedPackageVersions: linux-restricted-modules-3.7.0-5-generic N/A linux-backports-modules-3.7.0-5-generic N/A linux-firmware 1.98 SourcePackage: linux UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 06/26/2012 dmi.bios.vendor: Insyde Corp. dmi.bios.version: 1.80 dmi.board.asset.tag: Type2 - Board Asset Tag dmi.board.name: Type2 - Board Product Name1 dmi.board.vendor: Type2 - Board Vendor Name1 dmi.board.version: Type2 - Board Version dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag dmi.chassis.type: 10 dmi.chassis.vendor: OEM Chassis Manufacturer dmi.chassis.version: OEM Chassis Version dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnInsydeCorp.:bvr1.80:bd06/26/2012:svnTOSHIBA:pnSatelliteL840:pvrPSK8GU-08S00D:rvnType2-BoardVendorName1:rnType2-BoardProductName1:rvrType2-BoardVersion:cvnOEMChassisManufacturer:ct10:cvrOEMChassisVersion: dmi.product.name: Satellite L840 dmi.product.version: PSK8GU-08S00D dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/1090715/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
