Optimising FC4_64 help!

[johannlo]

Hi all

Just after some tips on speeding up my (relatively) fresh install of FC4 64. Its running a lot slower than the hardware would suggest. I understand that most linux distros come with "max compatibility" settings vis a vis the hardware, which causes them to run a lot slower than your system can handle unless you make wholesale tweaks.

- I have disabled unnecessary services to free up RAM (geeze FC4 or gnome is a hog eh)
- swap partition is 2x my RAM
- hdparm reveals my hard drive is running in ultra DMA 2 mode (I presume it that's good)
- I have installed the ATI Radeon drivers package from ATI (but lots of Open GL stuff keeps f**king up!!!!).


What now? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks and regards

[Optimal Aurora]

I can't say about anything else, but the memory usage must be a gnome thing. I think the way they described it on ubuntu forums is that instead of having to load things like cursors in two cycles, nautilus loads them in one cycle causing the memory to be used more. This is if you are using the AMD64 that is the 32bit x86 form actually takes two cycles.

[Clamp]

Speed is really relative... depends a lot of your hw setup, I mean, what's speed for you? apps loading time? processing? 3d video? .
Each one of these are linked to deferents aspects of your hardware, so it’s really hard to say something to speed up, you could recompile the kernel to match your hardware, removing unused support from the kernel, but I doubt it would make a great difference and worth the time and work spent doing such.

[johannlo]

Cheers for above. I think the issue is actually Samba: whenever I have my windoze box on (my config is setup to automount my windoze shared drives), FC4 runs like its on an Athlon 1800 or so, then once Windoze is off it magically goes back to A64 2800 speeds. Not sure if Samba is meant to slow your system down so much....

so much to learn!

[Dragoran]

- hdparm reveals my hard drive is running in ultra DMA 2 mode (I presume it that's good)

no thats not good
try hdparm -X udma5 /dev/hdX

[johannlo]

Thanks mate will try that when I get home...

If say it works, where do I put that line so it kicks in every time the drive is mounted?

[Dragoran]

/etc/rc.d/rc.local
but this should be on by default ...
check your bios settings
are you using an 80 pin cable?
is there a cdrom driver connected with the same cable as the harddisk?

[Maners]

CPU speed?
AMD64 have PowerNow enabled by default in FC3/4. This feature is scaling the CPU's clock rate with respect to the load on the system. You can check oyur current cpu frequency by typing

cat /proc/cpuinfo

This will show you current clock rate of your CPU (mine is currently at 1 GHz). Then try to run some demanding program such as Eclipse and when the program is loading issue the above command once again and check whether the clock rate raises to the CPU's nominal specs. If not the try to play with cpuspeed (type cpuspeed -h for usage)

[johannlo]

Cheers all will try these tips on the wkend!

[johannlo]

OK tried hdparm -x udma5 /dev/hd[X ]. Command ran fine. However, upon tring hdparm -i its still telling me:

Model=WDC WD800BB-00JHC0, FwRev=05.01C05, SerialNo=WD-WMAM98609713
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=66
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156299375
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

Does this mean its not running udma5? or do I need to unmount it first?

[Bak]

Either means that settings in your bios are limiting the UDMA mode in your bios, you're using a 40wire ide cable (instead of an 80 wire) or the drive is so old that it only supports UDMA2 (which is not very likely)

[johannlo]

Cheers - I will investigate the BIOS settings. Don't think its a 40 wire IDE cable as its a brand new box - A64 2800, VIA VT-800 chipset mobo - I don't think the dealer would have done something as stupid as that... still, I'll keep it in mind if I can't dig up anything in the bios!

Thanks again guys!

[johannlo]

Aargh
- Cables are from the mobo's box (so can't be 40 wire... I presume... how do I tell if a cable is 40 or 80 wire?)
- BIOS settings are either ultra DMA ON or OFF, you don't get to set it specifically
- The hard drives are both Western Digital caviars (1 80gig, 1 200 gig) definitely support udma5

Anyone with any ideas?

[Dragoran]

whats the ouput of cat /proc/ide/* ?
are they any optical drives(cdrom,dvd ...) connected to the same cable as your hdd?