100% CPU Usage for ANY disk activity

[chareos]

[SORRY for double posting]


nForce4 MB (Gigabyte K8NF-9)
AMD ATHLON64 3000+ CPU
Kernel: 2.6.18, tried Vanilla and Kolivas patched
1x HDD EIDE (32bit bus, DMA on, UDMA5 mode).
1x HDD SATA
(both hard drives give same problems)

Hi guys,

I'm facing a strange problem, which degrades system-wide performances on my box.

Any disk operation I issue (file copy, dir listing, etc) my CPU usage jumps up to 100%.

This problem appears so CPU related that if I disable powernowd (CPU stays up to 1800MHz then) copy speed goes up to 21MB/s (from 16MB/s it stays when CPU works at 1GHz).


Concerning the EIDE drive, in kernel options I enabled (kernel built-in, no modules):
ATA support ->
Enhanced IDE ->
PCI IDE ->
Generic PCI Bus Master ->
- USE PCI DMA by default when available
- AMD and nVidia IDE support

Looking around on internet I think my transfer rate speeds are perfectly fine on both my IDE and SATA drives.
My only problem is CPU usage, completely mad.

I tried also to reboot with noacpi noapic kernel parameters, no improvement.



Thanks for any suggestions !

[Spyke]

Try hdparm -I /dev/hda or /dev/sda and post its output.

[chareos]

here we go:

/dev/hda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST380011A
Serial Number: 3JV1M3NL
Firmware Revision: 3.04
Standards:
Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2
Supported: 6 5 4 3
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 65535
heads 16 1
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 4128705
LBA user addressable sectors: 156301488
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 156301488
device size with M = 1024*1024: 76319 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 80026 MBytes (80 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
bytes avail on r/w long: 4 Queue depth: 1
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = ?
Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 0
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* READ BUFFER cmd
* WRITE BUFFER cmd
* Host Protected Area feature set
* Look-ahead
* Write cache
* Power Management feature set
Security Mode feature set
* SMART feature set
* FLUSH CACHE EXT command
* Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
SET MAX security extension
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
* SMART self-test
* SMART error logging
Security:
supported
not enabled
not locked
frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
HW reset results:
CBLID- above Vih
Device num = 0 determined by the jumper



/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST3250823AS
Serial Number: 3ND0KNGP
Firmware Revision: 3.02
Standards:
Supported: 7 6 5 4
Likely used: 7
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 488397168
device size with M = 1024*1024: 238475 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 250059 MBytes (250 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 0
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* READ BUFFER cmd
* WRITE BUFFER cmd
* Host Protected Area feature set
* Look-ahead
* Write cache
* Power Management feature set
Security Mode feature set
* SMART feature set
* FLUSH CACHE EXT command
* Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
SET MAX security extension
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* SMART self-test
* SMART error logging
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
Checksum: correct



Thanks for any suggestions.

[Spyke]

Can you find out what type of cpu usage it is? eg, system, user, etc?

[chareos]

Ksysguard helped me to find out that, when I copy a file from a folder to another (same disk):

on the EIDE drive, it's like 25-28% System and 75% user.

on SATA drive, it was 50% System and 50% user !

These values don't change if I start the copy from kde or even outside X (just in case)...

[chareos]

nobody knows ?