nforce2 IDE

[cityhunter]

I've recently bought a msi nforce2... on windo$ no pb....
on linux i've a strange behaviour (I 've tried on a nforce and it seems that there is the same problem) when doing a mv/cp on console (I'ven't tried on X at this time) the systems in nearly used at 100% (console switching and command typing are really really slow(about 2s /char to display))
this "overuse" only occurs sometimes (each 5-10 Mo transfered)
any ideas?
is their some required option in kernel compilation?

[etr]

My understanding is that DMA is disabled by default. This leaves the drives running in far slower and far more CPU intensive PIO mode. The drive parameters can be changed with hdparm, I believe, but I haven't played with that yet.

[cityhunter]

will try that....
but my kernel is compiled with ide pci dma on
will check boot messages

[Anthaus]

The command would be as follows:

hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

Assuming your HDD is hda, of course.

If you want that command to be active right after bootup, add the command line to your rc.local file.

This command is very useful in DVD players, but freezes my computer when used in my CD-RW (Plextor). I haven't tried it on a hard disk.

I'd recommend you to test it from a console (as 'su') before modifying your rc.local

BTW, if you want to check your devices' status just type hdparm /dev/hd*

[cityhunter]

ok dma was not enabled.....
hdparm -d1 XXX works but -X mdma2 don't (freeze)

I'll test further

thanks a lot :D

[dannyboy_48888]

9i ended up having to use generic dma support along with the nforce2 ide driverr to get ema workig , even the i am pulling in only 28.4MB/sec compared to 48MB/sec i got with my old via kt333 chipset, so ty enableing generic dma concurrently with the nforce2 support

[genuoob]

Watch out for enabling UDMA with the generic IDE driver on NForce2. Sometimes it seems ok. Other times it produces problems like segfaults.

There has been a discussion on the Gentoo Forums about this.http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=32334&highlight=


If you check some links there you will find one to a bug report about memory leaks. These can appear as slowdowns or lockups, if you aren't looking at memory usage, or things that end up sitting around in swap space.

I can vouch for the 2.4.21-pre5-ac3 kernel. If you compile your own kernel this is usable right now.

There are some changes in the structure of /proc which may require upgrades in hdparm and some other things, but this has the latest NForce2 patches I know about. They should appear in more standard kernels shortly.

At present I can get around 50 MB/s from my disks with no mysterious glitches.
Performance is excellent.

[cityhunter]

and what about cpu usage?
I enabled udma5, system is smooths transmfers seems ok but cpu usage is more than 30% :eek: